Intermarriage with noble families in America and Europe, Adams believed, would lead to trouble, and to the United States repeating the mistakes and miming the bad habits of the Old World. “In short, my dear friend, you and I have been indefatigable laborers through our whole lives for a cause which be thrown away in the next generation, upon the vanity and foppery of persons of whom we do not now know the names perhaps.”51
