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Abstract

This paper challenges the historiographical binary of a “secular” versus “Christian” American founding by examining the intellectual architecture of John Adams during his formative early years. It argues that Adams did not possess a static or fully articulated dogma but instead engaged in a dynamic, lifelong struggle to define virtue amid profound socio-political upheaval. To resolve the tension between the grandeur of Enlightenment liberalism, pagan classical ideals, and his own Christian faith, Adams forged a pressurized personal philosophy: a “Christian Stoicism.” Drawing on a close reading of his private Diary and Autobiography, this study demonstrates that his inherited Puritan belief in an active Providence provided his overarching metaphysical context. Roman Stoicism supplied the practical, psychological methodology, a rigorous regimen of self-governance, which he used to master his own “fallen” passions of vanity and ambition. While Adams accepted the external political framework of John Locke, he recognized that a Lockean system of natural rights could not survive without this internal moral restraint. This tense, hard-won intellectual equilibrium, a “terrible tranquility,” is exemplified in his defense of the British soldiers after the Boston Massacre. By moving beyond a simple record of his public actions to the echo of his youthful thoughts, this paper reveals Adams’s internal struggle not as a phase of indecision, but as an enduring, active model for republican character.

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