Rival Political Scientists: Adams and Condorcet

In 1787 and 1788, Condorcet and Adams would prove themselves to be rivals in attempting to influence the overall orientation of the coming revolution. One author has identified them as two Newtonian physicists arguing over the best way to turn government into a science. Condorcet used the method of strict mathematics. Adams employed weights and measures. Condorcet sought to replace history and philosophy with the science of enlightenment. Adams thought that history and philosophy led man to the science of enlightenment. Condorcet, along with Turgot, took one powerful national legislature to be the ideal form of government to replace a powerful king. Adams thought such a legislature would be given over too readily to the interests of the wealthy and the powerful. Better, he thought, to grant something like a senate or house of lords to the powerful and wealthy, so that their influence could be felt and then checked (Thompson, 368-375).

Adams, Jefferson, and Revolution

After dealing with Pius VI, I am turning to the figures that my book will deal with before Pius VI, specifically, John Adams, Mary Wollstonecraft, Immanuel Kant, and Edmund Burke. The French Revolution had a great impact not only on the presidency of John Adams, but also on his literary career and his friendships. Perhaps more than any other, the friendship between Adams and Jefferson was most affected by the ideas, events, and effects of the French Revolution.

In 1812, John Adams sent a letter to Thomas Jefferson, along with some homespun, in the hopes of rekindling a correspondence that the two men broke off due to events surrounding the election of 1800. A mutual friend suggested to Adams that he try to renew the friendship. Adams began the correspondence partly to lure Jefferson into a dialogue about the history of their relationship. At the very least, he hoped that he and Jefferson could explain themselves to each other.

Adams wanted to discover why their intellectual relationship and friendship soured over the years. Adams and Jefferson were friends and among the more radical members of the group that signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Despite this fact, by 1800 they found themselves on opposite sides of the political debates plaguing the country. The presidential campaign, Adams’ loss to Jefferson, and much else broke all communication between the two great founders and led to Adams’ retreat from public life.

Among the topics that Adams sensed were potential causes for their break-up, was each man’s reaction to and interpretation of the events and aftermath of the French Revolution. This led to disagreement over what the French Revolution and its philosophy meant for the United States, and what was the purpose in general of revolution for a culture and society. Adams was critical of the French Revolution before, during, and after it happened. That is to say, before the French Revolution he was critical of the political theorists that he thought were behind it. During the French Revolution, he was immersed in political efforts to prevent the United States from becoming another revolutionary France. After the French Revolution, he feared revolutionary philosophy and practices influencing the United States and ruining its government.

Pius VI Arrested by the Revolution

During the same time that Adams and the Federalists were losing their control of American political institutions, the French Revolutionaries were taking over Rome and imprisoning the Pope. While Adams’s political career came to an end by his being voted out of office, the career and life of Pius VI ended being forcibly taken out of Rome. He died in exile from the capitol city of the Church which he led. The fall of Adams caused him great bitterness. The exile and death of Pius VI, at least from his letters, caused him great joy.

In 1798, when Pius VI was being physically menaced by the revolutionaries, he wrote to Cardinal Franckenberg at Mechliniensem (July 30, 1798). Rather than expressing bitterness, Pius VI wrote of the great consolation that had come to him, seeing the “patience, strength, longanimity, and good will” with which the faithful, nuns, and priests have faced prison, death, and exile during the Revolution (Vol. 2, Supplement, 29). He was first edified by what he saw as the number of ordinary faithful of the Catholic Church who witnessed to their faith during the turmoil and danger of the revolution.

The Revolution was a large storm against the Church (Vol. 2, Supplement, 29). After the revolutionaries dismantled the Church, the Pope was alone on his throne. He had no human means to help him (Vol. 2, Supplement, 30). He was sharing in the same sufferings that so many French men and women suffered during the Revolution. He knew that the suffering of the people of France, their good example, was strengthening him as he bore his imprisonment (Vol. 2, Supplement, 30). He recalled that Christ gave Christians grace to bear with suffering of this kind (Vol. 2, Supplement, 31). Catholics, from the beginning, were able to bare suffering and persecution with joy. They did not conquer with weapons and violence. They did not take over nations by the sword. Instead, they did so by long-suffering and faith (Vol. 2, Supplement, 31). So often it was through persecution that the Church obtained her victories. He did not hold any rancor towards the revolutionaries. He wished “tranquility, joy, and peace” to all (Vol. 2, Supplement, 31-32).