From John Adams to William Thompson, [15 July 1789]

To William Thompson

[15 July 1789]1

Sir

I have received the letter you did me the honor to write me on the fifth of this month, and am the more earnest to give it an early answer, as from various circumstances, I have been prevented from answering that delivered by Colo; Tudor

It is so rare of late, to find a candidate for office, acknowlege the ease and independance of his circumstances, that your frankness in this particular: was the more welcome and agreable. Distress in a man’s affairs, in the ordinary course of things, is so far from being a recomendation to public trust, that it ought to be an objection tho’ not a decisive obstruction to him. But in the present times, when there are so many ruined men and families, whose misfortunes have been clearly occasioned not by their own fault, but by the injustice and impolicy, of their country, and whose merits and public services have been considerable; the ordinary rule seems to be inverted. Nominations an appointments to office are however wholly out of my sphere. The Vice President has a constant and laborious service assigned him by the constitution, at the head of the Legislature, which consumes all his time, strength, and spirits; and leaves him no opportunity or capacity to collect the information, or to weigh the pretensions of candidates necessary to form these arrangements, or even to give advice concerning them, except perhaps in a few instances, more particularly and personally known to him. These duties are by the constitution wisely and virtuously assigned to the first executive Magistrate, and to him therefore must your application as well as all others be made.

I am &

John Adams

LbC in CA’s hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “William Thompson Esqr / Boston.”; APM Reel 115.

1. Thompson twice appealed to JA for patronage, on 9 March and 5 July. The dating of this letter is based on Thompson’s reply of 30 July, in which he described the scale of his debt and wrote that “if nothing can be obtained at present, I shall acquiesce—perhaps some Door may open before long, and I flatter myself I shall not have your Negative, unless for Substantial Reasons” (all Adams Papers). Thompson, who served as commissioner of Connecticut’s public accounts from 1783 to 1787, also applied to George Washington, on 28 July 1789, but did not earn a federal post (Morris, Papers description begins The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784, ed. E. James Ferguson, John Catanzariti, Elizabeth M. Nuxoll, Mary A. Gallagher, and others, Pittsburgh, 1973–1999; 9 vols. description ends , 7:441; Washington, Papers, Presidential Series description begins The Papers of George Washington: Presidential Series, ed. W. W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, Jack D. Warren, Mark A. Mastromarino, Robert F. Haggard, Christine S. Patrick, John C. Pinheiro, David R. Hoth, and others, Charlottesville, Va., 1987–. description ends , 3:341, 343).

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Source Project: Adams Papers
Title: From John Adams to William Thompson, [15 July 1789]
Author: Adams, John
Recipient: Thompson, William
Date: 15 July 1789

Reference

Cite as: “From John Adams to William Thompson, [15 July 1789],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-20-02-0050. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 20, June 1789–February 1791, ed. Sara Georgini, Sara Martin, R. M. Barlow, Gwen Fries, Amanda M. Norton, Neal E. Millikan, and Hobson Woodward. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020, pp. 72–73.]