No man who ever held the office of President would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. He will make one man ungrateful, and a hundred men his enemies, for every office he can bestow.

John Adams made this remark in private correspondence reflecting on the burdens of high office and, in particular, the corrosive politics of patronage. As President (1797–1801) he faced intense factional conflict between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, and even within his own party. Appointments and removals—customary tools for building support—often produced disappointment and resentment, since far more people sought offices than could be rewarded. Adams’s comment captures an early republic anxiety: that executive power, especially the power to dispense offices, could entangle a president in personal obligations and political vendettas rather than public service.

The quote argues that the presidency is less a prize than a trap. Adams suggests that the office’s most routine power—handing out appointments—creates a lopsided moral economy: beneficiaries quickly feel entitled and become “ungrateful,” while the many who are passed over become lasting enemies. The line is a critique of patronage politics and a warning about how leadership can distort relationships, turning friends into claimants and rivals into embittered opponents. More broadly, it implies that public office exposes a leader to structural ingratitude: even well-intended decisions generate personal animosity because scarcity and ambition guarantee dissatisfaction.