An efficient preparation for war can alone insure peace.
John Adams
The Public Record
John Adams was a Founding Father and the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain. During the latter part of the Revolutionary War and in the early years of the new nation, he served the Continental Congress of the United States as a senior diplomat in Europe. Adams was the first vice president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. He was a dedicated diarist and regularly corresponded with contemporaries, including his wife and advisor Abigail Adams and his friend and rival Thomas Jefferson.
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But in demonstrating by our conduct that we do not fear war in the necessary protection of our rights and honor we shall give no room to infer that we abandon the desire of peace.
On the contrary, to extend and invigorate them is our true policy.
A manly sense of national honor, dignity, and independence has appeared which, if encouraged and invigorated by every branch of the Government, will enable us to view undismayed the enterprises of any foreign power and become the sure…
Such circumstances call with peculiar importunity not less for a disposition to unite in all those measures on which the honor, safety, and prosperity of our country depend than for all the exertions of wisdom and firmness.
The national defense must be provided for as well as the support of Government; but both should be accomplished as much as possible by immediate taxes, and as little as possible by loans.
The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to be careful to prevent their growth in our own.
It is my duty to recommend to your serious consideration those objects which by the Constitution are placed particularly within your sphere--the national debts and taxes.
Under this view of our affairs, I should hold myself guilty of a neglect of duty if I forbore to recommend that we should make every exertion to protect our commerce and to place our country in a suitable posture of defense as the only…
The faith of society is pledged for the preservation of the rights of commercial and sea faring no less than of the other citizens.
In short, commerce has made this country what it is, and it can not be destroyed or neglected without involving the people in poverty and distress.