John Adams & Thomas Jefferson: From Friendship to Antagonism to Reconciliation

Posted on February 3, 2010 by Ron Pavellas

I have already written of the rivalry between Adams and Jefferson for the Presidency of the USA in the year 1800, and on the autobiography of Jefferson.

What stimulated my writing of this current article was the arrival of a book I ordered, The Adams-Jefferson Letters, which contains letters between the men, and between Abigail Adams and Jefferson, from 1777 until the deaths of the two men in 1826.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third Presidents of the United States

I was recently reminded of these letters while viewing the HBO television series, John Adams on Swedish TV. I also subsequently ordered and viewed a videotape of the musical play 1776, which I had seen several decades ago. The play was centered on John Adams and his relentless efforts to get the Second Continental Congress to declare independence from Great Britain.

I find this period in our country’s history endlessly fascinating. I return often to the biographies and histories of the most well-known figures and, now, some of the lesser known but no less important, such as Dr. Benjamin Rush who was the instrument through which Adams and Jefferson resumed their friendship after many years of bitter enmity, at least on the part of Adams who was the more emotional of the two men.

So, I bravely wrote the first draft of this article, focusing on the implications of the frequency and of the time line the letters occupy, and forwarded it to a friend for criticism. (He, coincidentally, is currently in the process of viewing the same six-part HBO series on John Adams). His remarks are so cogent and pithy I asked to use them here, and he consented.

I learned from the video that Jefferson was a bit of a libertarian radical for his time, and Adams a bit of a buttoned-down conservative. One aspect of all this is that it took the magic of George Washington’s leadership to keep them all together for the sake of the country, and that may be an…important lesson for today — that we lack a real leader like Washington.

I don’t see these protagonists’ philosophical differences as akin to the political warfare we have today. In Jefferson and Adams’ day, no matter the philosophical differences, each person knew the stakes were unimaginably high. We were a small and fragile nation, always vulnerable to attack from within or without. There was no guarantee we would prevail or even survive, and the Founding Fathers faced up to this reality with courage and discipline, as well as a keen sense of reality.

Today our politicians live in a Never Never Land where America is transcendent, there is no real perceived risk to us or our way of life, and debates are based on academic philosophies that have not been vetted in the real world. Today’s politicians lack the seriousness of people who know they are playing for life-and-death stakes.

Abigail Adams (1744 – 1818)

With my friend’s remarks as Introduction, I now offer some detail, derived from the Letters, to reveal some of the personal dynamics between these two men, without whom we would not be enjoying the liberties our independence from Great Britain afforded us, to whatever degree these liberties remain.

The Declaration of Independence

In June of 1776 Adams and Jefferson were appointed by the Second Continental Congress, along with Benjamin Franklin and two others, to write a declaration of independence from Great Britain. Here is Adams’s account of how Jefferson became the writer of the initial draft:

The subcommittee met. Jefferson proposed to me to make the draft. I said, ‘I will not,’ ‘You should do it.’ ‘Oh! no.’ ‘Why will you not? You ought to do it.’ ‘I will not.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Reasons enough.’ ‘What can be your reasons?’ ‘Reason first, you are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second, I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third, you can write ten times better than I can.’ ‘Well,’ said Jefferson, ‘if you are decided, I will do as well as I can.’ ‘Very well. When you have drawn it up, we will have a meeting.’ (Source).

From this beginning Adams and Jefferson became friends and, after the death of Jefferson’s wife Martha Wayles Jefferson in 1782, Jefferson was sometimes a guest in the home of Abigail and John Adams where Abigail and Jefferson also became friends.

The friendships between the Adamses and Jefferson resulted in a total of 380 letters written from one to the other, between 1777 until the death of the two men on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after they had signed the Declaration of Independence (along with 54 others).

After Independence and before the Constitution

It should be remembered that although we became independent of Great Britain by declaration in 1776, we did not have a governmental constitution until 1789. During this period the decisions of Continental Congress and then, by adoption in 1781, the Articles of Confederation, provided the framework for governance of the combined states. There were 14 presidents of the Continental Congress (two served twice) until George Washington was inaugurated as the first U.S. president, on April 30, 1789 under the new Constitution, with John Adams as his Vice President.

Washington as first President and the formation of political parties around differing views of the role of the Federal Government

Portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart

Although there were not organized political parties until the election of 1796, there were those who called themselves Federalists and those who identified themselves as Democratic-Republicans. These groups, and later parties, had importantly differing views on the proper role of the new federal government. Simply put, the Federalists wanted more power centralized in the federal government, and the Democratic-Republicans wanted the minimum necessary accruing to the central government for the purposes laid out in the Constitution. Adams was for the Federalists and Jefferson was for the Democratic-Republicans. As they became political rivals, these differences put a cloud over their friendship which was not cleared until well after both had been out of power.

