Public Panel Discussion: "Founding Friends, Founding Foes: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson."

How are we doing this evening? I would love to welcome to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum uh Sadie Troy, the director of education from the Adams Presidential Center and Justin Reid, civic partnership fellow for the Thomas Jefferson Monachello to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. So, please join me on stage. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Satie and Justin, thanks for leading us in this tradition we have at the Reagan Library. Um, before we begin, uh, I hope you'll indulge me a little bit in recognizing some partners and friends that we have here. Uh, Andrew Carnegie Foundation's support of Montichello civic programs uh, should be recognized. The Atom Presidential Center's participation is in tonight's program. It's brought to us by Dick and Maggie Scarlet of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And in the back of the house, many of you guys have already experienced uh Devon Pipes uh and the incredible documents from the American Journey Experience. We'll have more on that in tonight's program, but really I want to thank everyone for being here tonight. Uh we have spent here at the Reagan Library and cultural institutions around the country uh this past year celebrating an incredible anniversary, America at 250. And of course, you know, we have one of my favorite exhibits that I've seen in the last 20 years here at the Reagan Library during this time period. We've been looking back at the people, the moments, the ideas that created our incredible country. But we're in the home that Ronald Reagan built and guided by those principles. He always believed that America's best days were ahead. And that belief is why I'm so excited about tonight's conversation that will give us an opportunity to both look back, think about our founding, that incredible time, but also ask us what it can teach us about where we go from here. Because, forgive me for being romantic, but few examples exemplify President Reagan's call for an informed patriotism more than the friendship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Their relationship is one of the most complicated uh dare I say iconic uh but also really fundamentally human uh relationships. and they were friends, they were collaborators, uh conspirators, uh political rivals and eventually estranged founders. But they somehow found their way back to each other. And that's the important part because it's really improbable that we have these two idealistic rebels part of the committee of five who authored then presented the declaration of independence ambassadors architects of this country presidents of the United States. I can't list it all. And these elder statesmen pass on the same day within hours of each other on July 4th, 1826, 50 years to the day of the adoption of the Declaration. If that's a Hollywood script, I think it would actually be rejected because it's so improbable. It's so impossible. But those 50 years, it wasn't the end of the story. The Declaration was just the start. And I want to emphasize that 250 years is also not the end of the story. We have from them, we have from the Adams Presidential Center in Montichello over 1,200 letters between them and their families in what has to be the greatest correspondence in American history. Those letters are extraordinary because they allow us to see not just the founders, but these individuals as people, their ambitions, their daily lives, their frustrations, their disagreements, and their affection for one another, and ultimately that reconciliation that President Reagan, a prolific writer for his time and pretty good with the spoken word, if I do say so myself, he described their letters and that reconciliation as their last gift to us. This lesson in brotherhood in tolerance for each other. This gift I believe is an open invitation for conversation and America has always been this country of ideas and ideas invite disagreement. So these are really tough things to reconcile. And Adams and Jefferson, they disagreed profoundly about what the country they'd helped create could become. They fought about politics. They fought about power, parties, the future of the republic. So, we're now entering, we've celebrated A250, but we're entering what some are calling a civic decade or with the next 15 years, the years ahead in which will commemorate not just the Declaration of Independence and those ideals, but the revolution and the Constitution and ultimately the Bill of Rights. So as we look towards these anniversaries and towards the next 250 years, we have a real opportunity to ask, how do we bridge our own divides while continuing the work of building this country together? So to help us explore this question and this extraordinary friendship, I am delighted to welcome Jane Kmenky and Kirk Graham to the Reagan Library. Round of applause for coming back. Let's start in 1776 and because we are a presidential library uh we are protocol oriented. So I'll start with the second president of the United States and really thinking about 1776 not as this end point right