America 250 - John Adams: Thoughts on Government

Join the Dayton Lawyers Chapter for a lunch event!

Featuring:

• Professor Aaron Walayat, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Dayton School of Law

Tickets:

$15 Registration | $5 Young Lawyers (5 years or less out of law school)

(includes lunch)

Though not present at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, John Adams had a unique influence on American constitutionalism. While Adams’s thought may have indirectly influenced the United States Constitution, his more direct recommendations were influential in the early state constitutions. Adams’s 1776 pamphlet, Thoughts on Government, offered a model of government familiar to us: including an executive, a bicameral legislature, and an independent judiciary. Adams, preoccupied by the question of government structure, did not come to these familiar recommendations lightly and his constitutional theory was influenced by motivations that some historians and political theorists have described as out of step with others in the founding generation. This discussion unpacks Adams’s 1776 pamphlet, reviewing its recommendations and exploring the potential motivations that informed Adams’s suggestions. Specifically, it reflects on Adams’s concern with social inequality and how these concerns motivated Adams’s specific governmental structures.

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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.