[John Adams] experience with the French philosophers only convinced him further of the need for a bicameral legislature … - Gordon S. Wood

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, ten thousand!

Gordon S. Wood

[John Adams] experience with the French philosophers only convinced him further of the need for a bicameral legislature representing the two principal social orders and, equally important, an independent executive.

Convinced, Executive, Independent, Order, Two

Same Author Quotes

The relationship between [John] Adams and [Tomas] Jefferson was extraordinary. They differed on every conceivable issue, except on the Revolution and the love of their country.

Country, Except, Issue, Issues, John, Revolution

History is the queen of the humanities. It teaches wisdom and humility, and it tells us how things change through time.

Change, Humanity, Humility, Queens, Things, Time

[The Massachusetts constitution] resembles the federal Constitution of 1787 more closely than any of the other revolutionary state constitutions. It was also drawn up by a special convention, and it provided for popular ratification - practices that were followed by the drafters of the federal Constitution of 1787 and subsequent state constitution-makers.

Drawn, Massachusetts, Practice, Practices, Revolutionary, Special

[Benjamin] Franklin may be a great philosopher, [John Adams] told his diary in 1779, but "as a Legislator in America he has done very little. "

1779, America, Benjamin, Diaries, Done, John

This rationale, which justified the mixed constitution of Great Britain, might have made some sense in 1776, but by 1787 most American thinkers had come to believe that all parts of their balanced governments represented in one way or another the sovereign people. They had left the Aristotelian idea of mixed estates - monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy - way behind. [John] Adams had not, and his stubbornness on this point caused him no end of trouble.

Aristotelian, Believe, Caused, Democracy, Government, Ideas