John Adams Defends the Declaration of Independence’s Philosophy That Natural Law – Within Each Person From Their Birth – Is Superior to the Laws of Rulers and Despots of Any Nation

Unthinking allegiance to one nation – which would negate the right to revolution – results in “a degrading Superstition and an unrelenting Despotism.”  He argues his case in a letter to Attorney General Richard Rush, also stating that he supports prosecution of the ongoing War of 1812.

William Blackstone, the great English jurist, did not cause the American Revolution. But had he not published his monumental work, Commentaries on the Laws of England, in 1765, the Revolution might not have taken place when it did. His Commentaries was the Founding Fathers’ most important and widely-owned law book. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and John Marshall all read the work and frequently cited it in their writings. Blackstone wrote, “The principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature…The rights of the people of England…may be reduced to three principal or primary articles; the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property…” Blackstone’s clearly-stated emphasis on the rights of individuals was of particular importance in formulating and defending the case for armed resistance to King George III and his Parliament.

The first important case undertaken by John Adams, the one that made him famous, was his defense of British soldiers charged with murder for their role in the Boston Massacre. And in that defense he relied on Blackstone’s Formulation, which states “It better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer.” Adams argued, “It is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished….when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, ‘it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.’ And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever.”

John Adams was on the committee of the Continental Congress that drafted the Declaration of Independence. The documents was worded: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” The philosophy of the Declaration, asserting the “self-evident” “unalienable Rights” of people granted by “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” almost surely came from Blackstone’s description of the rights of Englishmen under the unwritten British Constitution. The indictment against the Crown, the bulk of the Declaration, recites many of the absolute rights of individuals covered by Blackstone including the prohibition of taxation without consent.

But Blackstone, though the source point for the rights enumerated by the Declaration, was himself not a revolutionary. He articulated a theory that under common a person owed perpetual allegiance to the country of his birth, no matter what. Adams and the American Founding Fathers did not see eye to eye with Blackstone on this, in fact they staked their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honors” on the contrary – that men owed their allegiance not to a single nation, but to natural, moral law. Adams position was that the principles of the American Revolution were “the principles of nature and eternal reason”. Blind obedience could play no part, as “My opinion is, and always has been, that absolute power intoxicates alike despots, monarchs, aristocrats, and democrats”. He expanded on this in a famous letter to Thomas Jefferson, writing “The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is…arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical.”

George Hay was a Virginia attorney, member of the Virginia House of Delegates, and intimate of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In 1799 he wrote An Essay on the Liberty of the Press, maintaining that the First Amendment protected citizens from any federal restraint on the press or speech: “If the words freedom of the press have any meaning at all they mean a total exemption from any law making any publication whatever criminal.” Hay also wrote Deinology; or, The union of reason and elegance: being instructions to a young barrister. This book, relying in part on Blackstone, sought to improve lawyers’ reasoning and arguments by introducing them to the superior reasoning and eloquence of classical authors, such as Cicero and Demosthenes, and later authors, such as Milton.

Richard Rush was the son of Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Rush, and at the start of 1814 had just been named Attorney General by President Madison, becoming the youngest man ever to hold that cabinet post. On January 17, Rush wrote Adams reporting on the mood in Washington regarding the ongoing War of 1812 and the first moves towards peace talks, and sending him a new pamphlet by Hay that undercut Blackstone’s perpetual allegiance theory, particularly that theory’s tenet that a person could not expatriate himself without the consent of his original country. This was an issue immediately relating to the War of 1812 and the validity of impressment of British-born sailors serving on American ships, but in a sense also an attack on the concept of revolution (which would violate perpetual allegiance). Wrote Rush, “In the midst of our misfortunes I think, that since the war began I have not witnessed so determined a spirit in all branches of the government to push it with vigor, Mr Monroe’s letter to Lord Castlereagh and the nomination of Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell notwithstanding, as at this present time. I send for your acceptance by this Mail, a pamphlet upon expatriation written by George Hay of Virginia. I have read it with singular interest as an able discussion of a question of high importance in jurisprudence…It is dispassionate and learned, and more full than any discussion of the same question…Mr Governeur Morris in an oration he delivered last 4th of July asserted, after Blackstone, the principle of perpetual allegiance as one of universal law. I once thought so too; but Mr Hay’s book is entitled to a perusal from any one who holds this opinion. If, sir, you, who have so long and so well considered all the great questions of law and government, shall find any amusement in looking through this pamphlet I shall be highly gratified.”

This is Adams’s important and detailed response. Autograph letter signed, Quincy, January 26, 1814, to Rush, maintaining that natural law and not universal law is the true measure, there is no perpetual allegiance, and defending the American Revolution’s philosophy that unthinking allegiance is despotism. “If I may judge of others by myself, Mr. Hay had no cause of apprehension that he should be tedious: for when I had read the first page I could not lay aside the book till I bad read the last. I know not when I have seen a discussion of any legal or political question pursued with so dispassionate a temper; or written with more perspicuity, accuracy or luminous arrangement. The author is Master of his  Subject and all the Learning necessary to support his Position. What can Blackstone mean by universal Law? Are the cannon Law and the feudal Law, universal Laws? Are the Pope or his eldest Son the Emperor universal Legislators? Is any Law universal, but the law of our natures, written on our hearts, and obligatory on all Men from their  beginning and through all their dispersions? The Doctrine of Universal and perpetual, inherent and inalienable Allegiance has no other foundation, than in a degrading Superstition and an unrelenting Despotism.”

Adams next turns to the subject of the war, which he states he supports prosecuting, and alludes to the opposition of many in New England to its continuation. “To push the War with Vigor, till We have a Peace, neither disgraceful to the Nation or the Government is the Sincere hope and ardent Wish of my heart. Your assurance therefore of a determined Spirit in all Branches of the Government, is delightful to me. Our northern gentry are foaming to stop the wheels: but all will end in securing their state elections. I am &c John Adams.”

In his later years, with the swirl of partisan politics behind him, Adams turned reflective. His letters from these years can be filled with insight, and with important commentary on the events of the Revolutionary War period. Here we see him defending the essential basis of the Declaration of Independence, and of the American Revolution itself. This is clearly one of the best letters of Adams we have ever carried.