“Unlocking Humanity: The Surprising Secret Behind What Makes Us Truly Human”
On this work, Abigail Adams would write, John was “as much engage upon the Subject of Government as Plato was when he wrote his Laws and Republick”. His obsession and abandoning all but the most critical of his other duties in working on it was not just to correct rampant monarchical European criticisms in defending his new nation. But also because he was well aware that sometime soon the new nation would convene to improve upon the Articles, and Adams wanted his work and the philosophies in it read by those who would make these changes. Thus, he rushed to complete it, with the first volumes arriving in the U.S. in April of 1787, directly before the Constitutional Convention.
The work was expansive, borrowing ideas from everyone from Cicero to John Locke, in the end noting that at its core, the best government is one that takes features from democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical governments, with a balanced government with independent checks on all level of power required for long term stability.
Once again hammering home his ideas implemented in the Massachusetts Constitution, he states that no realistic government could function without, to quote “men of large influence” like the rich. And that, “there is a natural inclination in mankind of a Kingly Government”, but that it was critical to put in place checks to reign in their “ambition and avarice”, with his suggestion, once again, being to create the bicameral legislature with it intended that the Senate would more or less be comprised of this more elite class, and the Congress more representative of the general public. Important to understand in this idea was that mob rule, or tyranny of the majority, was seen as just as important to check as tyranny of the elite. Thus, again, the two branches would balance each other.