we are beginning and I want to start with why why are you the genesis of this program really why are both of you on this road this founding friends founding foes program what's the genesis of this and what brings you both here >> well um is that okay okay um This is a wonderful partnership with between the Adams Center and Montichello. Montichello, I'll let Jane talk about the great tour that they put together that really sort of they came up with this concept of founding friends and founding foes, but I think for us it is a chance to acknowledge this 250th anniversary. That's we're doing this at several presidential libraries around the country. We're like rock stars. We don't even know what town we're in, you know, we just go from one to the next and it's really important that way. But um I think that the as you said in your intro Janet that the 1776 is really a a beginning. It's not it's not a I mean it's a culmination of a colonial period is a a culmination of of some of the grievances and things that are going on but I think it's really it shows a moment when they are truly collaborating on something. I mean, there are two of the five members of this committee that are working on the declaration. And so, you know, 76 is just a huge year, and we're trying to trying to make the most of it that way for the very reasons that you describe because we want people to understand that this is a a moment where we can learn something about ourselves. So, um, now speaking for the third president, um, we built this tour, founding friends, founding foes at the beginning of 2024. Um, as we're looking ahead to the 250th and um, like many public history organizations, we survey our visitors relentlessly. We get about 300,000 plus visitors a year and we want to know what they thought of what we offered them and what was missing. And they were telling us in the 2020s, we wanted to learn more about the era of the American Revolution. Um a and there's a bit of challenge in that for us because Montichello hands if you've been to Montichello recently. Okay, we got a lot of work to do. Um >> uh we we're interpreted as Jefferson's home in retirement right when he leaves the presidency in 1809. Um that's the period when the house is finally finished. It's the period of our furnishings. Um it's the period to which our curators restore the rooms and visitors said we want to learn more about the 1770s. We want to learn about um how this experiment which had reached another rocky shaw in 1809 uh got started. And um and we especially want to know and this is a 2020s question. Has it ever been this divided before? Right? like you know the founding everybody came together and um Jefferson and Adams show us both that moment of comradeship in the 1770s and early 1780s. The you know band of upstarts um uh um putting a country together out of thin air uh bailing wire and chewing gum as my mother used to say. Um and then also how people who both believe passionately in the American experiment have really different ideas about the road. Um so in 1776 they are ambassadors of two different countries Massachusetts and Virginia >> who come together in a third Pennsylvania to figure out if there is a common cause that will unite um by that point half of Britain's American colonies. There are 26 American colonies of which 13 not only are in rebellion but have been declared in rebellion by uh by George III. And for Adams, I think being put on the committee of five that's going to um draft a declaration explaining why Congress should approve Richard Henry Lee's resolution saying these United Colonies are and ought to be um free and independent states. Um Adams thinks this is the most most important thing he's ever done and Jefferson thinks it's just another congressional committee. Um uh >> already a difference >> already a difference. Um so even in that moment um not only their extraordinariness as intellectuals but their ordinariness as people who have come together to do a piece of work and they're figuring out what where each other's talents lie. >> Well, it's really humbling because we are obviously a presidential library and that is the fundamental operating principle of the Reagan library. And here are two men who are in this elite president's club and neither I believe would consider it a hallmark. It's not even on Jefferson's gravestone. Uh I believe John Adams it was placed there later by a group. So from the v from your vantage point, why are these two men worth discussing? Um where were they when they met each other? Where were they intellectually? Where were they in their careers? Well, I think the fir first of all, I think you rais a really important point in that they um they are united not by this unique club that we see it today. You know, today we see people who have been the president. We think, wow, like like you wore the ring. I mean, you you got to this level that only a handful of people are ever going to get to. And you you you know, so you they they have a bond that that that can't be described in any other way or can't be understood by other people. For Adams and Jefferson, I don't think the pres the presidency was just something they kind of had to do after