Adams, John
1797–1801

Adams was an institutionalist lawyer above all — he defended the British soldiers at the Boston Massacre trial in 1770 because rule of law required competent representation for unpopular defendants, and he wrote in that defense that 'facts are stubborn things.' He was deeply anti-faction, anti-mob, anti-French-Revolution-extremism, and committed to the integrity of legal and constitutional process; his Discourses on Davila warns specifically against demagogues who would inflame the public against institutions. Paxton's record — an impeachment for abuse of office, the Tribune/ProPublica forum-shopping documentation, a primary campaign built on personal attacks rather than legal argument — is exactly the demagogic mode Adams warned against; Adams would consider an attorney general who can't follow professional ethics rules personally disqualifying. Talarico's institutionalism, anti-corruption package, term limits and SCOTUS ethics code framework, and refusal to take corporate PAC money fit Adams's framework. He drops some points on expanded federal government and on some of the populist economic rhetoric Adams would have found inconsistent with prudent institutional restraint.