“You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.” – John Adams writing to Thomas Jefferson
They had been friends for years, first getting to know each other in Congress, where Adams insisted that Jefferson draft the Declaration of Independence. Their friendship strengthened after independence was won, when Jefferson and Adams served as dignitaries representing America in France. But they later became adversaries, parting ways politically — Adams becoming the head of the Federalist Party, Jefferson founding the opposition Democratic-Republican Party — and it was Jefferson who defeated Adams in his attempt to win re-election as president in 1800.
And much later still, both retired from politics and living out their days in repose and reflection — Adams in Quincy, Massachusetts, and Jefferson in Charlottesville, Virginia — they remained aloof.
Until, this week (Jan. 1) in 1812 when, at the insistence of his friend Benjamin Rush, who wanted the two great Americans to resolve their differences and resume their friendship, Adams wrote a short letter to Jefferson, prompting Jefferson to respond, which eventually resulted in 158 letters between them over the next 14 years. To many historians it was the most significant correspondence ever written between two American statesmen.
Still, their letters didn’t always deal with politics. They discussed the challenges of getting old; they reminisced about their presidencies, especially the many sycophants seeking favors and government positions. They discussed religion and books, often — both being fierce competitors — engaging in a quasi one-upmanship with respect to the erudition of their readings.
But they also discussed the American Revolution, the Constitution and government formed in its wake, including their different impressions of what it all meant and what kind of nation it would, or should, lead to.
In that sense, little had changed, including their politics. Jefferson thought that his presidency proved the people preferred the Republican ideal of limited government and deference to states’ rights. Adams disagreed, and was both bothered that he had been a one-term president, and worried that history wouldn’t give him his proper due. Much of his correspondence was meant to remind future generations of his rightful place in the American pantheon. Adams believed, for example, that Jefferson’s writing of the Declaration of Independence was inconsequential compared with his own leadership in actually achieving independence.
So, clearly, both men were writing as much for posterity as for each other, but reading their letters, you sense that they were couching their very different versions of events in language meant not to offend the other because they both cherished the fact that, at long last, their friendship had been renewed. Meaning that, very much on purpose, they never really did fully explain themselves to each other.