they' created the nation. I don't think it was an aspiration. They didn't plan on it from the time they were 17 that they were going to try and become the president. I think it was >> it was uh >> I think it's it's important to remember that it's the revolution that unites Adams and Jefferson, not the presidency. It's not that they both served as president. It's that they were revolutionaries and as you said, co-conspirators and and worked together on that. So it's not just that they worked you know through the congress through the declaration they also helped form the country by being ambassadors abroad. I mean so they have they have all this incredible and they meet in the congress originally but they they have a lot of experience together long before either one of them becomes a president. So they met in Philadelphia in 1775 um at at the beginning of the second continental congress and um they are each what I would call movement famous. So um they have both written important things under pseudonyms. uh Adams, his Novanglas essays published in the Massachusetts Gazette um in the Boston Gazette uh has has sort of outlined the rights cause in New England and those newspaper articles are published all up and down the seabboard and um uh he's known as well as the defender of the soldiers in the Boston Massacre. So a passionate believer in the rule of law. Um he's also known to be kind of a jerk, but we can get into that later, right? He's he's not somebody who brings people together. Um Jefferson is 8 years younger, is 32 when they meet, 33 when they write the declaration, which is something that we share with visitors, especially young visitors, right? Uh Jefferson is much closer to the high school students age than he is to my age, um when he writes the Declaration of Independence. and he too has published pseudonmously or anonymously in um uh in 1774 a pamphlet called a summary view of the rights of British Americans which I think is the most radical statement of colonial rights until common sense. Um so they each have kind of a reputation. Uh Jefferson is the youngest and quietest of the Virginia delegation. The first time Adams mentioned him, uh, I think is in the fall of 1775, and he says, "This guy never talks, right? He's he's like, he's a great rubber off of dust is the phrase. Um, meaning that, um, uh, he peels the layers away from things and he polishes. Um uh but he's fascinated by somebody who hangs back as much as Jefferson um because he himself uh can't stop talking about the thing which he's so passionate about um as he calls it that hobgoblin independency. Um so they're kind of thrown together, right? Adams in his in his 40s, his early 40s, Jefferson in his early 30s. um Massachusetts and Virginia really the yin and yang of the movement, colonies that are incredibly different in uh in almost every way. Um but both really the leaders of uh of mainland rebellion by then. >> So what's interesting about this relationship and uh this correspondence is it's actually pretty limited in the early years because they are spending a lot of time together. So we we have to piece it together. But when it gets really rich is when they're serving as ambassadors abroad. And I'm very big into context. And I think we struggle when we're educating our children today. And the way history is taught is we declared independence. Boom. We have the country that >> Reagan's president, >> right? Yeah. >> Oh, the Civil Liberties Act passed. All solved. Everything is fine. Right. So we have this imagination that these things happen instantly but often um we focus more on the declaration as opposed to the work and as you mentioned the context of these men serving as ambassadors to the country and after independence and they are in Europe and we are still a messy very unconstructed uh nation at this point. So, what do you think Europe um showed them about America that maybe Americans didn't see when they were at home? And what do we see during that correspondence in England and in Paris where they were representing a very fledgling country? >> Well, I think that's that's a really critical point that the the country doesn't have a a reputation. I mean there there is no no country really in terms of what they're the work they do in Europe is equally as important as the work they did in in the uh you know here in the in the states. Um I I think they um uh they they meet there as families as friends. I mean it's you know the the correspondence with with Abigail and Jefferson is very important as well. I mean that they're they spend some time together in Europe. They spend, you know, they visit, >> they're buying each other furniture. >> They visit one another. They send one another books and furniture. They go on a on a tour of of gardens and different things. So, they have their their their passions, the things they care about. I think they really do form a a real bond. I mean, as as as friends and as families together, um they they are are very good to one another in those in those years. And I think they they come to see America through through through that lens. I mean neither one of them have I mean this is a this is an experience for them to see see the world differently