“When arms speak, the laws are silent”: John Adams’s Ciceronian Inheritance

William Morgan, Dr. Jeffrey Lerner, and Dr. John Ruddiman

Department of History, Wake Forest University

John Adams The Boston Massacre

• Great Britain occupied Boston

with military force in 1768.

• Constant strife erupted on

March 5, 1770, when eight

British soldiers opened fire on

belligerent Bostonians, killing

five.

• Before the year was out, the

soldiers and their captain were

separately tried for murder.

• John Adams, an eminent lawyer

in his thirties, secured the

acquittal of almost all the men

with his speeches to the jury.

Cicero• Adams’s model and inspiration,

down to the details of his

courtroom oratory, was Marcus

Tullius Cicero, the master orator

of classical Rome.

• Adams used Pro Milone, one of

Cicero’s most famous speeches

and one which Adams knew

well, to structure his crucial self-

defense argument for the

soldiers in Rex v. Wemms.

• In preparation for his

summation to the jury, Adams

even quoted an entire paragraph

of Pro Milone in his copy of

William Blackstone’s

Commentaries on the Laws of

England.

Final Note• With Cicero as his guide to

persuasion and eloquence,

John Adams determined the

outcome of a major prelude

to the Revolutionary War.

Citations for ImagesAdams -

https://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/

gg60a/gg60a-42660.0.html

Boston Massacre -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_M

assacre#/media/File:Boston_Massacre_h

igh-res.jpg

Cicero -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bust_

of_Cicero_(1st-cent._BC)_-

_Palazzo_Nuovo_-_Musei_Capitolini_-

_Rome_2016.jpg