3 Aug. 1818
Original paper slip text:3 August 1818.
Washington,
Original paper slip text:Washington.
3 p.
- From XPr at Fogg Museum. Original owned by Francis C. Gray.
- Goodspeed's #369, [1943], item 1034, $35
- ALS offered for sale, Goodspeed's Flying Quill, 1 Oct. 1942, item 87, $25.00
- The letter reads in part:"The individual owes the exercise of all his faculties to service of his country. Whether he shall serve his country in a public capacity should in the first instance be determined by the country (through its constitutional organs) and not by the individual. He ought not to obirude or even to offer himself directly or indirectly or to use by himself or his friends any means whatever to obtain an appointment, but when appointed to the public service by the regular authorities, the rule of duty changes and in general cases the obligation of the citizen is to accept the call and to assume the station assigned to him—There is no substitute for an American holding a station in Europe."However Adams tempered this feeling with:"An American, especially a young American, in Europe breathes an atmosphere full of the most deadly infection to his morals. He has incessant incitement to dissipated habits, idleness, intemperance, insensuality to resist which calls for perpetual exercise of self-control and self-denial."
- In all this he was advising Francis C. Grey of Boston who had been offered the post of Secretary of the Legation in Russia.
- Information transferred from blue slip now deleted. ER 3/17/2016
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Original held by:Harvard University, Fogg Museum
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