The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
ADAMS, JOHN / RELATIONSHIP WITH
I receive with sensibility your observations on the discontinuance of
friendly correspondence between Mr. Adams and myself, and the concern
you take in its restoration. This discontinuance has not proceeded
from me, nor from the want of sincere desire and of effort on my part,
to renew our intercourse. You know the perfect coincidence of
principle and of action, in the early part of the Revolution, which
produced a high degree of mutual respect and esteem between Mr. Adams
and myself. Certainly no man was ever truer than he was, in that day,
to those principles of rational republicanism which, after the
necessity of throwing off our monarchy, dictated all our efforts in
the establishment of a new government. And although he swerved,
afterwards, towards the principles of the English constitution, our
friendship did not abate on that account. While he was Vice-President,
and I Secretary of State, I received a letter from President
Washington, then at Mount Vernon, desiring me to call together the
Heads of departments, and to invite Mr. Adams to join us (which,
by-the-bye, was the only instance of that being done) in order to
determine on some measure which required despatch; and he desired me
to act on it, as decided, without again recurring to him. I invited
them to dine with me, and after dinner, sitting at our wine, having
settled our question, other conversation came on, in which a collision
of opinion arose between Mr. Adams and Colonel Hamilton, on the merits
of the British constitution, Mr. Adams giving it as his opinion, that,
if some of its defects and abuses were corrected, it would be the most
perfect constitution of government ever devised by man. Hamilton, on
the contrary, asserted, that with its existing vices, it was the most
perfect model of government that could be formed; and that the
correction of its vices would render it an impracticable government.
And this you may be assured was the real one of difference between the
political principles of these two gentlemen. Another incident took
place on the same occasion, which will further delineate Mr.
Hamilton's political principles. The room being hung around with a
collection of the portraits of remarkable men, among them were those
of Bacon, Newton and Locke, Hamilton asked me who they were. I told
him they were my trinity of the three greatest men the world had ever
produced, naming them. He paused for some time: "the greatest
man," said he, "that ever lived, was Julius Caesar."
Mr. Adams was honest as a politician, as well as a man; Hamilton
honest as a man, but, as a politician, believing in the necessity of
either force or corruption to govern men.
You remember the machinery which the federalists played off, about
that time, to beat down the friends to the real principles of our
Constitution, to silence by terror every expression in their favor, to
bring us into war with France and alliance with England, and finally
to homologize our Constitution with that of England. Mr. Adams, you
know, was overwhelmed with feverish addresses, dictated by the fear,
and often by the pen, of the
bloody buoy, and was seduced by them into some open
indications of his new principles of government, and in fact, was so
elated as to mix with his kindness a little superciliousness towards
me. Even Mrs. Adams, with all her good sense and prudence, was
sensibly flushed. And you recollect the short suspension of our
intercourse, and the circumstance which gave rise to it, which you
were so good as to bring to an early explanation, and have set to
rights, to the cordial satisfaction of us all. The nation at length
passed condemnation on the political principles of the federalists, by
refusing to continue Mr. Adams in the Presidency. On the day on which
we learned in Philadelphia the vote of the city of New York, which it
was well known would decide the vote of the State, and that, again,
the vote of the Union, I called on Mr. Adams on some official
business. He was very sensibly affected, and accosted me with these
words: "Well, I understand that you are to beat me in this
contest, and I will only say that I will be as faithful a subject as
any you will have." "Mr. Adams," said I, "this is
no personal contest between you and me. Two systems of principles on
the subject of government divide our fellow citizens into two parties.
With one of these you concur, and I with the other. As we have been
longer on the public stage than most of those now living, our names
happen to be more generally known. One of these parties, therefore,
has put your name at its head, the other mine. Were we both to die
to-day, to-morrow two other names would be in the place of ours;
without any change in the motion of the machinery. Its motion is from
its principle, not from you or myself." "I believe you are
right," said he, "that we are but passive instruments, and
should not suffer this matter to affect our personal dispositions."
But he did not long retain this just view of the subject. I have
always believed that the thousand calumnies which the federalists, in
bitterness of heart, and mortification at their ejection, daily
invented against me, were carried to him by their busy intriguers, and
made some impression. When the election between Burr and myself was
kept in suspense by the federalists, and they were meditating to place
the President of the Senate at the head of the government, I called on
Mr. Adams with a view to have this desperate measure prevented by his
negative. He grew warm in an instant, and said with a vehemence he had
not used towards me before, "Sir, the event of the election is
within your own power. You have only to say you will do justice to the
public creditors, maintain the navy, and not disturb those holding
offices, and the government will instantly be put into your hands. We
know it is the wish of the people it should be so." "Mr.
Adams," said I, "I know not what part of my conduct, in
either public or private life, can have authorized a doubt of my
fidelity to the public engagements. I say, however, I will not come
into the government by capitulation. I will not enter on it, but in
perfect freedom to follow the dictates of my own judgment." I had
before given the same answer to the same intimation from Gouverneur
Morris. "Then," said he, "things must take their
course." I turned the conversation to something else, and soon
took my leave. It was the first time in our lives we had ever parted
with anything like dissatisfaction. And then followed those scenes of
midnight appointment, which have been condemned by all men. The last
day of his political power, the last hours, and even beyond the
mid-night, were employed in filling all offices and especially
permanent ones, with the bitterest federalists, and providing for me
the alternative, either to execute the government by my enemies, whose
study it would be to thwart and defeat all my measures, or to incur
the odium of such numerous removals from office, as might bear me
down. A little time and reflection effaced in my mind this temporary
dissatisfaction with Mr. Adams, and restored me to that just estimate
of his virtues and passions, which a long acquaintance had enabled me
to fix.
to Benjamin Rush, 15 January 1811
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