Analysis: A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States

Date: 1787

Author: Adams, John

Genre: essay; political tract

Summary Overview

In A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, John Adams defends the decision to establish a bicameral legislature along with a three-branch system of government. Adams argues that a single assembly would tend toward uniformity and be prone to abuses of power, and that it would be difficult to administer justice properly if the representatives were not subject to any oversight. He expresses the concern that a single-assembly system could too easily be influenced by a few powerful aristocrats to the detriment of the American people. Finally, Adams worries that once the immediacy of danger from the Revolution passed, people might become complacent and not speak out against abuses of power by their representatives. Using generalized examples taken from American and British history, Adams makes his case for why his proposed system would be the most fair and effective way to help the new United States move forward.

Document Analysis

The official founding of the United States of America was significant for several reasons. Importantly, it separated the American colonies from British colonial rule. Moreover, it marked the establishment of an entirely new form of government. The Founding Fathers of the United States believed it was necessary to establish three branches of government, each of which would be responsible for a particular domain of the law, and all of which would be required to work together to make any significant changes. The legislative branch was designated to write the laws, the judicial branch was charged with ensuring that the laws complied with the provisions of the United States Constitution, and the executive branch was to give force to the laws. An additional feature of this system was that the legislature was divided into two separate assemblies—each served a different purpose, but both would need to cooperate in order to create new laws.

John Adams wrote A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America in part to address arguments against this three-branch system. Through a series of letters, Adams describes the necessity of checks and balances, also explaining the benefits of the two-assembly legislature. His resolute defense of the new government was aimed at critics in Europe.In particular, the French economistAnne-Robert-Jacques Turgot held the view that a bicameral legislature was unnecessary in countries that lacked a ruling aristocracy, as appeared to be the case in the nascent United States.

The newly formed United States was still reeling from the recent danger and upheaval of the Revolutionary War, and the people were very much on their guard to prevent small groups of powerful individuals from seizing control of the new government. The Founding Fathers were not entirely convinced that an aristocracy did not exist in America; there was indeed a ruling class of highly influential people, and while many of them fled during the war and its aftermath, they could return and attempt to seize control over the new country. Adams was particularly sensitive to this since, even though his family had been in America for more than a century, they were not especially powerful or elite. This was true for many other drafters of early documents as well, and building a system of checks and balances into the new government was thought to be the most effective way of preventing an aristocratic takeover.

In this selection from A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, Adams clearly defines the purpose of the executive power, namely to ensure administration and execution of the laws. He notes that without this follow-through, it was pointless to have laws at all. However, to illustrate the problems that could arise from having a single governing body create and administer all aspects of the federal government, Adams uses the example of raising an army. He notes that if there were a single assembly, then that group would be responsible for appointing all military officers. They would likely choose “the man of the most ample fortune, the most honourable descent,” which would likely mean someone who came from a background very similar to their own. The selected general by definition would be a highly influential person within the military, and even to the nation as a whole, and attitudes would be shaped by this individual’s ideas and visions. This would inevitably lead to uniformity across the military, which would not be desirable.

Adams also notes that if there were a single federal assembly containing representatives from all states, most of that assembly would not personally know the candidates for various positions put forth by other members of the assembly. They would instead need to rely on the endorsements of fellow assembly members, who might have their own personal interests at stake in a particular appointment. This could result in certain individuals holding a significant amount of influence over such appointments, particularly if they were from powerful, elite families with many political ties. Unfortunately, this might not lead to the best candidate receiving the job.

Then Adams asks a very practical question: How could the hundreds of men that make up such an assembly “become informed of the merits and pretensions of each candidate”? He notes that this sharing of information could only be done in public or in private, and each approach has its drawbacks. Public debate “consumes time without end,” and addressing every minor detail in this fashion would waste the time of the entire assembly. However, if these discussions took place in private, too many representatives would not receive the information they needed to make an educated vote. In either case, Adams suspected that the candidate who has the most influential friends in the assembly would win in the end anyway.

Based on the reality of time-consuming public debate, Adams points out the logistical problem that, if all leadership must be appointed by the single assembly, that business alone could consume the entire year if good decisions are to be made based on full and proper examination of the evidence. He states specifically that anyone who has seen such an assembly in action could understand the “confusion, uncertainty, and procrastination” that would result from proceedings such as this. He observes that similar congresses had already been operating in the colonies and rather notoriously suffered from these problems. It is then unsurprising that Adams, along with many of the other Founding Fathers who themselves had served on local assemblies, intentionally chose to create a three-branch system to ease the administrative burden of running the country.

