What was the constitutional vision of John Adams?

0:05Clinton Rosseter wrote a wonderful book about the Constitution decades ago. He said that if John Adams had attended the Constitutional Convention, the Constitution would have been essentially the same as it emerged, but the convention would have been two weeks longer because of Adams, speaking so much. That's teasing John Adams, but John Adams was a very intelligent, very learned man, also very eloquent. We forget that because he never kept records of the speeches he made, nor do we have notes on the speeches he made, but he was hailed as an eloquent member of the Continental Congress also when he was a lawyer back in Massachusetts. He believed in balance in government. He insisted that there had to be different branches of government. There were some people who thought, let's have a one house legislature. Actually, the state of Pennsylvania did have

1:14such a thing and Benjamin Franklin was very supportive of it. Also, the legislature really called the tune in Pennsylvania. They didn't have a governor at first, there was no executive and Franklin was also supportive of that. But Adams, said, No, he insisted that you had to have different branches of government balancing each other or else it would all go off the rails. Some people or persons would take control, and there would be nothing to check them. [MUSIC]