Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (2018 Kennedy Library Forum)

[Applause] good evening I'm James Roth deputy director of the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on behalf of my colleague Stephen Rothstein executive director of the Kennedy Library Foundation and all of my library and foundation colleagues thank you for coming this evening I would also like to acknowledge the generous support of our underwriters at the Kennedy Library forums lead sponsor Bank of America the Lowell Institute and our media sponsors the Boston Globe Xfinity and WBUR I'm also delighted to welcome all of you who are watching tonight's program online we look forward to a robust question and answer period this evening and when Q&A starts we will invite those of you who are joining us in person tonight to proceed to the microphones in the aisles to ask your questions professor wood has kindly agreed to sign books after tonight's forum our bookstore has copies of his most recent book available for purchase if you're interested and in honor of our week-long celebration of Presidents Day and we at the library consider every day of the year to be Presidents Day this evenings conversation will center on two of the founding fathers whose friendship while sometimes contentious is chronicled in friends divided John Adams and Thomas Jefferson this was a friendship that was based on contrasts as distilled down by Professor woods acute observation that quote 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 and quote yet in those truths quote there was nothing inspiring about it nothing that could sustain a nation and while in the end it was Jefferson's set of beliefs that held the nation together it was both men's love for one another that allowed their friendship to endure I'm now honored to introduce Gordon s wood the Alva Oh a university professor and professor of history emeritus at Brown University he is the author or editor of numerous works that have a profound influence on understanding of the American Revolution highlights include his 1969 book the creation of the American Republic 1776 to 1787 an excellent read if you haven't read it I've read it a couple of times actually I had two for class I'm not bitter it was good it did receive the Bancroft and John H Dunning prizes and was nominated for the National Book Award his 1992 book the radicalism of the American Revolution which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Emerson prize his 2009 book Emperor Empire of Liberty a history of the early republic 1789 to 1815 which won the New York Historical Society American history book book prize and of course friends divided John Adams and Thomas Jefferson which he'll discuss tonight in more detail in 2011 Professor wood was awarded the National Humanities medal by President Obama I'm also delighted to introduce our moderator for the evening Annette gordon-reed is the Charles Warren Warren professor of American legal history at Harvard Law School and a professor of history in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University a renowned law professor in scholar of American history Gordon Reed has published six books including the hemings's of Monticello an American family in 2008 which won numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize in history as the National Book Award for nonfiction her most recently published book with Peter s oneth is most blessed of the patriarchs Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the imagination her next book a Jefferson reader on race is forthcoming from Princeton University her honors include the National Humanities medal a Guggenheim Fellowship in the humanities a MacArthur Fellowship and many others please join me in welcoming professor Wood and professor Gordon Reed for this very special thank you very much it's great to be here good to be here with you we always have conversations but never in front of so many people this is actually quite interesting friends divided well I thought I'd start to ask you why by asking you when you're right do you think about the current moment that you're in no no I get I'm back in the 18th century back in the 18th century you don't think I don't think about no the present has no obvious at least to me effect on my attitudes although I must say the ending of my book I did take into account current events but I was led that way by by Lincoln who I don't know how many people have read the speeches of Lincoln but he did some in 1858 on the eve of the Civil War he talked about the heterogeneity of America it's tribal divided into ethnicities and different religions and how you could hold these diverse peoples together he could could scarcely have anticipated how diverse we would become but even he in 1858 thought that the United States was a difficult nation to hold together not just sectional II he was talking about all of these immigrants would come in and he names them the French the squeeze the Germans the Irish and he said how can they relate to the founders and he said the reason they can relate is through the the old Declaration of Independence and that's when he gives all honor to Jefferson and he said that those that phrase all men are created equal he says makes them and this is an extraordinary quotation that he squirt Larry extraordinary phrase use a blood of our blood flesh of our flesh we relate to the founders in that way because of the Declaration of Independence and it's extraordinary speech and that I think is what led him to honor all on it to mr. Jefferson he said and Jefferson has become a touchstone for us until recently he was he was number one now of course he's in a lot of disfavor but I think still commands the attention of most and that's how you in the book thinking about our legacy Jefferson's legacy to us right certainly I thought about both of them and and Adams of course has none of the celebrity status that Jefferson has we Jefferson has a memorial on the tidal basin in Washington there's nothing like that for Adams Monticello is a world heritage site visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year and and Adams is very modest home over here in Quincy gets only a fraction of those visitors and actually I was told closes town in the off season so there's there's just a difference between them and there was a difference back then I mean there was a wonderful when they get back together after 1812 and I began exchanging letters exchanged 158 letters with Adams writing three to every one of Jefferson's and and he was felt guilty about that and and yet Jefferson said don't mind don't mind I I'm happy to receive your letters and Adam said to him well you probably are much busier than I am and he said how many letters did you get last year how many correspondents and Jefferson said well I had twelve hundred and something and Adams wife said why god she only had a hundred and twenty so a tenth he's only get it see Jefferson was a superstar an intellectual superstar liberal superstar back in that time he's corresponding with the desire of russia with alexander the great naturalist and and adams is no not in that league at all celebrity league and he's still not and so this there's just a difference between the two of them and and i think rightly so because atoms were so cantankerous so cynical about human nature so realistic you might say he defied he took on all of our myths that by which we live that is all men are created equal the the in the united states is exceptional he denied all of that and he could not really be the inspirer for a nation who you called jefferson the child of light and adams you don't call him the child of darkness but he's the child of semi light similarly a luminosity uh how did they get to be friends if they were you say that they're very very different people different personalities different personalities how did they get to be friends and what ultimately divided them well they got to be friends in the continental congress the Second Continental Congress Jefferson missed the first one because he became ill he sent along a document which his colleagues then published it became the summary view of the conflict 1774 it was the most radical pamphlet yet to appear in the Imperial controversy in the Imperial debate and Adams loved it because he was the radical in the Congress and that immediately bonded him with with Jefferson Jefferson joined the Second Continental Congress and that's when they met Adams in the meantime ed but of course taking the lead orally in in in speeches pushing the Congress towards independence and he saw a fellow radical the two of them were agreed on the need for independence and for reforming Jefferson had all kinds of ideas of reforming his states I Adams wasn't so keen on that but he was certainly keen on breaking from from Great Britain so that's what bonded them what broke them of course were was the French Revolution and the partisan politics that emerged in the 1790s when Adams became vice-president and Jefferson was Secretary of State in the new Washington administration it will come back to that but so they meet in the continental Second Continental Congress and then they meet in Europe they're together in Europe what about their different attitudes their responses to their time in Europe well Jefferson of course was a