Liberty, . . . which has never been enjoyd, in its full Perfection, by more than ten or twelve Millions of Men at any Time, since the Creation, will reign in America, over hundreds and Thousands of Millions at a Time.3 It was a striking point at which to begin assessing the political situation, by looking deep into the future of the nation, when it would be vastly more populous than it was when he was writing. This is Adams at his best, taking the longest possible view as a way of organizing his strategic thinking, looking at American politics as the Scotsman Hutton had looked at the rocks of
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