Named source · 1797

Inaugural Address, 4 March 1797 Quotes by John Adams: Context & Meanings

1 quotation linked to Inaugural Address, 4 March 1797 by or associated with John Adams, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

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John Adams’s Inaugural Address delivered March 4, 1797

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Elections, party, foreign influence, republican government, public virtue, national interest and constitutional continuity.

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the Government may be the Choice of a Party, for its own Ends, not of the nation for the national good.

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“the Government may be the Choice of a Party, for its own Ends, not of the nation for the national good.”

John Adams

Meaning & context

Adams warns that corruption or manipulation of elections can substitute factional interest for the public choice an elected government is supposed to represent.

Source details

Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797, represented by Founders Online / National Archives. The clause appears in Adams’s warning about party artifice, corruption and foreign interference in elections; it remains historical presidential rhetoric rather than current election-law advice.

John Adams’s Inaugural Address delivered March 4, 1797

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