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John Adams vs Thomas Jefferson

The United States Senate has been called “the most exclusive club in the world” but there is an even more exclusive club. Only forty-two men have held the office of President, making it the most exclusive club in American political history. Yet even this small group has its personality conflicts, disagreements, and even feuds.

The first and probably best known of all the Presidential feuds was between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Close friends and political allies earlier in their careers, Adams was the chairman of the committee to write the Declaration of Independence and selected Jefferson to do the writing.

When Jefferson arrived in Paris in 1784 to join Benjamin Franklin and Adams as ministers to France, Adams much admired and liked Jefferson. Adams famously remarked that the news that Congress had appointed Jefferson "gives me great pleasure." Although Jefferson was less effusive, once he and Adams started working together he deepened his respect and affection for him.

As the new government took shape, Adams and Jefferson found themselves on opposite sides in the philosophical debate on the nature of the new government. Federalists and Republicans differed on a number of points, including the meaning of "federalism," the dangers to republican government, and foreign policy.

In broad terms, Federalists favored an "energetic" central government and weaker state governments, while Republicans wanted a limited central government and strong state governments. Federalists, in pursuit of a strong central government, interpreted the Constitution broadly, arguing that it granted certain unspecified "implied" powers -- such as the power to create a national bank -- to the central government.

Republicans, on the other hand, interpreted the Constitution narrowly or strictly. For them the Constitution limited the central government to certain specific powers; to allow that government to assume more powers than those specified opened the way to tyranny. For Republicans the greatest threat to republican government was a powerful, distant central government controlled by a few self-serving "aristocrats."

Federalists, who also considered themselves defenders of republican government, feared the chaos and instability they associated with an excess of democracy. For Federalists, too much democracy threatened order and property, the essential bases of "true" republican society.

Finally, the French Revolution and its aftershocks profoundly affected the first party system. Federalists generally saw the French Revolution as evidence of their greatest fears of unchecked democracy while Republicans tended to support the Revolution as a progressive and necessary -- if at times painful -- step toward a better world.

A quick-and-dirty summary: Federalists favored a strong national government, tended to distrust mass popular politicking outside of elections, and favored strong trade connections with Great Britain; "money-men" and merchants, New Englanders and city-dwellers tended to be attracted to the Federalist persuasion. Southerners, farmers, and eventually, ambitious members of the lower ranks tended to migrate toward Republicanism, which preferred a weaker national government, was friendlier to popular politicking, and favored the support of revolutionary France.

Eventually, they ended up running against each other, with Adams winning the first contest, and Jefferson the second. During the elections, both men followed the traditions of the time and refrained from campaigning. With communications slow, neither candidate had any control over their followers and depended upon them to campaign for them in each town and city. These followers got carried away (nothing different from today in many ways) and said things and made accusations that angered both men. The elections were marked by heated passions and excessive mudslinging, insults and character assassinations.

The low point of their relationship had to be the years immediately following the nasty election of 1800. Abigail's famous exchange of letters with Jefferson in 1804 demonstrates just how bitter the feud had become. Adams did not take his defeat in 1800 well. On news of Jefferson's election, Mrs. Adams left Washington for their home in Massachusetts. Adams and Jefferson met in Washington from time to time, and after the election had an unfortunate meeting. Some say it happened in the White House at a reception. Adams, always fussy and temperamental, snapped at Jefferson “You have put me out! You have put me out!” Jefferson remained calm and reminded Adams that the system by which Adams was defeated was one Adams had helped to create. The meeting ended on relatively friendly terms. In January, they met again and discussed the political situation.

Still, Adams did not take defeat well. He resented that the people had cast him aside without a second term. His pride hurt, Adams left Washington before Jefferson’s inauguration. At four in the morning, his carriage pulled away from the White House unnoticed. Jefferson was inaugurated without his predecessor present.

Jefferson worked to overturn a number of last minute appointments by John Adams. This resulted in the Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison which finally established beyond question the power of judicial review, giving the courts, rather than the states, the right to declare laws unconstitutional. At least in this respect, Adams had the last laugh since he had favored judicial review and Jefferson vehemently opposed it.

The wounds between the two men were kept open and sore by their political differences for a long time. After a time, they began writing to each other, and became friends again. Their letters contained a lively correspondence on the issues of the day as well as personal matters. In spite of their renewed friendship, they remained competitive right up to the end. I think the high point of the relationship is Jefferson's letter of condolence to Adams upon hearing of Abigail's death. Nothing Jefferson ever wrote is as moving as these heartfelt words to his old suffering friend:

Tried myself, in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that, for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only medecines. I will not, therefore, by useless condolances, open afresh the sluices of your grief nor, altho' mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more, where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both that the term is not very distant at which we are to deposit, in the same cerement, our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction.

After the election of 1800, few would have imagined that Adams and Jefferson would one day not only correspond with each other, but that the correspondence would reveal such deep mutual affection and respect. Their generation had passed; they were, in a sense, the relics of an earlier era and they reached out to each other in their old age. Both men wanted to reminisce, to recapture the richness of the revolutionary experience and they turned to one another. Like many people who reach old age, they came to see that their differences were less important than their shared experiences.

Although Adams and Jefferson became ardent political foes in the tumultuous 1790s, they managed to preserve some respect -- each for the other -- as a man. By their retirement, the two men had known each other for well over 30 years; they had toiled together for American independence. When both men had permanently stepped out of public life, they gained some distance from their partisan differences, and their personal fondness for one another came back to the fore. Their correspondence during this period is a remarkable look back at the most formative years of the nation's founding from two personal points of view, told by two of the most active participants in the period's major political events. The humor and humanity in many of these letters is sometimes quite moving.

In part the affection that Adams and Jefferson had developed for one another in the 1770s and 1780s never totally vanished; one catches glimpses of fond memories even during the "dark" years after 1800. But time and some distance from the intense party battles of their respective administrations made the reconciliation possible. What made the reconciliation happen, however, were heroic and sustained efforts of Benjamin Rush, an old friend and fellow signer of the Declaration of Independence. If not for his intervention, Adams and Jefferson may never have revived their correspondence and friendship. Once initiated, the post-1812 correspondence continued in part because, following Adams's suggestion, both men tried to explain "ourselves to each other." Of course, both Adams and Jefferson also wanted to explain themselves and "their" Revolution to posterity. As much as their letters addressed each other, they also addressed what they knew would be a curious and attentive posterity. Each man wanted to craft his version of what the Revolution was and should mean to future generations. Their friendship certainly made the correspondence possible, and that friendship contributed to the respectful and even affectionate tone of much of the correspondence, but a need to shape the memory and meaning of the Revolution fueled both men's efforts to leave a record of their understanding of their individual and collective achievements.

Longevity and the history they shared defined their relationship. In their old age, they came to see one another as the living reminder of the revolution. The relationship was sometimes tumultuous, but they were, in the end, comrades in arms. Just before Adams died, he is reported to have said, “Jefferson still survives.” He did not realize that Jefferson had died several hours earlier at his home in Virginia.

The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams An intellectual dialogue of the highest plane achieved in America, the correspondence between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson spanned half a century and embraced government, philosophy, religion, quotidiana, and family griefs and joys. First meeting as delegates to the Continental Congress in 1775, they initiated correspondence in 1777, negotiated jointly as ministers in Europe in the 1780s, and served the early Republic--each, ultimately, in its highest office. At Jefferson's defeat of Adams for the presidency in 1800, they became estranged, and the correspondence lapses from 1801 to 1812, then is renewed until the death of both in 1826, fifty years to the day after the Declaration of Independence.

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