Francophile although he had some misgivings about the French when he saw them up close but he nonetheless he nonetheless thought that France was a wonderful country and and would immediately he hoped would adopt republicanism and join the Republican ranks and and he the both of them are puritanical they both are a little offended by the French attitude towards sexual relations which they thought both of them thought was a little life centrist especially John and Abigail were really astounded that someone like Franklin could could be sit around with a with a woman on his lap while her husband was right next door right next to them that kind of behavior appalled Adams but Adams was fearful of France fearful of the art because he very sensuous man Adams much more sensuous I think than Jefferson anybody would figure that out he feared the effect of art and he said this this place is it's very dangerous for people because they are going to be taken in by that all right Adams was a extraordinarily sensuous and I'll give you an example when he goes to Philadelphia in the Continental Congress he had to practice on Sundays of going to the different churches he had never seeing a Catholic cathedral and he's fascinated he goes in and he sees a Catholic Mass and he describes it to abigail with all of the the the setting and the blood he said and they the incense and the the whole thing and then he stops at the end and he says to her how did Luther ever break the spell he's attracted to this there's this a kind of statement that Jefferson would never have first of all he never would have gone to a Catholic cathedral to experience it he wasn't that interested in religion Adams was although they both were essentially Unitarians in their adult lives but Adams was responsive to the ark in a way I think that that Jefferson wasn't wasn't quite as responsive so it was not just Adams Abigail John Adams who was Jefferson's friends he was quite Jefferson was quite friendly with Abigail is very much an extraordinary person so Jefferson's wife has died so he's a widow or at this point but John Adams has a marriage that you describe as a companion companion marriage and also she was a friend with with Jefferson as well in a sense they adopted Jefferson Adams actually he's only eight years older but he thought of Jefferson's a younger man almost like his son and he he he and Jefferson of course deferred to Adams which is what why Adams liked him so much and and they brought him into the their family and Jefferson was fascinated by this family he's fascinated by Abigail because he had never never met a woman like her who managed the household was all of that that had all those skills but at the same time was intellectually the equal of the two of them he she could command quotations from Milton or from from other poets Shakespeare and she could talk to them as an intellectually Jefferson I don't think it ever met a woman like her until he met Maria Cosway so I think he he took to this family and he became a member they would take John Quincy who is with him the young young boy and they would go to a concert together or or tour Symphony and so he became part of their family that that's when the real bonding took place in the 1780s and then of course when they were separated Abigail and and and mr. Jefferson exchanged letters and gifts he he flirted with her mild flirtation he said to him one one point I was going to buy a little statue of Venus for your dining room but then I thought - Venus is in the same room would be a mistake now that little kind of but she thought he she said he is a choice one she really admired him and he admired her the two of them were really quite close they shopped the shop again that's right he bought things for her and she bought things for him especially after they they got separated because John and Abigail went on to London as minister to London and Jefferson remained in Paris as the minister to France so they had an extraordinarily close relationship in Abigail and and Jefferson as well different personalities different responses to to Europe different ideas about constitutions as well did they they well Adams was taken with the English Constitution and he wanted to adopt the aspects of the US Constitution and apply them to - to the United States to the state constitutions that's where he focused on first in fact most Americans weren't much concerned with the federal level until 1787 but from 1776 on that was the year of the state constitution making and Adams wrote the most important pamphlet advising his fellow Constitution makers about how their Constitution should be structured what he really wanted was a was an executive that had an absolute veto because the king of England had an absolute veto and he wanted the Senate or an upper house he didn't call it a Senate he called it a council which is what Massachusetts had and a Lower House of Representatives Adams had a tremendous influence on our Constitution and account our Constitution making both at the state and then later at the Federal Constitution as well he was not there neither man was there in Philadelphia but Adams because he had written the Massachusetts Constitution which of course is still in existence in 1780 that Constitution had a governor with a limited veto Adams wanted a full veto but he had to accept a qualified veto that's the first governor to have that and of course when the Constitution makers in Philadelphia came to make create the presidency and and they Senate in a lower house they had the Massachusetts Constitution as a model and so the president has a qualified veto and that I'm sure was based on the experience with Massachusetts that that's the best you could do Adams was always always felt that that was a mistake it shouldn't the governor should have had a full veto could not be overridden in other words so the the two of them Jefferson accepted the idea of a bicameral legislature which made him less radical than say Thomas Paine in that respect but he certainly did not want a strong governor until he experienced the weakness of the googling the toriel office when he became governor of Virginia in 1779 he realized that the government need a little more clout and so he changed his mind a little bit later but he essentially was fearful of the executive and and he said to Adam or Adam said to him at one point you fear the one I fear the the few meaning the aristocracy so they differed in in that but Adams was I think very important in Constitution making in insofar as we have checks and balances it's it's Adams who really pushed for those kinds of checks and balances another difference between the two of them and that comes through in the reading and from other things as well that Jefferson really hated England oh definitely hated the English and so how did Adams maintain a sense of connection to Great Britain even after breaking from it I mean Jefferson thought that this is it should be brand new we should do different things you know the British constitution he'd loved it at one point but then when he becomes disillusioned a revolutionary and he says we're gonna do something different he wants to leave that behind how did Adams keep the affection Alice felt that the English Constitution once it was relieved freed of its corruption there's this famous story that Jefferson actually took notes on in 1790 there was a dinner party with Adams Hamilton and Jefferson and Adams is going on around how the English Constitution is the best Constitution if only the corruption were removed and what he meant by corruption was that the members of the of the House of Commons and the House of Lords were bought off by being given royal offices and sometimes cabinet positions now if you think about it that's the source of the of the parliamentary system that still exists in England you have to be a member of parliament in order to sit in the ministry if you lose your seat in the House of Commons you have to leave the ministry so that Adams saw that is corruption Hamilton who had a much clearer understanding of the English Constitution said no the English Constitution is the best Constitution in the world with corruption and he actually foresaw in some dim way the future of the English Constitution Jefferson of course was appalled by this conversation thought both of these men are are out of their minds so but Adams thought if you could just get rid of that corruption the English Constitution had that perfect balance with a Senate I mean up a house a House of Lords and then a lower house the House of Representatives and then balanced by a a strong executive or the crown and so he that was his model and he was completely enamored of it Jefferson was appalled and hated the English and of course loved the French and and loved the French Revolution because he saw the French Revolution as a continuation of the American Revolution a sister Republic and Adams was was frightened and disgusted by the French Revolution and saw himself as when he read Burke he said that's my man that's the that's the view I have he thought that the French were ill-equipped for republicanism and of course one of the their relationship when they got back together in 1812 their relationship was a strange one because Adams kept digging him I mean that's the way Adams was he teased he well we can