when they when they have these ambassadorial experiences but um it you know Jefferson becomes you know a franophile Adams becomes an angopile I mean I think that's where we I mean and I don't think that it was something that was so stark to them necessarily but I think as they look back later I mean they they start to see that especially when the French Revolution happens and they you know Adams is is very happy to rub Jefferson's nose and that when the when the time comes but later in their relationship but I think the u it it is it is I think it's a very formative time for them personally but also a formative time obviously for the nation >> I think the one of the great tensions in American life from 1776 until tomorrow is the tension between liberty and order >> right um uh and we all deal with it not only in our politics but in our lives every day and I I think their time in Europe crystallizes that tension and puts them on very different sides. Right? So um uh Adams uh beginning with the negotiation of the peace treaty with Britain after the American Revolution has established in his mind the primacy to a restored relationship with England to the flourishing of the United States and um the importance of commerce and banking and uh and an orderly economy rooted in that transatlantic trade. the same transatlantic trade that led the colonies to um to flourish and eventually to rebel. Um Jefferson is the avatar of liberty uh from uh from the get-go. Um is attached through his entire life to the right of revolution that the declaration establishes and he's there you know I think two the familiar relationship that as Kurt says is super important. two huge geopolitical things happen while they're in Europe. Um, one is the Constitution of the United States is written and uh they're away and they're getting these sort of distant reports of what the framework of government that orders the United States is going to look like. And the other is as Kurt has alluded to is the French Revolution. And um Jefferson is for it, right? like the tide, what what could be better than the tide of liberty swelling from below and you know there's there's back and forth between them even then. Well, even to the threat to the king, yes. >> Um uh even to terror, yes. You know, the the the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants. Um and they greet the constitution with similar uh similar distance right uh Adams is a fan of a stronger central government that's going to create a a backbone for the United States so that the thing just doesn't collapse without a skeleton. Um and Jefferson worries about the constitution and whether that exoskeleton is going to constrain liberty and um you know you you can talk about various elements of their um anglopilism and their franophilism. We haven't mentioned wine yet but um so much talk of wine. I think it's I think the liberty and order poll really emerges then between them >> and they're also very much into where who can get the best bargain on materials. There's quite a bit of that as well in the 1200 letters. Um but I do want to go back to um what you mentioned Kurt um around the founding mothers and obviously the uh only founding mother whose correspondence uh remains is Abigail Adams. Um there was a real tradition at the time uh to not show your personal life and a lot of our founding fathers um much to the despair of historians uh discarded the letters of their wives wanting to be seen in a more I suppose uh grandiose uh stoic version of themselves. But John Adams kind of breaks that mold and we're you know here in a house that Mrs. Reagan built just as much as President Reagan built. And I'd love to understand uh the role of the founding mothers and that sort of support and that sort of uh sort of back and forth that they had in terms of developing their ideas and supporting them as they developed this nation. I think that's incredibly important. >> Yeah. No, I I think it is very important and you know what was probably difficult and unfortunate for the Adams is very fortunate for us and that is that they spent so much time apart. >> Yes. uh they spent 11 years of their marriage uh with him far enough away either in Philadelphia or in um in Europe where they had to write that was the only way they could communicate and and also you know it wasn't just John Adams but John Quinsey was with them and then later he took his other son as well so Abigail was away from not just her husband but away from one and then later another of her sons for a long period of time. So they write these >> she was a tough mother. >> Yes. Very heartfelt letters though about how's he doing? I mean and she sees him again when she finally goes to Europe with with her daughter and and he's he's you know he's a he's a late teen he's a grown man in her in her eyes at that point and and she's missed all these incredible years of of him. So, so it is Abigail is unique in the sense that we know more about her because of the um because of the letters, >> the distance, >> uh because they were apart, but but she also really did function as a kind of adviser and and political confidant to John Adams in a way that I mean Jefferson obviously is widowed