The 380 Letters

A mentioned above, the letters began in 1777, but were few in number until year 1785 when there were 69 letters between them, plus eight each between Abigail Adams and Jefferson. In the following two years there were 42 and 43 letters, respectively. In 1788 there were 12 letters.

While Adams was Vice President in the eight years 1789 through 1796, after which Adams was elected President to succeed Washington, they averaged slightly over three per year between them.

Because of the odd method of choosing vice presidents (since improved) Jefferson was Adams’s Vice President from 1796-1800. There were no letters between them during this period.

Jefferson was elected President over Adams in 1800, and they returned to an intermittent and scanty correspondence in 1801 and 1804.

Jefferson was reelected, again over Adams and others, in 1804. The two men did not correspond again for eight years until January, 1812 when Madison was elected to his second term as fourth President of the USA.

Portrait of Dr. Benjamin Rush by Charles Willson Peale

The cause of their renewed correspondence and, concomitantly, their even deeper friendship was by the agency of their mutual friend Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Here is some background to this initiative from commentary in the book (excerpted and edited):

One of the more bitter aspects of the retirement of John Adams from the presidency in 1800 was the fact that several of those with whom he had early co-labored during the Revolution had become his fervent adversaries. This was especially true in the case of Thomas Jefferson who, although serving closely with Adams during the Revolution, had become one of his chief enemies during President Washington’s administration. This feud not only deeply embittered Adams emotionally but it also troubled Dr. Rush, who was still a close friend of both Adams and Jefferson.

In his concern over the relationship between these two, one night several months after Jefferson’s retirement from the Presidency in 1809, Dr. Rush had a dream about the two which he felt was important. On October 17, 1809, he wrote down an account of that dream and sent it to John Adams.

At the time this letter was written, Jefferson and Adams were still vehement opponents. Adams received the dream from his dear friend with an open heart. Shortly after this letter, Rush, who was also a dear friend of Jefferson, initiated a correspondence with Jefferson on the same topic, attempting to reconcile the two. Jefferson, too, listened to Rush with an open heart, and tentatively reached out to Adams with a gracious letter. Adams, as he had promised, did “not fail to acknowledge and answer the letter,” and thus began a cordial renewing of a warm and sincere friendship between the two. Source

Adams took the first step by writing a brief letter to Jefferson on New Year’s Day, 1812, the subject being a “Packett containing two Pieces of Homespun” which Adams sent under separate cover to Jefferson. Jefferson responded on January 21 and they exchanged 13 letters in this year.

Year 1813 saw an explosion of pent-up expression from Adams who wrote 29 letters to Jefferson; the latter, as was his habit, wrote fewer but longer letters, only 6. Abigail and Jefferson also exchanged one letter between them this year.

They continued a regular, but less frequent correspondence until their deaths in 1826. Abigail and Jefferson also exchanged, typically, one letter per year until her death in 1818.

I offer, in closing, two excerpts from the book of letters, chapter 9, headed: “Whether you or I were right posterity must judge:”

Even in retirement Adams could not view the political scene… with the detachment that Jefferson achieved. Charges of corruption against the Republican Presidents Adams treated with contempt, even though he told Jefferson, “in the Measures of Administration I have neither agreed with you or Madison.” As for non-importation, non-intercourse (with other nations) embargoes, the structure of the judiciary, or neglect of the Navy, “whether you or I were right Posterity must judge (May, 1912)…

“By the summer of 1813 their accord was re-established, despite a few old wounds exposed and irritated. But their mutual friend who had brought about the rapprochement died on April 19. As Adams and Jefferson mourned Rush’s death, they took count of the surviving signers of the Declaration of Independence. Beside themselves, only six (of the 58) were alive.

I think there is a lesson here for our present-day representatives, in the two branches of government where the people directly choose: there can be strong and completely opposing points of view, hard fought in public and privately, but public benefit can be maintained through disciplined argument, and through the respect such argument can engender among men of good will.

I am again reminded to honor and revere the memory and the contributions of these two men, of disparate background and disposition, to our nation and to our freedom from tyranny.

But, as my friend points out, strong and purposeful leadership, mindful of the endless dangers in the world, is the key ingredient in maintaining our liberties.