understand it today two guys get along and they kid each other well he kept doing this Jefferson was not that kind of person he's very polite very restrained and he would put up with these digs I mean that one you know he would say to him this is 1815 the French Revolution is kaput Napoleon's been defeated the Bourbons are back in the throne and so where does Adams say to Jefferson saw mr. Jefferson what do you think of the French Revolution now that's the kind of digs that he would give and Jefferson respire did not respond he could not be provoked he valued the friendship they'd gotten back it took so long I mean from 1818 12 they never spoke to one another never wrote to one another so after 1812 and that was only because of Benjamin Rush four who worked for two years to bring these two men together Jefferson put up with a lot of teasing from from Adams so the 1790s you mentioned him and whose name we can't have any night without mentioning obviously Hamilton they both hated him that's right that's the one thing they had in common hatred they hate now I understand why Jefferson hated Hamilton I understand the difference you know the report or manufacturers different understanding of the system of government but Adams and and Hamilton are Federalists they believe you know they both believe in the British constitution corruption or not but they they were angle file so but at the end what had ups hated Hamilton why did he hate him well Hamilton never was happy with him with Adams becoming president he really did not want him to to succeed to the throne and so to speak as Adams saw his his vice presidency was the first step the only man he said I would serve under meaning as vice president would would have been Washington he says so he thought it was natural that he should become president in 1796 Hamilton was not at all pleased because he saw Adams as somewhat erratic he was volatile he's excitable he's not a steady federalist he did Adams did not like banks do not understand banks and certainly did not share Hamilton's view of turning the United States into a strong fiscal military state which is what Hamilton wanted to do that's what Hamilton wanted right Hamilton wanted so this thing about the you know the lovable immigrant from Miranda is you know there's there's another kind of Hamilton Hamilton was a dangerous man he was a Napoleonic figure he really had grandiose visions for the United States he certainly I mean we've turned him into the and Miranda he was an immigrant in the sense that he came from a Caribbean British colony but he his vision of what America should be he's not a proto capitalist as evil although they certainly solve the financial problem with the United States but his his aim was was much no P he was much more like Napoleon he wanted grandeur he believed in glory and he's he's got a an eighteenth century view of greatness and he had all kinds of wild ideas about what he was going to do when he got ahold of this army that he was going to get in 1798 going down into Mexico and really making the United States even bigger and better in his mind so he's a very dangerous figure very much like burr and that's what makes the drama of their confrontation all the better but Miranda doesn't get into that aspect of Hamilton he's got another story to tell and but Adams doesn't like him definitely he pegs him as an actually accuses him of being a foreigner which is unfair because nevus was just as much a British colony as Massachusetts seemed in 1750s when when Hamilton was born they were both born in British colonies so they're not he's no more of a foreigner than then Adams was they're both sources they had a source in the British Empire but he he resents Hamilton's manipulations and attempts to replace him with somebody else as president and then of course by 1798 Hamilton writes a pamphlet which is supposed to be just for fellow Federalists damning I mean in the most detailed way saying this man is insane he said things about Adams that most progressives are saying about Trump today in other words this man is totally unhinged he's unable to function he's dangerous he's stupid he just wild and all of these kinds of things and obviously Adams was furious at this kind of description Adams was very erratic and did not see himself as a party man he hated the idea of being part of a party and so there's and he did not like the financial program that Hamilton was building so he had real reasons to to oppose the Hamiltonian program although he was frightened to death of the Jeffersonian Republicans who many people saw as a kind of Fifth Column for France and in 1798 the danger of a French invasion was real to Adams and to many other Federalists so talking about the 1790s we think about this as a very partisan time a very you know we're at each other's throats and so forth a very difficult time talk about the 1790s that was the time of discord as well this farm is obviously we end up with Jefferson and Adams as it was opponents during this time period a 79s are far more partisan anything we think we're experiencing now and by 1798 we came as close to a civil war as we've ever done in our history with the exception of the actual Civil War in the middle of the 19th century so people can't appreciate just how fearful we were we thought that the French were going to invade I mean after all Napoleon was invading all over Europe even into the into the Holland and set up the Bavarian Republican France was setting up puppet Republic's in Germany in Holland in Italy and and many people thought they were going to come across the Atlantic and with the help of a Fifth Column movement that all of these Quisling Jeffersonian Republicans to set up a fifth column I set up a puppet Republic here in the United States at this point ten percent of the population was made up of French EMA grace the population of Philadelphia I should say the capital of Emma grace and it was a frightening time which helps account for the Alien and Sedition Acts which of course have discredited the Federalists I actually think this was the most frightening moment in our history with the the second most frightening may may have been in in early 1942 when we feared a Japanese invasion and you know what we did in turning hundreds of thousands of Japanese many of them citizens of the United States not just aliens but citizens we were frightened of an invasion now the invasion didn't occur and therefore we feel terribly guilty and embarrassed by that the same thing happened the French did not actually invade and therefore it makes the Federalists fears seem wrongheaded but they didn't know the future they didn't know that Napoleon was going to defeat that what's his name no they at the Battle of the Nile Bureau trip aliens oh yeah Nelson Nelson is that females up on the Yeltsin the positive defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile destroyed the French fleet and therefore ended the threat that was October word of that didn't come in too late in the year October of 98 and then the whole fear collapsed and the whole Federalist fears just went out there went out the door so but they didn't know that at a head of time and you have to appreciate the fears that Abigail and John had Abigail was even much more of a hardliner than that John and pushing for the Sedition Act and of course this drives Jefferson to distraction this drives Jefferson oh definitely he'd bury but she feels that these this is another thing that that really sort of blames on crazy and he's he's completely in support of the French Revolution he doesn't fear any invasion he doesn't think they're going to invade and he just wants he thinks some the Federalists are taking us back to monarchy and that's all it there's a legitimate fear on the part of the Republicans as well the Jeffersonian Republicans because there is there are members of the Federalist Party who want to become closer to England and here's Adams writing in the his gavel ER essay sub 17 1991 where he says look our elections have become so corrupt so faction ridden so partisan that we're going to have to have a hereditary eventually have to have a heretic Senate and hereditary president he puts that in print there's Jefferson had real fears that the America was being returned to monarchy and that drove the Republican Party the fear of that historians have trouble accepting that you once it didn't happen well I find they think well it didn't happen therefore they must have the I think good historians have said those Republicans were paranoid and then other stories are saying well they those Federalists are crazy because there was no French invasion so you get in the aftermath we know what happened it's just the same thing we have we are view now of the Japanese internment but you know who signed off on that Earl Warren Attorney General FDR signed off on the internment of the Japanese citizens so we have to realize you have to get back to that time and realize how frightened people were that's the problem of of history to recover the past even though you're living in the president it's very difficult to do so Adams has one term what is the best thing that you think he did we talked about his failures but what do you what do you think well the best thing you did and I he he said it was the greatest greatest statesman like action was