John Adams to Benjamin Rush, July 5, 1789

Richmond Hill, July 5. 1789

Dear Sir

Without waiting for an Answer to my last, I will take a little more
notice of a Sentiment in one your Letters. You Say you “abhor all Titles.” 1 I will take the familiar freedom of Friendship
to say I dont believe you.— Let me explain my self.— I doubt not your Varacity. but I
believe you deceive yourself, and have not yet examined your own heart, and recollected
the feelings of every day and hour.— What would you say or think or feel, if your own
Children, instead of calling you, Sir, or Father or Papa, should accost you with, the
Title of “Ben”!— Your servant comes in, and instead of Saying, “Master! my hat is much
worn, will you please to give me a new one”; crys “Ben! my old hat is all in rags, and
makes you the laughing stock of the Town! give me a new one.”— What think you of this
simple manly republican Style?

had I leisure to write Plays like Gen. Burgoine, I would undertake
a Comedy, under the Title of “Government with out Title.” 2 The Dramatis Personæ should be a Quaker and his
Wife, ten Children and four servants. They should all live in the Same room, dine,
breakfast & sup at the Same Table— they should promiscuously call each other by
their Names, without Titles and live without form.— We Should See, what order, Virtue
and Œconomy would ensue.— The sons would soon be married to the female servants and the
Daughters to the Male. both Children & servants would soon trick and cuff the old
Man & Woman.

Poh, Poh Poh! Say you all this is vulgar and beneath the Dignity of
a Legislator.— Give me leave to say nothing in human Life is beneath the Dignity of a
Magistrate to consider. The Principles of Government are to be seen in every Scene of
human Life. There is no Person and no society, to whom Forms and Titles are indifferent. “Look through the Deeds of Men,[”] and then say
whether Shenestone is not in the right, when he says in a whimsical Production called
the “School-Mistress” which he wrote in imitation of Spencer.

“Albeit ne flatt’ry did corrupt her Truth

Ne pompous Title did debauch her ear,

Goody, good-Woman, Gossip, n’aunt, forsooth

or Dame, the Sole additions She did hear;

Yet these She challeng’d; these She held right dear ;

Ne would esteem him Act as mought behove

Who Should not honour’d eld with these revere:

For never title yet So mean could prove ,

But there was eke a mind, which did that title
love. ” 3

The two last Lines contain a truth so exact, so universal, and so
litteral, that I declare to you, in the Course of fifty Years Experience, in various
Stages of Life, among all Classes of Peope and in Several different nations I have never
yet met with one Man Woman or Child, who was destitute of a Passion for a Title. Let Us
consider, my Friend more reverently and therefore more truly the Constitution of human
nature, and the invariable Progress of human Life and manners. Family Titles are
necessary to Family Government Colonial Titles We know were indispensable, in Colonial
Government; and We shall find national Titles essential to national Government. as long
as Titles are respected by others, they will be esteemed by every man. but it is not to
gratify Individuals that public Titles are annexed to offices. it is to make offices and
Laws respected; and not so much by the virtuous Part of the Community, as by the
Profligate the criminal and abandoned, who have little reverence for Reason Right or Law
divine or human. These are overawed by Titles frequently, when Laws and Punishments
cannot restrain them.

Think of these Things, and perhaps I may hint to you some others
hereafter. Yours with Sincere Esteem

John Adams.