June was a fateful time in America 250 years ago. The 13 colonies, still part of the British Empire, had been in rebellion for over a year, ever since fighting had erupted in Massachusetts at Lexington and Concord. Gen. George Washington and the Continental Army had recently forced British troops out of the colonies, but everyone knew the redcoats would soon return to regain control. Meeting in Philadelphia, the Second Continental Congress, a provisional government created by the colonists to manage the crisis, had tried to work out a reconciliation with England, but to no avail. A complete separation seemed inevitable.
If Congress were to take that drastic step, an official document announcing the decision would be needed. Two members of the body stood out as prime candidates for such a momentous assignment: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson thought Adams should write the Declaration of Independence because he was seven years older, but Adams insisted that Jefferson, 33, should do it. Jefferson asked why. Adams replied, “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.”
The close relationship between these two extraordinary Founding Fathers began to fray, however, during Washington’s presidency, and they became bitter enemies. Adams was elected as the nation’s second president, but he lost his reelection bid to Jefferson. Adams refused to attend Jefferson’s inauguration, and they never saw each other again.
But a few years after Jefferson’s two terms in the White House, both men expressed to third parties their desire to renew their friendship. Adams broke the ice first with a letter to which Jefferson promptly replied. Over the next 14 years, they exchanged 158 letters with regularity, Adams writing from his home in Massachusetts, and Jefferson from his Monticello estate in Virginia.
THE MOST RADICAL IDEA IN AMERICAN HISTORY WASN’T DEMOCRACY
Early in their correspondence, Adams wrote, “You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.” The warmth in their relationship returned. Years later, after they both began to feel the effects of advanced years, Jefferson wrote to his friend, “Crippled wrists and fingers make writing slow and laborious. But while writing to you, I lose the sense of these things, in the recollection of ancient times when youth and health made happiness out of everything.”
At age 90, Adams lay on his deathbed. Before he took his last breath, he is said to have uttered the words, “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” But he was mistaken. Jefferson had already died five hours earlier that same day. It was, remarkably, the Fourth of July, 1826 — 50 years to the day that these two giants voted in favor of the Declaration of Independence, the document that would forever change their lives, this land, and the world.
Randolph G. Russell is the author of American History in No Time: A Quick & Easy Read for the Basics.