to against all opposition from his party send a another delegation in the aftermath of the XYZ affair where which had been a disaster the French had had ridiculed our ministers and tried to bribe them and and treated them with contempt and and so that we had withdrawn and that's what we had a quasi-war with France we're on the verge of war we exchanging gunfire that the in the ocean Adams in light of all of this in the fear of invasion all of this he sends a another Minister thinking that maybe this will work and it did unfortunately that he came back with a convention that is a peace treaty but it didn't arrive in the United States until after the election which he had lost I think if it arrived earlier he might have won that election because it was it wasn't that it was close enough that he could have won if I think he had gotten that convention sooner but that was a courageous action because it was opposed by everybody in his party and therefore he had to defy his closest friends I'm not sure he even told Abigail he didn't tell anyone he just went ahead and did this on his own not something you want your presidents to do especially now yeah so you it was a erratic action but a bold and courageous one as it turned out and it also in because that ended the question raged many of the Federalists as well and oh yeah no and Hamilton was already right right yeah but of course it prepared the way for Jefferson's victory and the Federalists were doomed from that moment on they never acquired any kind of national reputation in the although they thought they would be brought back because the French this French or French president which is what they call Jefferson was was designed he was okay to be a college professor but never to be President of the United States and he fooled them and and succeeded brilliantly No so Adams losses now up until the time we haven't can't do the whole of this but they're fighting they're sniping at this point or do their surrogates Jefferson is actually supporting people who are writing some pretty nasty things about Adams during the during the end of the 1790s Adams losses and then he's kind of churlish in his treatment of Jefferson oh he's he's humiliated he thought that there was a natural thing that he should be served the two terms the way Washington had and he's just utterly humiliated refuses to attend Jefferson's inauguration he was not the only president that turned his back on the successor his son John Quincy did the same for Andrew Jackson but he just was pure and they never after that they never spoke with each other for 12 years there was a brief moment in 1804 when Abigail writes a letter of condolence Jefferson's daughter had died and this had been the daughter that that Abigail had known and had had hosted in in London when she came over with Sally Hemings and and Abigail writes a letter of condolence and and her own son had died recently a few years earlier and and so she knew how he felt and he was touched by this and he wrote back a letter a warm letter but then he made a mistake of saying you know your husband and I have agreed and I lost everything and I have no quarrel with him I mean that was just disingenuous they had Tourette's McCoy but he was being polite but then he says there's only one thing that bothered me about his administration were all those midnight judges he appointed and it's true Jay Adams after the election he had lost it in November he in those days the president didn't take office and the new president didn't take office until March so he had a four or five months there and he pointed a lot of judges and and it really an irritated Jefferson and the Republicans well that sent Abigail off and she just came back hard against him and for mr. Jefferson what about you you did this and and he suddenly tried to defend himself another letter and she just got more angry and finally he just threw up his hands I can't Crete I can't deal with her anymore no she was a really tough she was I I don't think I've ever I've seen any letter anybody writing to Jefferson like that she I mean it was just she was defensive of her husband she just was going to defend them right to the bitter end and it's too bad because I think if Jefferson hadn't made that mistake of making any criticism it might have led to something but it didn't so they never spoke until so and so they go Jefferson's president a couple of terms they're not dealing with each other anymore after this and the other thing about this letter is that Adams did not know that they were corresponding that's right you didn't know about Abigail's correspondence and in one of the last letters he basically writes on the letter saying I have know nothing of this correspondence between the two of them so they're on the outs with one another and how did they get back together well actually you know Adams is not a hard-line Federalist he actually supports the Louisiana Purchase most of his Massachusetts colleagues were opposed to it and actually threatened secession because they thought oh my God all these Western states coming in they'll all be Republican states and they quite rightly saw the future and then and John Quincy supports the Louisiana he gets into the Senate as a federalist elected by in those days by the Massachusetts legislature and he supports the embargo and as did Adams well the embargo was a disaster for Boston and for the New England ports and that was that irritated the Massachusetts people so much that they asked Adams from that from his Senate seat and Adams becomes John Quincy I'm talking about now the son he becomes a Republican so in some sense there's a there's that background that that allows Benjamin Rush who worked at this mending the the bitterness he worked for two years to bring these two men together telling each of them the other one says he loves you Jefferson and finally Adams well that's enough for me or Jefferson said that's enough for me Alice makes the first move sends a letter saying I'm sending a piece of Massachusetts manufacturing it turns out to be the two volumes of his sons lectures at Harvard but Jefferson being his literal-minded as usual says oh and he launches into her as his response because the books didn't come with the letter they came later he thinks it's going to be a piece of manufacturing so he launches into a long dissertation on manufacturing in Virginia and then the books arrive and he writes a quick letter oh I'm so embarrassed but that broke the eye and then the letters flowed for the rest of their lives until 1826 158 letters with atoms as I say writing three every one of Jefferson's Adams jealous of Jefferson oh very much so especially over the Declaration of Independence because by that in the 90s the Republican Party became they began using Jefferson's authorship as as they say of the Declaration to to use him to post to make him the the leader of the Republican Party and Adams is getting frustrated he says to author the author he was the draftsman if Anna Adams could have known how famous Jefferson would become he would have written the damn thing himself you know he said and so he's very frustrated and when the Mecklenberg which is a phony declaration that came in 1775 anticipates Jefferson's words almost verbatim it's obviously spurious and Jefferson tells Adams that but gentlemen Adams are so excited by the possibility that maybe Jefferson copied somebody else's declaration and and he he wants to wants to he actually asked somebody to buy up ten copies of the newspaper that reported this because he wants to distribute to all his friends to show that Jefferson wasn't the real author of the Declaration then when Jefferson tells him it's spurious he he goes along with that he he accepts that but he's very very jealous of Jefferson and he isn't as I say he's in another celebrity league he's just not as famous as Jefferson even then he knows he comes to when he's told the Jefferson wrote ten times I had ten times more correspondence than he did he realizes I'm not in that league so why didn't he he wanted to be popular oh yes but he doesn't have the personality for it I mean he's irascible he's cynical although I think once you broke through the crustiness he could be as warm-hearted and very everyone says that including Jefferson James Madison never understood what Jefferson saw in Adams and and Jeffers has to explain to him says look once you get to know him he's really a nice guy and and Adam and Madison just shakes his head and says no I can't take it I guess can't take him he's too egotistical too vain he's too erratic he's volatile he's just not somebody that Madison could deal with but Jefferson could and and he saw something in in Adams that others who got to know him felt the same way Franklin never quite he got to know him but he always thought that he was wise man would he say that famous phrase he's wise and he's but absolutely sometimes absolutely out of his mind so is he wanted to be known you know he resented Jefferson's understand authorship of the Declaration of Independence but they had different ideas about what that meant what that document meant right the the phrase all men are created equal of course was was liberal conventional wisdom in 1776 by ten years later Adams is denying it men are not created equal he says to Jefferson no more than the United