Happiness of the People – Susan Feathers

…happiness is the end of government…consent the means…sovereignty the people…these are the foundations of government. from Thoughts on Government, John Adams.

My ruminations have turned to reading the founders and I can find no better founder than John Adams as a reference to what was forming in the minds of Americans brought together in Philadelphia to consider whether to declare independence or keep negotiating with Great Britain, hoping for mercy.

Adams was already thinking about the structure of the new government. He drew from the well of classic and modern scholars of governance and the rights of man. Both links on this post take you to the original document, Thoughts on Governance, where you can see why and how our Constitution came to the structure we have upheld for nearly 250 years.

Adams was for Independence from the start. In his own mind, he contemplated what a new government structure would best support the full flowering of a republic, which he asserted was the only form that could promote the general happiness of the people. By happiness Adams espoused an understanding it meant a government founded on virtue which would deliver the most happiness to the most people. (McCullough, John Adams, p. 102).

Further, Adams argued that good government was republican in nature, and the true idea of a republic was founded on the idea of an ’empire of laws and not men’. Thoughts on Government, National Constitution Center.

Question to Readers: What evidence do we observe today in American government that derives from a government based on virtue?

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