On a society of free speech from
John Adams' perspective
"Your research in the Laws of England, establishing Christianity as the Law of the Land and part of the common Law, are curious and very important. Questions without number will arise in this Country. Religious Controversies, and Ecclesiastical Contests are as common and will be as Sharp as any in civil Politicks foreign, or domestick? In what Sense and to what extent the Bible is Law, may give rise to as many doubts and quarrells as any of our civil political military or maritime Laws and will intermix with them all to irritate Factions of every Sort. I dare not look beyond my Nose, into futurity. Our Money, our Commerce, our Religion, our National and State Constitutions, even our Arts and Sciences, are So many Seed Plotts of Division, Faction, Sedition and Rebellion. Every thing is transmuted into an Instrument of Electioneering. Election is the grand Brama, the immortal Lama, I had almost Said, the Jaggernaught, for Wives are almost ready to burn upon the Pile and Children to be thrown under the Wheel."
In modern english:
Your research on how English law establishes Christianity as the law of the land and part of common law is fascinating and significant. Countless questions will come up in this country. Religious debates and church disputes are as common and intense as any political conflicts, whether foreign or domestic. The extent to which the Bible is considered law could spark as many doubts and arguments as our civil, political, military, or maritime laws, and it will intertwine with them all, fueling all kinds of factions. I can’t even begin to predict the future. Our money, commerce, religion, national and state constitutions, and even our arts and sciences are all breeding grounds for division, conflict, sedition, and rebellion. Everything is turned into a tool for political campaigning. Elections are the ultimate idol, almost like a sacred deity, where people are ready to sacrifice everything—wives nearly burning themselves on a pyre and children thrown under the wheels of this juggernaut.
- John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, February 3, 1814
"What shall we say? The editors of newspapers have no check and yet have power to make or unmake characters at their will, to create or unmake the constitution, to erect or demolish administrations - When a few scribblers, all foreigners, whose origins history and characters nobody knows, have more influence than president, the senate, the people's own representatives, all the judges of the land." - John Adams to a Dutch intellectual
Ah, a true free market, where everyone just debates disagreements every day, which led to the salons of France, where middle- and upper-class women would host political conversations in their parlors, or the coffee houses of the rest of Europe. In 1913, Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in Vienna within a mile of each other. Take with that what you will.
The term "Jaggernaught" (or "Juggernaut") refers to the Hindu deity Jagannath, whose massive temple cart was historically associated with religious processions in India, where devotees were said to throw themselves under its wheels in acts of extreme devotion (though such accounts were often exaggerated by Western observers).