States is an exceptional nation because Jefferson invented the notion of American exceptionalism but that he'd obsess many see Jefferson and most liberals in 1776 and I think in the generals right through that whole period are all believers in nurture not nature they literally believe that all men are created equal and the differences that emerge are due to different environments that different training and that's why education becomes so important to someone like Jefferson and to other Americans and to us today despite all of our talk about genes and DNA which they didn't know about we still as Americans believe strongly in that Jeffersonian belief that environments are crucial well Adams wouldn't have any of it he said all men are created unequal he says to Jefferson I was in a foundling Hospital in Paris babies four days old and I could see they were all unequal some were beautiful some were ugly some were smart some were stupid at four days he said and that remains the same education can do very little to change that that's not an American view and that separates them more than anything Adams believed in nature not nurture and that is not what Americans want to believe or can believe and he denied that America was exceptional he said we are just as corrupt just as sinful just as vicious as every other nation there's no special Providence for the United States Adam says Jefferson says no we are a chosen country and we have a special responsibility to bring democracy or republicanism to the rest of the world they really divided on that and they divided on everything else - Jefferson was not much for religion he had no religious sensibility to speak of Adams did although they're both Unitarians in their beliefs Adams had a respect for religion that that I don't think Jefferson had so they differ on almost every single thing except the rightness of the American Revolution and their hatred of Hamilton so with all of that what does John Adams have to say to us he became this sort of lovable figure in the McCullough book and in the miniseries well though in the miniseries he wasn't as lovable as he is in the book I mean I remember watching that thinking now why are we supposed to like this guy you know through the rest of it why are we watching this I mean what is what is John well I think so I think for us Americans I think he as I say he created he was cynical he's fearful of power he created our checks and balances I think we need that fear of human that's science assessment of human nature that their people aren't all good Jefferson was an optimist and he really had a positive view of human beings he felt that if he could just remove the my mastico influences people are naturally good and they'll reach out to one another they actually can love one another Adams would not believe that he think that he thought that was hogwash we're suspicious of one another and rightly so because people aren't out for the good purposes good motives so he he said should never have any power without a check I think that's something helpful to have you need checks and balances and you need checks on power political power in particular and so if you if you believe that then you're you're you you know with Adams he contributed that to our system but all of our positive things our optimism our belief in America and it's right role in the world that's Jeffersonian and and if you believe that all men are created equal and that the environment has to be transformed in order for people to reach their full flourishing then then that's Jefferson so I think that's that's the difference between the two it have you changed your views about the two of them over the course of your career when you first when you thinking about the creation of the Erika Republic did you have one view about atoms this is pretty much the same as it is now no I didn't have a full understanding guy when I first started this book I I well I just finished editing three volumes of atoms as works writings for the library of America and I was going to write a book on how did you come to do that huh how did you come to do that well because atoms hadn't been done he was the only founder that you know the library of America has a void in for Washington Jefferson Madison Franklin where's Adams well I think he's afraid to do it so I got three volumes actually its Franklin all here's one volume Jefferson Lee is one boy Adams has got three so that he gets back at them that way but I was going to I was gonna write on Adams but then my my publishers got lawyers so president of penguin said why don't you compare him with Jefferson and I'm so glad he suggested that cuz I think I understood them better by pitting them against one another especially on this issue of all men are created equal I wouldn't have appreciated how different Adams was if I hadn't also tried to focus on Jefferson and and so I think it I understood both of them better by pitting them one against the other so when you out the creation did am I wrong and did you suggest that he was irrelevant oh well that's got Miss he is irrelevant in his ideas of other states he meant he manages to hang on to the British old-world notion that you have orders or estates of the realm like the Third Estate in France it's an order and he didn't never understood that the Senate in America had become a kind of representative body now at the outset that was not true we created in our first state constitutions houses of Representatives and then sentence well does that mean the Senate's were not representative well they weren't at the outset in 1776 and that's how Adams saw it but by the time you get to the late 80s it's not possible to think of the Senate in that way let me give you an example of what I mean in Philadelphia in Pennsylvania they had a unicameral legislature in 1776 considered very radical Adams was appalled by it now there were people in Pennsylvania who wanted an upper house because they thought that was someone you have a balanced government and so they they proposed a lobbied for it to have that change to create a second upper house and the opponent said the defenders of unicameral isms said no you're trying to foist a House of Lords on us and they said no no no that's not what we're doing we're just creating a double representation of the people Wow that's just a new thing can the people be represented twice well maybe then they could be represented three times or more and that's exactly what happened Americans began by the 1780s within a short time they're talking about all parts of the government being representative and in the Massachusetts Constitution even though Adams wrote it he weren't he left in 1779 he never got to write the introduction to the Constitution that the convention turned up and what do they do in the in the introduction his the people he left behind he was he went back to to Europe they said the governor of the state is a representative of the people everybody's a representative of the people and you know that's what happened and now we think of our senators as their peculiar they're smaller in number there they have longer terms but they're just as my representative of the people well that's not what Adams thought at all he thought they were they were separate a state that they were like the House of Lords and they're not representative of the people well he in that sense I meant he was irrelevant to American political theory well I got picked up and used in ways I had not intended well this happens often right but your view has changed you you feel that from doing this book in over the years you understanding of his are understanding of atoms atoms then Jefferson well was the most surprising thing that you learned here was it was at the point about the it was about the the difference over equal equality you know I found that Adams was so insistent on that the inequality and of course he could explain the inequality of the society that way because he says that's built into human nature and you're not gonna be able to change that and so he had a kind of iron law of oligarchy they were always going to be a few people who run things and they're not going to be the best people mr. Jefferson thought that well once you get a democracy than the people of course in their wisdom will elect the best people they've always elected me is the way he put it Adams of course didn't feel that way and felt that they you the people who gonna get to the top aren't gonna be the most virtuous they're not going to be the best people there have to be the wiliest the richest and so he had a very cynical view of what's going to happen and he but he said the fuel will always be the most dangerous in your society that's why there's a new book out called John Adams and alig and the an oligarchy he is he didn't anticipate what we might call the the 1% or though the few that seemed to dominate our society and he said you can't get away from that Jefferson it is optimism said no the fuel will be as long as they're elected they'll be okay so in the end did they finally explain themselves to one another do you think in the you know they say that they should have do you think that they actually simply not they the one issue they didn't get into very deeply with slavery that came up in the Missouri Compromise and and the community crisis and and Jefferson