Our Obligations To Our Country Never

Adams wrote this to physician and fellow Founder Benjamin Rush on April 18, 1808, near the end of a long correspondence between the two men. Rush was one of Adams's closest intellectual companions in old age, and their letters ranged freely over politics, philosophy, and personal regret. Adams had long felt underappreciated compared to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, but this line suggests he had made a kind of peace with lifelong public obligation.