В продолжение темы про Джона Адамса

They were calling you a dick back in '76
And you haven't done anything new since


In 1822, John Adams wrote a letter to Timothy Pickering responding to Pickering's questions about the writing of the Declaration of Independence:

«The subcommittee met. Jefferson proposed to me to make the draft. I said, 'I will not,' 'You should do it.' 'Oh! no.' 'Why will you not? You ought to do it.' 'I will not.' 'Why?' 'Reasons enough.' 'What can be your reasons?' 'Reason first, you are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second, I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third, you can write ten times better than I can.'»

***

Give my regards to Abigail
Next time you write about my lack of moral compass


Выражение лица и смена позы, когда ЛММ читает эти строчки, это отдельный момент.

«Hamilton I know to be a proud Spirited, conceited, aspiring Mortal always pretending to Morality, with as debauched Morals as old Franklin who is more his Model than any one I know. As great an Hypocrite as any in the U.S.
His Intrigues in the Election I despise. That he has Talents I admit but I dread none of them. I shall take no notice of his Puppy head but retain the same Opinion of him I always had and maintain the same Conduct towards him I always did, that is keep him at a distance.»

***
Top 7 John Adams insults directed to Alexander Hamilton

«Adams did not, however, surrender total control of his emotions. Though he denounced Hamilton heartily in his Patriot essays, he still exercised some restraint, slight though it was. When Cunningham suggested that Adams’s attack on Hamilton was too harsh, Adams spilled his real feelings into a letter so filled with bile that he demanded the original back with no copy taken. He did the same when Cunningham defended Hamilton’s character by citing Hamilton’s final statement, written the night before his duel. Surely a man who had spoken with such “moving tenderness of his ‘Wife and Children’” was not as depraved as Adams imagined, Cunningham wrote. Adams responded with a stream of venom intense enough to shock Cunningham and once again requested his letter back uncopied.»


― joanne freeman, affairs of honor
(via publius-esquire)