Post

Octal wrote:

Looks like it was from 1776, a broadway musical from 1969. Looking at actual quotes, attributable to John Adams, I would say this line is pretty on brand for him.

• "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 (actual quote from 1825)

I try not to be too pedantic about this--it is the internet after all--so I ordinarily don't even look into citations such as those attributed to people such as the American founding fathers. But the cite about the "law firms" sounded wrong not only because it was stylistically at odds with anything I've read of John Adams but because there were no law firms as we call them in colonial America.

Also John Adams was a lawyer. And Adams promoted the Alien and Sedition Act so probably not the guy most Americans these days would identify with.