The Odd Couple

They were America’s original odd couple -- a tall, reserved Southern gentleman and a short, feisty New England lawyer. Yet together, they were the “head and the heart of the American Revolution.” 

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met in the Continental Congress. Together, they crafted one of America’s founding documents, served as delegates to France during the Revolution, and as ministers to the English court after Independence. They stood together as the King of England gave America the ultimate insult by turning his back on them. 

During these times, they were intimate friends. Yet not twenty years later, they were bitter enemies. What tore them apart? Party politics. 

In the first American election, political parties were superfluous. George Washington, the ultimate American, was undeniably the only choice for President. Washington stood above the political fray – at least this was the pose he assumed. Scrabbling around him, his advisors were busy forming alliances, taking sides, and promoting their own political philosophies. 

When Washington announced his retirement, these forces got busy. The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, nominally supported John Adams, then Vice-President, for the top seat. The Republicans put forward Thomas Jefferson.

At this time, promoting oneself for office was considered unseemly, so Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, who was hungry for the office, and Adams, who felt that the honor was his due as the “Atlas of Independence,” retired to their respective homes and waited for the election results. Adams won this first round, becoming the nation’s second president, while Jefferson was appointed vice-president.

Four years later, the battle lines were again drawn. This time, Jefferson’s party, led by James Madison, was slinging mud. Jefferson paid a notorious scandalmonger, James Callender, to publish scurrilous articles about Adam’s unsuitability for the presidency, calling him a “hoary-headed incendiary” who was determined to go to war with France and declare himself “President for life” with his son John Quincy as his successor. Adams lost.

Callendar’s accusations were false, but what hurt Adams most was the loss of his friendship with Jefferson. When Adams held the presidency, he had wanted to create a “bipartisan administration” collaborating fully with Jefferson. Jefferson instead chose his party over his friendship. Abigail Adams wrote that Jefferson had “mortgaged his honor to win an election” and accused him of being a “man of party rather than principle.” 

This legacy continues today. Politicians, who should work together for the good of the country, square off in their respective corners and fight it out, slinging accusations and slugging it out in the public arena. No one wins. Today’s government is more divided along party lines than almost any other time in our history. The last time we were so divided, we had a civil war. 

Adams considered the word “party” to be an epithet, something you sling at an enemy. Jefferson, who denied his connection with Callendar (until Callendar produced letters from Jefferson authorizing the mudslinging), was stung himself by party politics. He later described party allegiance as “the last degradation of a free and moral agent” and claimed that “if I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”

Several years after both had retired from public life, John Adams was induced by a mutual friend to renew his friendship with Jefferson. He wrote “You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.” For the next twenty years, they corresponded to do just that, leaving us with a treasury of wisdom and history. 

This odd couple discussed their differences and came to the same conclusion: American politics must rise above party for the good of the Republic. So many years later, can we not agree with them? 

(All quotations from Joseph Ellis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Founding Brothers.)