mentions it he's really scared by that Missouri crisis and Adams is aware of it and tells other correspondents I didn't really push him on this yeah I I don't have any truck with slavery and I've never owned a slave but I'm his view was I'm gonna leave it to those Southerners who have the problem to solve it I'm not going to preach to them what they should do that was his the view he took hands off but he realized how sensitive an issue it was and he couldn't he knew that's one thing he couldn't tease Jefferson around he could tease them about the French Revolution but he couldn't tease him on slavery he sensed that and and of course the last few years of Jefferson's life from 1819 on to 1826 are a nightmarish time for Jefferson I think he's he's not the same optimist anymore and both of them are frightened of the breakup of the of the Union over slavery they anticipate if it comes it's going to come over that issue and both of them are pessimistic they you would say that they ended their lives as pessimistic both of them both q you know peculiar sense Adams was a little more optimistic because his son has become President of the United States so but that appalls Jefferson he because he says John Quincy he's got this plan for internal improvements meaning you know roads and canals and he says if they can do that the federal government can do that they can do they can interfere with slavery and and Jefferson becomes a real fire-eating southerner frightened of the federal government and what it might do to southern institutions and and Adams is a little more optimistic of course he doesn't realize his son is going to have a disastrous presidency he dies halfway through his son's presidency and their end they ended of course as you all probably know died on the same day the 50th anniversary of July 4th of the Declaration of Independence the Jubilee celebration now there's a little manipulation there because as Jefferson says to his doctor is it the fourth yet and the doctor says no he said hang on a little while longer and Adams the same thing they they're really trying they know they're both dying and they can to some extent will it and so there is that but they neither knew their 500 miles apart they don't know what the other is doing Jeff Adams apparently said as he's dying he says Jefferson still survives and of course Jefferson had died five hours earlier but in a larger figurative sense of course Jefferson he was right about that Jefferson does survive in a way that he doesn't know Gordon thank you very much another great part of the evening we have time for questions their microphones here in the middle of the aisles surely make your way there we can't see you at all no I know well if you can elaborate on this a little bit more but when I have been studying this period there is this note they just gets mentioned and there's no other details or context but can you hear me better no better yeah that's better when there's a story that I would love for you to elaborate on I don't if you know much about it but I read it a couple of books where Adams is in London Jefferson visits and they go see Shakespeare stratford-upon-avon do we know anything about what they saw what they thought about it did they talk about it at all it just seemed like a nice little gem but I never even never heard that elaborate upon well they but yeah jefferson joins adams well Adams is ministered to to court of st. James and they tour like tourists they do go to to Shakespeare I don't recall what they said Jason supposedly kissed the ground yeah they Jefferson would have appreciated it more maybe than Adams but what was interesting is that Jefferson wants to see all the gardens where as Adams wants to go out to all the battle sites of the 17th century all the fights for freedom and cry anti Cromwell or Cromwell versus the King so they have a different interest jefferson is taking notes because he wants to apply that but I forget what they said about they do go to stratford-on-avon and they make some remark about Shakespeare but I can't remember what exactly the master or whatever but kissing the ground and that you know this is they both he loves love they both read Shakespeare both quote from him from memory in many cases of course did Jefferson ever visit Quincy and visit Adams at his home and did Adams ever visit Jefferson at Monticello and what if anything do you think after researching and writing the book that the two houses how they're so different say about both men they never visited Jefferson never came to Quincy and and Adams never saw Monticello they're just that reveals so much I mean Monticello is is its Jefferson's creation I mean it's a you know magnificent building a world heritage site a strange building in a way and it's a bachelor's building you ever seen the staircase to go up for the guests I mean it's not like other Virginia homes it's not as hospitable to for guests they have to go up this white small winding staircase Adams this house is very modest when the French minister or one of the French may he may have been the Consul sees it he says well my god this is so I mean it's so unbecoming it you know it's one of a summer house for for a third class lawyer that's that's what this house was like in France so he they're the two houses are very different in the eyes of of others in and I think for Americans today they're there one's a middling sort of house of middling serve he's well-to-do in a sense by Massachusetts now though Adams was never the richest man in Massachusetts and it bothered him I mean because he he was looked down upon by many of the other Brahmins especially his background he was not his ancestry was not up to what some of the other Brahmins thought so he has a that part of his resentment of the few of the aristocracy comes from his experience in Massachusetts he's never fully accepted by the by the Massachusetts elite the especially from the from the North Shore from Essex junto of the Essex junto he preferred to yeah and it was a house on top of a mountain Monticello yeah shaved off top of the mountain and it's a strange house Monticello and you know that he would build it up there he I think a symptomatic of Jefferson of Jefferson's view of himself he was above the society he wanted to be apart from it he saw himself as superior I mean it's a strange thing to build a house where it's difficult to get water and and everything has to be dragged up this mountain but he he saw himself as standing apart from the society and when he comes to explain the society to William Wirt remember they he writes a series of letters to William Wirt who's writing a biography of Patrick Henry in Stara 1818 10 or so and so we writes to Henry a to to Jefferson tell me about Henry tell me about the society then and Jefferson's description of society breaks it down into levels and he never never puts himself you don't know where he stands in that society it's almost as if he's apart from his description that he's above everything it's an extraordinary series of letters that he that he writes Jefferson had a freak yet he's deeply respected by his colleagues because I don't think there's any man in America who knew more about more things that Thomas Jefferson and I include Franklin in that in North America I don't think there's anyone who knew as much about more things than him then he did and they respected him but they don't know he has all kinds of ideas they they stifle them left to right in the house of in the House of Delegates in the House of Representatives they just don't follow out what he wants to do and he really is working to abolish slavery he's got all kinds of reforms that he's read back areia the the Italian jurist and he wants to do reform of the law he has all kinds of education all kinds of plans which generally speaking are not implemented except for the religious one finally madison engineers that and that's a great accomplishment and that's one of his three you know he what's interesting and he puts on his tombstone first writing author the Declaration of Independence and then also the bill for religious freedom and then UVA the creation of University of Virginia but he never mentions his presidency as his three yes professor would thank you I was very struck by your contrast between Jefferson the optimist and Adams the pessimist and I think Jefferson did apparently strike the national court more firmly in that respect and and we remain an optimist although it gets this a lot of trouble sometimes my question is do you see any other figures great figures in American history who you would say share some of Adams pessimism or healthy skepticism or whatever we're going to call it well that's a good question I don't think anyone was quite as I mean someone like Lincoln was a realist about human nature any kind of a brooding sense but he looked to Jefferson to offset that himself he was not Jeffersonian you know he's not a hail fellow mell Maddie wasn't somebody who is you'd say was a an optimist but he looked to Jefferson to offset his own gloominess if you will but I don't know if any I don't think a person like Adams could get elected as president maybe we have one with Trump in the sense that he's erratic and volatile but but Adams was better than that I think I don't think anyone who was quite do anyone after Adams