Wood - John Adams and Thomas Jefferson - Friends Divided

Citizens and politicians often debate American exceptionalism. Gordon S. Wood’s Friends Divided: John Adams & Thomas Jefferson (2017) explains that this debate goes all the way back to the founding “fathers” and how they viewed the basic qualities of humanity and how that would influence the structures and processes of governance.

As very influential figures in the days leading up to the American Revolution, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson came from very different backgrounds which led to divergent ideas about how to structure the new government of the American colonies. Adams arose from humble beginnings, strove for credibility, and was suspicious of those with privilege, believing that the power of money would corrupt. Jefferson was an aristocrat steeped in privilege, holding vast property and utilizing slave labor to work the land, and confident that the “Age of Enlightenment” would create a free and prosperous society. Even with their differences, the two men found ways to complement each other’s ideas as they drafted the ideals and structure of the young nation.

Once they moved into the Presidency, first Adams as a Federalist and then Jefferson as a Republican, their views changed and they drifted apart, often expressing deep disagreement with each other. The Federalist view was to create a strong executive branch and complementary legislative bodies committed to establishing services to benefit citizens. The Republican view was to minimize government’s role, leaving matters of citizen welfare to the individual or local government. Both opposed Hamilton who had created the financial infrastructure that formed the basis for the political power of the federal government and the fiscal-military state.

Both men had European appointments after the Revolution which biased Adams toward British culture and governance and Jefferson toward France, with a particular affinity toward its revolutionary inclinations. Adams preferred the British separation of powers to protect against abuses of privilege while Jefferson preferred open election to any and all roles (assuming that the candidate was a property owning male). This resulted in Adams being criticized as a “monarchist” while Jefferson was praised for his advocacy of education as a way to prepare citizens for their democratic responsibilities.

“Jefferson told the American people what they wanted to hear – how exceptional they were. Adams told them what they needed to know – truths about themselves that were difficult to bear.” (p. 7) Wood attributed this essential difference as the reason Jefferson was more highly regarded in his day and why his name is more revered today. Yet, the fact is that Jefferson held an inherently elitist idea of himself and America while Adams lauded direct labor and the emerging middle class it birthed.

It took many years after their terms for the two to reunite. The renewed bond of their last years was sealed when both died on July 4, 1826, the day commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the founding of country they shaped. Before they came to their deaths, both Adams and Jefferson came to a similar conclusion about the difficulty of democracy - that democracy required a great deal of its citizens, specifically that “each citizen must somehow be persuaded to sacrifice his personal desires for the sake of the public good.” (p. 115) In the end, owing to an overly optimistic view of humanity’s potential, Jefferson was apparently unprepared for the shortcomings of the country he had helped create. Adams remained resilient and hopeful that the systems he created would prevail, even in the face of inequities he believed were natural and persistent in human capacity.

As others have written (most recently Coates in We were Eight Years in Power, 2017), there is copious evidence that the United States has portrayed itself as exceptional but has failed in ways that disprove its claims. Reflecting on Wood’s skillfully crafted compilation of John Adams’ and Thomas Jefferson’s contributions to the founding of the United States, the question of the modern era is if Jefferson’s exceptionalism or Adams’ more cynical view is more defensible. Which is most likely to secure for its citizens a guarantee of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (as drafted by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence)? Jefferson would have relied on the enlightened goodness of humanity while Adams would have advocated separation of powers and checks and balances to protect against the abuses of power and privilege.