John Adams

by David McCullough

These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

In his diary Adams compared the situation between Britain and America to that of an eagle and a cat. The eagle, soaring over a farmer’s yard, sweeped and pounced on the cat, thinking it a rabbit. “In the air the cat seized her by the neck with her teeth and round her body with her fore and hind claws. The eagle finding herself scratched and pressed, bids the cat let go and fall down. ‘No,’ says the cat. ‘I won’t let go and fall. You shall stoop and set me down.’ ” The British, it appeared, were more ready to stoop and set America down than ever expected.

“Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots,”