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Home , John Adams, Mary Wollstonecraft

Power

Adams vs. Wollstoncraft: A War of Words

“This is a Lady of a masculine Wollstonecraft did not live to gain the “little experience” masterly Understanding… recommended in this With a little Experience in note. She died in 1797 at the Public affairs…She would have age of 38 from complications following the birth of her produced a History without daughter Mary (the future Mary the Defects and Blemishes Shelley, author of ). pointed out with too much Severity perhaps and too little Gallantry in the Notes.”

One philosophical treatise infuriated in particular: ’s An Historical A Man would be more Simple and Moral View of the Origin and of with but one Ear, one Arm, one Leg. the (1794). A member of an Shall a have but one influential London radical group that included Eighteenth-century Enlightenment Europe was For Adams, the French Revolution proved to be Chamber then, merely because it and , Wollstone- filled with idealists, but practical John Adams had a telling modern example of the dangers of is more Simple? A Waggon would craft was very sympathetic to the French cause. be more Simple if it went upon In 1792 she left England to observe the revolution little patience for romantic optimism in politics or unchecked power. Soon after learning that a mob one Wheel: yet no Art could prevent in Paris firsthand and penned this work in government. , Turgot, Condorcet, and others had stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, Adams it from oversetting at every step. — John Adams France several years after her landmark feminist emphasized over religion and asserted predicted the popular uprising against the French treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. that could overcome human passions, but monarchy would fail to create a stable . I flatter myself it will be allowed Adams’s objections range from points of style Adams believed that tyranny was an inevitable During the next decade, the escalating violence, by every humane and considerate and lack of historical evidence to personal attacks expression of human nature. Adams was certain chaos, and bloodshed committed during the Reign being, that a political system more on the author and her . Most importantly, simple than has hitherto existed Adams continually reinforces the need for checks that personal ambition would always overpower of Terror only confirmed his belief in the need for would effectually check those and balances within a . Wollstone- reason—history and his long experience in politics multiple branches in government. However, Adams’s aspiring follies, which, by imitation, leading to vice, have banished craft’s admiration of France’s simple one-house had proven that reality time and again. Only the early public warnings found few supporters, and from governments the very shadow legislature draws his greatest condemnation: formal institution of governmental checks and he resorted to the margins of his books to record of justice and magnanimity. “It is Silly to be eternally harping upon Simplicity balances could control man’s competitive instincts. his disapproval. — Mary Wollstonecraft in a form of Government. The Simplest of all possible Governments is a in one.”

C. Chardon, Journée du 21 janvier Mary Wollstonecraft, An Historical and 1793, La Mort de Louis Capet Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, 1794. The John Adams (The Death of King Louis XVI), 1793. Library at the . Courtesy of Musée de la Révolution Française, Vizille.

“Not one of the Projects Hand-dated annotations Wollstonecraft’s arguments of the Sage of La Mancha indicate that Adams read angered Adams so greatly and commented in this work was more absurd, ridiculous that he filled the small volume twice: as vice president with over 10,000 words of or delirious than this of a under George handwritten annotations in Revolution in France... in 1796, and in his retirement sixteen years later during the margins. It is the most I thought so in 1785 when it the Napoleonic Wars in 1812, was first talked of. I thought heavily annotated book in the as this note reflects. collection. On many pages, so in all the intermediate Adams’s extensive scrawled Time, and I think so in 1812.” commentary eclipses the printed text of Wollstonecraft.

“Power must be opposed John Adams’s dire predictions proved true: the collapse of to Power: Force to Force: the French Revolution in 1794 Strength to Strength, and the chaos and political Interest to Interest, as well uncertainty that followed greatly facilitated the rise of as Reason to Reason, “Is a Declaration then a Bonaparte. Napoleon’s foundation? No more than Eloquence to Eloquence, coronation as emperor in 1804 and Passion to Passion.” fulfilled John Adams’s prophetic a heap of Sand or a Pool of warnings of the dangers of Water. They Stand as firmly unchecked power and without a Declaration as with, imbalanced government. if nothing more is done. Laws and Guardians of Laws must be made and Guardians to watch one another.”