was quite as as cynical you couldn't get elected if you may said the things he said you know we're gonna have to have a hereditary Senate or a hereditary president no I don't think it's been any president maybe yeah no I can't I can't think anything anybody and I was just wondering as you're saying this I was gonna ask you this before about Puritanism about New England well that is that does this shape his character yeah I think it did it he comes out of that tradition although he himself is not a Puritan there's not a pure he's a as I say is a Unitarian and his beliefs but he's shaped by the pure and outlook on the world I think and he has certainly has know he respects his ancestors and and their Puritanism even when when Jefferson makes fun of them he defends me I have a too short question and one in involves the Declaration of Independence you just spoke about and the other is about pessimism when Jefferson first drafted the Declaration of Independence he blamed slavery on the English King the English King inflicted slavery on the Americans and it was unable however he got deleted out of the Declaration of Independence how did Jefferson get from blaming slavery on an English king - what happens - later in his life well the Virginians were eager to end the slave trade lachchi because they had more slaves that he knew what to do with and he thought that the ending the slave trade might be the first step to ending slavery so he and the crown vetoed Virginia's efforts to end the slave trade in for the state for the colony of Virginia so in that sense the crown is responsible for slavery but other members of the Continental Congress realized that there was a lot of participation in the slave trade particularly from northern states like Massachusetts and Rhode Island that it was embarrassing to push this point to too far that it was the crown alone that was responsible so it got kicked out a cut out of the Declaration but Jefferson always felt that that would been a verse step towards eliminating slavery and of course the elimination of the slave trade built into the Constitution a 20-year hiatus was in the eyes of many people the first step to eliminating this tution little did they realize that slaves were reproducing virtually the same rate as in Virginia as as whites and that they Virginia is a leading expert but export by 1820 and 30 the 20 1820s and 1830s were slaves sending them to Mississippi Alabama Deep South you know Virginia couldn't grow cotton tobacco was was dying if the soil wouldn't take it so really Virginia is is a dying economy living off of slave exploitation so it's no wonder they want at the end the slave trade you know it's an interesting fact I just mentioned this I don't know if anyone's ever picked this up but in when the you know the Confederacy he occurs in two stages this oh the Lower South goes out and they drop a constitution they prohibit international slave trade Virginia's outside of the Union outside of the Confederacy Virginia cannot ship slaves to Mississippi and Alabama anymore this is an inducement to get Virginia to join into the Confederacy which they do I don't think that's the reason that the Junya does but it certainly was an economic inducement because Virginia really was dependent on the export of slaves here's the second very quick point not necessarily that serious but what is your response to Alan Taylor's review in the end mister would cast Americans as needing consoling illusions because they cannot face stubborn facts if so the true presses pessimists is not Adams but mr. woody well there's some truth to that we we do live by myths and every society does I think and that's been ours we're optimistic people generally and we have you know as President Polk said the United States is the only country in the world that has its history in the future and that's how we think and that's what keeps us going and so in that sense the you know Allen was was right about was right but I I wouldn't call them illusions so much as these are ideals dreams we're not equal but we hope to be and that keeps us going and that drives us on that those those are important beliefs I wouldn't call them illusions hi I am a high school history teacher and I guess I haven't done Jefferson a lot of favours but can you hear me I teach high school history and I really liked your comment on how Adams said all men aren't created equal and Jefferson says all men are created equal but how do you reconcile that I deal with the fact that he owned slaves and teaching high school it's really hard for them to embrace this wonderful idea Jefferson because he was a slave holder well in Jefferson's case he did not believe that Africans were equal so but he's the exception actually many of his colleagues slaveholding planners did believe they were equal they just and they understood that their environment was was not going to conducive to making them equal but somehow and many of them thought that the blackness of the Africans was due to the being scorched by the African Sun and that in the more temperate climate of of the United States that they would widen through time I mean these are the kinds of views that were trying to used but Jefferson's look you have to understand he his words and his ideals transcend his weakness as a person I mean that's understandable he's his words and what he what he said are more important than than the man himself and and that's possible to for two things to be I don't think you want to use the weaknesses and the imperfections of the man to poison the great the great words because those words are inspiring and they Lincoln saw that and and made I mean Lincoln knew that Jefferson was a slaveholder but he said all honor to mr. Jefferson they used them to mobilize support in the north to fight to deal with the problem of slavery and to fight the the war so I think we have to separate the man from the from the words and certainly the Confederacy believed he believed that Alexander Stevens so you probably use with your students when they talk about the the cornerstone speech he basically talks about the Declaration and talks about Jefferson and says they're wrong and they're not created equal and then that becomes the basis of their understanding of their new constitution so Gordon is right it's the words that really what people made of the words and they made different things of them one for Lincoln we're gonna have a new birth of freedom for the Confederacy we reject those notions you were spoke of their their philosophical split in the 1790s I was wondering if you had any comments on Jefferson sort of being the leader of this increasingly disloyal opposition while he was serving his vice president well actually it's Madison who takes the leadership but Jefferson because of his he's just a more superstar because of the Declaration in particular becomes the anointed leader but it's Madison who's actually doing the organizing of the party it starts as an interest group focused on Virginia led by Virginians and Jefferson is sort of anointed as the leader and but he takes that up because he's a very astute politician far more astute than than than Adams I mean during the election of 1796 and also in 1800 Jefferson's they're like a like a modern politician Joe which states are coming in for this what electoral votes are going to Adams is totally oblivious of all that he just doesn't seem to care so Jefferson is by far the better politician now what's interesting it to me when you think about it is the Republican Party is the party of the people it's the plebeian party but its leadership is exclusively with with southern slaveholding planners I mean the paradox these are you'd have to say limousine liberals in extreme I mean that it's just unbelievable that the leadership of the popular party should be made up of a slaveholding it's and the opposition the Federalists coming from Massachusetts with a more egalitarian the more democratic state now the paradox is explained because the Republicans in the south don't fear democracy they they've they're in a hierarchical world and they dominated in Massachusetts the leaders here aren't so sure the people are they revolt in their unruly and they revolt in Jai's rebellion and so and so they're much more suspicious of democracy even though they are in a more democratic or because they're in a more democratic in egalitarian state and it's interesting because Jefferson one of the things we was very much envious of New England he liked the fact that that you know that they had an opportunity through town meetings and so forth so it is a weird weird right says his granddaughter comes you know marries a Massachusetts man or a northerner Yankee and she comes up here and she writes back to him dad look they've solved the problem we got this stain and they and he she goes through these Connecticut towns little Massachusetts towns and she just loves it and she explains it to him and you're quite right you used it in your book that that many of his descriptions of this of the town meeting or this the small Ward Republic's sound like a New England town meeting and it's true there's a jealousy of what New England has particularly the fact that it has no slaves or by 1790 and 1818 10 when it is daughter granddaughters here there's no there are no slaves in public education curious