Presidents with Good Intentions

Who said this? No, it is not George W. Bush. But consider:

I meant well … . My conscience was clear as a crystal glass, without a scruple or doubt. I was borne along by an irresistible sense of duty. God prospered our labors; and, awful, dreadful, and deplorable as the consequences have been, I cannot but hope that the ultimate good of the world, of the human race, and of our beloved country, is intended and will be accomplished by it.

After digesting that little wonder, consider the passage that precedes sit:

Have I not been employed in mischief all my days? Did not the American Revolution produce the French Revolution? And did not the French Revolution produce all the calamities and desolations to the human race and the whole globe ever since?

—John Adams to Benjamin Rush, August 28, 1811,
quoted in The American Enlightenment 211
(Koch. Ed., George Braziller Inc. 1965)

Have always wondered whether JA was pulling our leg. Wonder what he would have thought of the Russian Revolution.