15
Equality
CHAPTER 15
|Document 60
John Adams to Thomas Jefferson
Cappon 2:371--72 Now, my Friend, who are the 
[aristocrats]? Philosophymay Answer "The Wise and Good." But the World,Mankind, have by their practice always answered, "the richthe beautiful and well born." And Philosophers themselvesin marrying their Children prefer the rich the handsomeand the well descended to the wise and good.
What chance have Talents and Virtues in competition,with Wealth and Birth? and Beauty?
Haud facile emergunt, quorum Virtutibus obstant[i.e., obstat] Res Angusta Domi.
One truth is clear,; by all the World confess'dSlow rises worth, by Poverty oppress'd.
The five Pillars of Aristocracy, are Beauty Wealth, Birth,Genius and Virtues. Any one of the three first, can at anytime over bear any one or both of the two last.
Let me ask again, what a Wave of publick Opinion, infavour of Birth has been spread over the Globe, by Abraham,by Hercules, by Mahomet, by Guelphs, Ghibellines,Bourbons, and a miserable Scottish Chief Steuart? By Zingisby, by, by, a million others? And what a Wave will bespread by Napoleon and by Washington? Their remotestCousins will be sought and will be proud, and will availthemselves of their descent. Call this Principle, Prejudice,Folly Ignorance, Baseness, Slavery, Stupidity, Adulation,Superstition or what you will. I will not contradict you. Butthe Fact, in natural, moral, political and domestic HistoryI cannot deny or dispute or question.
And is this great Fact in the natural History of Man?This unalterable Principle of Morals, Philosophy, Policydomestic felicity, and dayly Experience from the Creation;to be overlooked, forgotten neglected, or hypocriticallywaived out of Sight; by a Legislator? By a professed Writerupon civil Government, and upon Constitutions of civilGovernment?
. . . . .
You may laugh at the introduction of Beauty, among thePillars of Aristocracy. But Madame Barry says Le veritableRoyauté est la B[e]autee [true royalty is beauty], and thereis not a more certain Truth. Beauty, Grace, Figure, Attitude,Movement, have in innumerable Instances prevailedover Wealth, Birth, Talents Virtues and every thing else,in Men of the highest rank, greatest Power, and sometimes,the most exalted Genius, greatest Fame, and highestMerit.
The Founders' Constitution
Volume 1, Chapter 15, Document 60
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s60.html
The University of Chicago Press
The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams. Edited by Lester J. Cappon. 2 vols. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1959.