(Read my article on Liberty and Freedom here)

Posted in Books & Literature, Government & Politics, History | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 28 Comments

Attempting to Comprehend Man

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Ron Pavellas

The book is Is Man Incomprehensible to Man? by Philip H. Rhinelander. Rhinelander was a popular teacher, an eminent scholar and occasional leader in various educational enterprises at Stanford University, where he worked from 1956 until retirement. He died in 1987.

Why did I find the book so compelling? I will start by quoting from his biography in Wikipedia: “In 1974, Dr. Rhinelander published the well received book, Is Man Incomprehensible to Man?, in which he covered contemporary philosophical concepts with consummate skill and clarity. This book, although no longer well known, is still relevant in the modern philosophical arena, and serves as an excellent introduction for those interested in the intersection of philosophy and the humanities.”

For me, what Professor Rhinelander has at least accomplished with this small book is to make major schools of modern philosophy more comprehensible and usefully comparable.

But my main fascination with the book is its discussion of the question in its title and, by my inference, directly related questions:

  1. Is man incomprehensible to man? (If so, please show evidence of this)
  2. Is man comprehensible to man? (If so, please show evidence of this)
  3. By “man” does Professor Rhinelander mean “all men” (i.e. all people), or will “comprehension” be sufficient if it is possessed by philosophers, religious leaders, political leaders and other elites?

Questions number 1. and number 2. are quickly resolved, but other questions arise as a result, which I will show further below. The answer to the main question is: man is (currently) incomprehensible to man.

A little background before we get to the remaining question and the new questions.

The source of the book’s title appears to be from words written by Albert Camus, as seen opposite the title page of the book:

If men cannot refer to a common value,
Recognized by all as existing in each one,
Then man is incomprehensible to man.

Albert Camus (1913- 1960)

Major topics discussed in the book include:

  • The use of metaphor about man
  • Man’s place in the world and in Nature
  • The debasement of language and its importance
  • Classical views of man
  • Modern views of man: voluntarism, determinism and materialism
  • Man as inventor
  • Man’s search for meaning

The philosophers and thinkers whom Prof. Rhinelander favors, and whom he cites to support his arguments, include:

  • Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) whom the author refers to throughout the book and whose assertions he uses as the basis for many of his own. He was a philosopher, drama critic, playwright and musician.
  • Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) who wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education. He co-authored the epochal Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell (1872-1970).
  • Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy.

Here are others with whom he importantly disagrees:

  • Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) who is most famous for saying and writing upon “the medium is the message.” He was a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communications theorist. McLuhan’s work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory.
  • B.F. Skinner (1904-1990), an American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform and poet. He is famous for inventing “operant conditioning.”
  • Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979). He was a German-Jewish philosopher, political theorist and sociologist, and a member of the Frankfurt School, a school of neo-Marxist critical theory, social research, and philosophy. His best known works are Eros and Civilization, One-Dimensional Man and The Aesthetic Dimension.

Now to the question and the argument.

Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973)

If man is not incomprehensible to man, where may we find the comprehension? The answer to this question seems relatively easy. In that there are myriad philosophers, theologians, psychologists and scholars of every stripe and interest who have sometimes widely varying answers to the question of ‘What is Man?,’ one can say with some confidence that there is no consensus or “common value,” as Albert Camus looks for, quoted above.

So, why is man not comprehensible to Man? Or, a better question, perhaps, is: how can man (we) become comprehensible to man (each other)?

To answer this question, here is an excerpt from the book:

Vast amounts of new information have accumulated, especially in recent decades, from biology, biochemistry, biophysics, physiology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, history, and various other sources. Yet an increase in information has not brought an increase in understanding. On the contrary, the more we know about man, the more mysterious he seems to become.

A number of writers have pointed out that one characteristic of our times is that man has become more problematical to himself than in any other age. We have several different conceptions and models of man, more or less carefully articulated, each reflecting a different perspective and a particular range of interests, but the multiplicity of disciplines and the variety of approaches have tended to prevent the emergence of any single conception of human nature sufficiently comprehensive and sufficiently flexible to provide a unifying focus.

“The Thinker,” by August Rodin (1840 – 1917)

A fundamental assertion of Professor Rhinelander in this book is that “only confusion can result if we talk about ‘man’ or ‘the nature of man’ without specifying what assumptions we are making and what we mean by such terms.”

Some people will say that man is fundamentally “good,” others will say he is fundamentally “bad,” yet others will say he is neither or both. Some scholars say that a child is a blank slate upon which his environment, starting with parents, stamps its template upon him (please accept that the masculine noun includes all people); others will say that heredity determines all; and yet others will posit a ratio of “Nurture” to “Nature” to be assigned.

