Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Adams envisioned the American republic as the culmination of the history of human progress and the realization of the potential of human nature. . . . He avowed as his goal a truly nonpartisan approach to government and sought to create an administration based on 'talents and virtue,' not party politics or sectionalism--which he declared even 'more dangerous' than party. . . . He had a positive rather than a negative conception of liberty; freedom properly exercised was not simply a limitation on authority but and empowering of human initiative. 'Liberty is power,' he declared. American citizens had a responsibility to use their freedom, to make the most of their God-given faculties. Their officials had a corresponding duty to facilitate improvement, both public and private. 'The spirit of improvement is abroad upon the earth,' Adams pointed out in his peroration. Let not foreign nations with less liberty exceed us in 'public improvement,' the president exhorted his countrymen. To do so would 'cast away the bounties of Providence' and doom what should become the world's most powerful nation 'to perpetual inferiority.'" [Howe: What Hath God Wrought, p. 243-53]