The First State Constitutions, 1776–1783
143
John Adams (1735–1826).
Portrait by John Trumbull, 1793. (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.)
Bolingbroke’s much neglected repudiation of Machiavelli’s The Prince—
in defense of political morality and limited constitutional government.
Adams seems to have read every important work on government. His
mastery of the great political classics was unequaled in the American colonies.
At a meeting in Philadelphia in the fall of 1775, Adams was persuaded