“I thought I had made a good exchange . . . of honors & virtues, for manure.”25 Given his deeply held classical perspective and his equally intense self-esteem, Adams could conclude only that the American people, having rejected him, lacked sufficient virtue. “The Virtue and good Sense of Americans, which I own I once had some dependence on, and which have been trumpetted with more extravagance by others, are become a byword,” he mourned.26