The final complication with a single-assembly system is that it could tend to favor candidates with elite aristocratic backgrounds. Adams was particularly concerned that those who might otherwise be good representatives of their communities would be exposed to “slander, suspicion, and ridicule” if they tried to run for office. Since Adams did not come from a particularly influential background himself, he wanted to ensure that others like him would have the opportunity to serve the public good if they chose to do so. With a bicameral approach, Adams felt that there would be a place in the legislature for the aristocrats, but their power would be kept in check by the need for cooperation between the two tiers.

Adams also expresses concerns about the administration of justice in a single-assembly system. He again asks an important practical question: Would there be rules to govern the proceedings of the assembly, and if so, who would create it? If the assembly created its own rules and there were no other governmental body to oversee its compliance, there could be no assurance that the assembly would not simply make and break rules as its own convenience. Adams notes that to prevent such a situation, a second assembly would need to convene simultaneously to answer any question that arose concerning the legality of the actions of the first assembly. This effectively meant that two assemblies would need to be created anyway, so the founders chose instead to establish the House of Representatives and the Senate to provide checks and balances on one another’s power right from the beginning.

Adams also mentions that he had considered proposing a third assembly to exercise executive power but ultimately decided that it would be best for the executive to be represented in one man—the president of the United States. Adams believed that in times of important decisions, “the unity, the secrecy, the dispatch of one man, has no equal,” and that this job could be performed best by a single person. He emphasizes, however, that because of the nature of these significant decisions, the public must vigilantly watch over the executive branch and take swift action on any abuses of power. This, he believed, would ultimately be easier to do if the responsibility could be placed on one single person rather than on yet another assembly.

Adams then returns to discussing the single-assembly idea and notes that in the first few years of the new nation, the assembly would probably behave moderately since people are still on guard from the “fresh remembrance of danger and distress” brought about by the Revolutionary War. Yet he expresses concern that as time passes and the immediate dangers are forgotten, the representatives may grant themselves progressively more exceptions when enforcing laws and the people they govern may not be so vigilant against such abuses of power. He was particularly worried that the minor exceptions these representatives might grant to themselves would eventually grow into much larger exceptions. For example, if representatives were exempt from paying taxes while they served in the assembly, Adams was concerned that would simply vote to expand that exemption to last for one year after service, then several years, and then eventually a lifetime. Citizens might eventually become indifferent to such abuses of power by their representatives and fail to address this corruption, and worse yet, ignoring the problem would only encourage these abuses of power.

Adams also feared that this complacency could make it easy for a small group of representatives to exercise a significant amount of control over the government. He believed these people would likely be members of the aristocracy who would “never give way to fair and equal establishments” because they wanted to retain the power for themselves. Adams was quite strong in his belief that aristocrats would use their influence in any way possible to obtain and keep control over the government if given the opportunity; he therefore strongly favored a establishing a system that was specifically designed to keep such influences to a minimum.

Adams goes on to question to the wisdom in allowing the people to democratically elect their assembly, but then allowing a council of that assembly to appoint the leader of the executive branch. He was concerned that this approach would again place too much power into the hands of a few elite and influential members of the assembly, who could then assign an executive who was favorable to their own interests. He also worried that this could cause tension between the democratically elected legislative body and the potentially unpopular appointed executive leader, as well as their respective supporters. With tensions still running high from the Revolutionary War, it is not surprising that Adams was concerned about any situation that had the potential to cause civil unrest. This argument also highlights the importance of the judicial branch as a way to maintain the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches and emphasizes the importance of holding a popular election to select the nation’s president.

Adams concludes the letter by observing that people can survive and even thrive in countries with poorly constructed governments, or even without any governments at all. However, he recognizes the significance of creating a solid foundation for the government that would serve the people of the new United States, who were “living chiefly by agriculture, in small numbers, sprinkled over large tracts of land.” This situation presented an interesting set of challenges, and the drafters of the United States Constitution chose to address them by using a three-branch form of government and a two-tiered legislature. In this piece, Adams defends that idea through reasoning and examples of how the development of the United States might play out if a single-assembly system were to be chosen instead. Many of Adams’s examples were a result of his own direct observation as a participant in government, as well as his knowledge of history and how similar situations had progressed in the past, both in the American colonies and in Great Britain.

Bibliography

Burnett, Edmund Cody. The Continental Congress. New York: Macmillan, 1941. Print.

McCullough, David. John Adams. New York: Simon, 2001. Print.

Montross, Lynn. The Reluctant Rebels: The Story of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1970. Print.

Shea, Marilyn. “A Defence of the Constitutions of the Government of the United States of America.” Reading Revolutions. University of Maine, 2006. Web. 1 July 2012.

Wood, Gordon S. Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.