But John Adams's own
writings fill ten stout volumes which invite our judgment. The
"truculent and sarcastic splendor" of his hyperboles need not
blind us to his real literary excellencies, such as clearness,
candor, vigor of phrase, freshness of idea. A testy, rugged,
"difficult" person was John Adams, but he grew mellower with age,
and his latest letters and journals are full of whimsical charm.
John Adams's cousin Samuel was not precisely a charming person.
Bigoted, tireless, secretive, this cunning manipulator of
political passions followed many tortuous paths. His ability for
adroit misstatement of an adversary's position has been equaled
but once in our history. But to the casual reader of his four
volumes, Samuel Adams seems ever to be breathing the liberal air
of the town-meeting: everything is as plainly obvious as a good
citizen can make it. He has, too, the large utterance of the
European liberalism of his day. "Resolved," read his Resolutions
of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts in 1765, "that
there are certain essential rights of the British constitution of
government which are founded in the law of God and nature and are
the common rights of mankind.
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