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).

Debating Revolution

As I am delving deeper into the Adams-Jefferson controversy that surrounded the French Revolution, it seems to me that the dispute came down to this, Adams perhaps overstated his case when he argued that an either aristocratic or moneyed class would always be influential in society.

In overstating his case, his opponents were able to present him as a defender of English Constitution. In France, this was important as the Revolution approached, because the Revolutionaries, to give themselves a reason to revolt, had to distance themselves from the English model.

Neither Adams nor Jefferson opposed the idea of revolution. They were in agreement as to the kind of society they wanted to see emerge. They disagreed, in the end, over how to bring about the transition.