Other questions about man on which there is no consensus include the question of free will: does man have it, or does he not? Some will argue in favor of determinism, other will favor free will. Yet others will say either one or the other, depending on circumstances.

Most people are unaware of the assumptions coloring their perceptions of the world and of man. This is why Prof. Rhinelander considers philosophy so important; the study of philosophy helps to reveal our assumptions (or, at least, that we all have operating assumptions) and allows us to test them against others and the objective world—if there is an objective world, and if we can perceive it objectively (some will argue on either side of these questions).

Now, how might Professor Rhinelander answer my second question at the top of this page: how can Man become comprehensible to Man?; that is, how can we become comprehensible to each other? Here are excerpts from the final few pages of Is Man Incomprehensible to Man?:

It is my belief that a unifying focus may be found if we stress man’s capacity for inventiveness, recognizing that such inventiveness is displayed not merely in man’s arts and crafts, but also in his ability to establish complex symbol systems, to make and modify social systems, and to build elaborate normative systems to guide his own behavior. The root of of man’s inventiveness seems to lie in his capacity—evidently correlated with his highly developed brain—to envisage possibilities beyond the actuality of immediate experience. Human knowledge, including scientific knowledge, reflects this capacity and depends on it.

Detail from Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

After these words Professor Rhinelander elaborates on the nature of “the scientific enterprise,” concluding that “…the ideal of scientific neutrality is itself, like all other ideals, a human invention. And like other human ideals, it is subject to abuse if its character and function are misconceived.”

Upon offering this cautionary about imputing neutrality to “the scientific enterprise,” the author finally lists four views of man that may lead to the “unifying focus” he says is needed, as the essential first step, for man to understand man.

  1. Use our (“man’s”) inherent inventiveness to engage in metaphysical inquiry into the nature and coherence of our underlying preconceptions about the world, about the foundations of human knowledge, and about man himself. “We must direct our primary attention to the assumptions and patterns of analysis that we bring to all our acts of knowing and judging.”
  2. “(We must) recognize the immense importance of imagination in all human activities—imagination in the sense of the ability to construct hypotheses and ideals that go beyond what has actually been observed.”
  3. We must see the supposed gap between scientific activities and humanistic activities in a new light. “The familiar distinction between facts and values (should be) seen to rest on an act of abstraction that we ourselves make.”
  4. Accepting the above three imperatives as a model “allows us to do justice to man’s persistent search for meaning, a need that has long been recognized by artists and writers…”

(T)he search for meaning can produce evil as well as good. As Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor pointed out: the hunger for meaning and order may become so great as to drive men to sacrifice freedom in order to escape from the burden of bewildered frustration it can cause.…I am convinced that an essential part of the remedy (to this potential evil) lies in the preservation of what Marcel calls the philosophic spirit…

Thus an understanding of man leads us necessarily to metaphysical and historical inquiry. From these we learn to live for an openness, honesty and simplicity in our human relationships and against forces of fanaticism that threaten to debase or destroy the dignity of man. This inner attitude should manifest itself in all our actions. We still profit from the legacy of Plato and Aristotle that intellectual understanding is fundamental to man and that all wise human action depends on it.

If I were a professor having just presented all the above to a class of students, I would ask them (and I do ask you, the reader): “what assumptions about human nature and the world does Professor Rhinelander have which color his perceptions and, therefore, his advice to us?”

I wish I could have been able to engage Prof. Rhinelander in a discussion about the various “types” of normal, healthy people that are found historically (by Socrates and Aristotle, for instance) and recently (by C.G. Jung and G.I. Gurdjieff, for example) throughout the world. There are “types” who are quite comfortable with abstractions and philosophical inquiry, and other types who are quite impatient with them, and even dismissive of them. I dare to say there are many more of the latter than of the former.

In order for Professor Rhinelander’s admirable ideals to be realized, countless millions of people must be willing and able to significantly change their perceived views of man and the world. I offer three examples, only, and without invidious implication, of those who must alter their views to some significant degree: those who believe, and “know” in their deepest selves, that Jesus Christ, or the Prophet Mohamed, or The Buddha have correctly propounded the way we are as humans and the way we ought to live.

 

When all Christians, all Muslims, all Buddhists and other believers, and non-believers, agree on the nature of man and his proper place in the universe, then we will have effectively reached the ideals that Professor Rhinelander shows us in his admirable book.

Posted in Books & Literature, Consciousness, The Mind, The Self | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments