First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

by Thomas E. Ricks

Early in 1787, Jay reported to Jefferson in Paris that “our Governments want Energy, and there is Reason to fear that too much has been expected from the Virtue and good Sense of the People.”37 He told John Adams that “our Government is unequal to the Task assigned it, and the People begin also to perceive its Inefficiency.”38