have you've ever seen in 1776 and what your opinion to know that and through other depictions of the old Broadway show I've seen the movie it's terrific I think it's great it's kind of in you know it was that generations version of Hamilton comes across as well you know they if I remember correctly he's he's a quasi comic character and but he's the one pushing for independence right wonderful way to spend an evening by the way I was wanting to ask you if you would speak a little bit about John Adams attitude towards general Lafayette's from France and Washington and Jefferson admired him why not Adams because that's one of those French felis soft types who's got dreamy head in the clouds he's got has no sense whatsoever he's dreaming about his revolution that he's of course Lafayette was one of the plotters of the revolution little realizing that he would become its victim it was all way he escaped with his life I mean he was lucky he got out he he would have lost his head if they'd caught him so Adams has nothing but contempt for these dreamers these utopians who think that they're going to change the world I mean Adams is a real conservative he just thinks people who try to change the world they're going to end up with something worse and Lafayette is a good example in his mind a kid who just didn't know what was what he didn't know reality that was the view he had of of all these French Felice offs who many of whom did get guillotine or stoned to death as one of them did in the by Paris mob so Adams there's nothing but contempt for all the Frenchmen they just think they're they're just ill-equipped to to govern themselves his view I've read that the 1800 election was the first political campaigns that were considered dirty campaigns in the United States would you comment on the role that Jefferson and Adams played in the dirty aspects of their campaign and how it affected their relationship it was probably the most Gorillaz election in our history it's hard to think of that but now but but the two principals of course were stayed in their homes and did nothing they did no campaigning but Jefferson was certainly was was encouraging his followers I don't think he wanted them to say nasty things about Adams but he certainly wanted them to organize and to promote the Republican Party and the Republican interest because the stakes are high for Jefferson this is not ordinary politics and we make a mistake if you go back and interpret the 90s as well those are the two parties like op2 parties neither of them accepted the legitimacy of the other and and the Federalists never even saw themselves as a party they were the administration and it's the party Republicans who are threatening the government now Jefferson did see himself his Republicans as a party but it's a temporary one only mobilized until we get rid of these monic rats once the threat of monarchy is over then the Republican Party can can disappear and that's what he thought would happen after his election and and he just it didn't of course it didn't happen but that's what his whole that finally we would do away with parties once we got the Republic on firm ground so it's not don't want to think of it as part as as politics like our own but they certainly the bitterness was very great and and Jefferson is organizing in a way that he Adams was not capable of doing that I mean it's just personally or he didn't have the support of his fellow Federalists it's amazing that he got as many electoral votes as he as he did he certainly was not doing any planning he was not capable I mean temperamentally capable of doing that Jefferson was a very astute politician and was aware of what was happening and he had his his aide I mean Madison was even better and the two of them were a real team political team but the stakes were high for them this was not just winning an election this is saving the country from monarchy thank you for a very informative evening Hamilton is coming the theatrical production this coming fall to Boston and I see it as a major teachable moment you had referenced it both earlier that you know there's a certain entertainment spin to it I was curious how I might how each of you as historians would round out our knowledge of Adams Jefferson and Hamilton's relationship so that after having my kids see Hamilton I could sort of fill you know fill out a little bit more of the accurate historical context well I think it's it's good I mean I I think the play was a sensation because it got a lot of kids interested in in the American Revolution that otherwise wouldn't be interested and I think that alone is worth and of course Miranda is a genius the hip hop and and the dialogue is just wonderful I mean to go before you go see it you should listen to the disc because he okay I mean obviously Hamilton is a much more complicated figure than Miranda has he wanted to emphasize the fact that he's a new car that he saw he is a self-made man he has no background he comes as a as an orphan essentially it without anything but his brains and he's a smart guy and that really I mean he wants to go through Columbia or King's College in three three years and they tell him no you can't do that no he goes to I'm sorry he went to Princeton to do that and with a spoon there says no you can't come here we have are certain ready and so he then he goes to King's and gets it goes through faster he's I mean it's just a flaw how should I put it it's not a full picture that you get of Hamilton from the from the play you have to see him in seventeen ninety eight ninety nine when he's contemplating you know the army there was fifty thousand men voted by the Congress he's going to be the commander-in-chief in fact Washington is dragged out of retirement but he he wants Hamilton to be the de facto commander I mean that was a crisis moment and and Hamilton has visions of what he's going to do he's going to march on Virginia he's gonna break up Virginia make break up the state it's too big too powerful and it's true Virginia was the most powerful state this country has ever had no state has ever been more powerful than Virginia was in the early republic so Hamilton's got a kind of view of the world that's a little scary Napoleonic kind of view and he's gonna be the commander if the Army's gonna move south into Mexico to South America and I will be in command of it he tells Rufus King who's Minister in England he's bragging about what he's gonna do now it all goes kaput but he's he said he's not completely he's a dangerous man let's put it that way I did a French freshman seminar this past fall Hamilton and Jefferson and the only thing I could you tell you to do is just to look at history books I mean that's that's the main thing is to sort of find other sources to go along with with the plate which is magnificent but you know he has to here's a narrative he has to move the story long and you can't tell the whole story and you have to have a protagonist who is palatable for these times you know the immigrant the anti the ardent anti-slavery person all of those kinds of things that are not real but nevertheless make him as I said someone who's attractive so history books that's what you got to do the last one I think Lord Nelson by the way was also born in Nevis but in any case the question I have has to do about the correspondence between Jefferson and Abigail was there a particular reason that Abigail did not share that information of the correspondence with John do you have any insight into that when he found out there was this correspondence and secondly did Abigail in her letters to Jefferson broached a subject of his personal choices and his lifestyle that she tried to offer him any advice particularly after Jefferson was a widower did she make any suggestions as to how he could leave live a more fulfilling life well they actually the the letters that Abigail did not show John were the ones written in 1804 there's no evidence that John didn't know about the correspondence in the 1780s between Abigail and Jefferson he probably she probably showed him letters because there's nothing really this little flirtation about the Venus is a small stuff and the exchange of gifts and so on it was there was no nothing serious about there's no hanky-panky in their relationship they both I mean he really was in our of mrs. Adams and and she she says at one point he is one of the choice ones I mean she just was very impressed you had to be impressed by Jefferson everybody was impressed by Jefferson John Quincy has some de later as he gets to be a grown-up it has some doubts about Jefferson big Jefferson was very charming I mean he just was unbelievably knowledgeable about everything you just couldn't help but be awed by him I I don't I I just don't see anything in the the only correspondence that John was not privy to was the one in 80 the series of letters in 1804 which gave escalate and then she shows John later he writes that this note is as a net pointed out I just want to note I was not aware of this correspondence till I tell after it's all over you had some other question was there a no that was it thank you very much okay good thank you very much and I would like to thank everybody for coming and Gordon is gonna sign some books

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Published: Wed Feb 21 2018