John Adams: “a coincidence of circumstances without example”

This is from a letter of John Adams, to his wife Abigail:

It has been the will of Heaven that we should be thrown into existence at a period when the greatest philosophers and lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live … a period when a coincidence of circumstances without example has afforded to thirteen colonies at once an opportunity of beginning government anew from the foundation and building as they choose. How few of the human race have ever had an opportunity of choosing a system of government for themselves and their children? How few have ever had anything more of choice in government than in climate?

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1 Response to John Adams: “a coincidence of circumstances without example”

  1. DBW says:

    Reading these letters can make an average man feel a great deal less than average.

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