[LibertarianInExile]

Thank you for remembering the quote and making me feel very honored by the comparison, even if it was incidental. Do you have any idea where I might read more about that? It would be interesting to see more of that discussion, what record there is of it.

[MarcusTulliusCicero]

Sadly, I haven't been able to source the quote. I know it's a line from the play/movie "1776" and that the very great majority of dialogue was derived from letters of the participants. As I said, if he didn't say it, he should have and I think it captures his attitude quite well. A few of my other favorite traceable Adams' quotes:

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If `Thou shalt not covet' and `Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.

John Adams, A Defense of the American Constitutions, 1787 (Too bad Justices Stevens, Souter, Kennedy, Ginsburg and Breyer didn't peruse this before writing Kelo v. New London!)

The rich, the well-born, and the able, acquire and influence among the people that will soon be too much for simple honesty and plain sense, in a house of representatives. The most illustrious of them must, therefore, be separated from the mass, and placed by themselves in a senate; this is, to all honest and useful intents, an ostracism.

John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, vol 1, 1787. (This should be engraved over the entrance of the Senate chambers.)

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 17, 1775

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

John Adams, in Defense of the British Soldiers on trial for the Boston Massacre, December 4, 1770

I have accepted a seat in the [Massachusetts] House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and the ruin of our children. I give you this warning, that you may prepare your mind for your fate.

John Adams, to Abigail Adams, May 1770 (probably as true today as it was then!)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams, Journal, 1772