by the time he's in Europe. I mean, he had a very close relationship with his wife and I think just he destroyed those letters just to not have that be that part of their life be be known publicly. Um, it reminds me of just just an aside, unrelated, but formerly I was at the Truman Library and Harry and Bess had some correspondence as well that some of it's been published but a lot of it Harry came home one day and Bess was throwing these letters into the fireplace, the letters that she had written to him and he said, "What are you doing?" And she said, "I'm getting rid of these letters." And he said, 'But think of history. And she said, 'I am. And you know, she didn't want to be remember. And I think that that's, you know, Jefferson and I think of other people who, you know, you think about destroy. But think about it, you know, the most personal, the deepest feelings, you know, your your love letters, your expression to your spouse, you know, to your children. I mean, does the world need to see that? I mean, your political ideas are one thing, but your your deep personal feelings, and of course, they express themselves. so much better certainly in writing than we do than we do today. I mean, emails aren't the same. >> An aside, but one of my favorite letters from Abigail Adams to her son essentially says, "You have the genetics of your father and you have education and privilege, and if you don't do anything with it, it's better that you hadn't been born." That's that's the summary. So, she was uh she was pretty tough. >> They they were very demanding parents. I mean you I don't you know we have a lot of respect for John and Abigail in a lot of ways. I would not necessarily wanted to have been raised in their household. >> So Jefferson's wife Martha Wells Skelton Jefferson whom he called Patty um was shortlived uh you know had complicated pregnancies and trouble recovering from the first of uh I think it was six live births two of whom survived uh infancy. And um so they marry on the first day of 1772. Um he marries well as uh as John Adams does um uh does too. It's a a key strategy for men who want to advance in the world in the 18th century is to make an advantageous marriage >> still. Um and uh and she dies in 1782. So she they're only married for 10 years. and um his life after marriage grows romantically complicated, right, as a as a sort of key fact of American history. And I've often thought, what if Jefferson had an Abigail, right? Um uh and we know so little about that relationship, but two of our colleagues at Montichello of Justin and my and Hannah's colleagues at Montichello have done a really fascinating piece of research recently about um the things that Jefferson's the things that Jefferson refers to his wife in those 10 years. you know, if you want to know about this, you'll have to talk to Patty. >> Um, uh, because not only does he >> burn all of her correspondents to him, he goes to all her friends and gathers in the letters that she has written and destroys them. >> Um, he's he's dedicated to um, keeping that himself. Um, so it turns out that in the American struggle, um, she's playing a role that is somewhat like Abigail. She's a node of women's conversation and organizing. Um, she is a key Virginia figure in, uh, the sort of auxiliary lady's army that raises 300,000 Continental dollars and, uh, sells that to um, buy cloth to make shirts for the Continental Army. um uh you know just the things that he's saying between the lines of his letters, you need to talk to Patty about it make clear that they too have a relationship that is both personal and uh political or professional that she is a a strong confessor. So um that they did not raise those children together I think is a kind of tragedy of American history and it was an absolute undoing for him. Right. uh the the the going to France is a sort of first coming back to life after being so gutted that um uh between 1782 and 1784 his friends wonder whether he's going to be capable of engaging in public life again. >> Yeah. >> But think about what that meant to those children too. Like you said, they were not raised with a mother who who preferred that they not have a stepmother, which is, you know, but the thing that's always stood out to me about Jefferson's relationship, I think much like John and Abigail Adams, I think what little bit we know about their marriage though is it was it was very close. They shared a love of literature. They shared a love of music. They both played, you know, he played the violin every day. She played the piano forte, I understand, and was able, you know, they they they did some of that together and had some favorite novels they read from together all the time. And so you get a sense last lines are they're reading trrist from Shandandy together and she's calling out a um >> uh she's calling out a a favorite line. Um so it is a you know it's a it's a >> uh they are they're both at the forefront in the family history of the 18th century of what we would call companionate marriage. um uh where they're marrying for love and money um instead of a a sort of dynastic or corporate model of marriage. They they share that and throughout his letters while he's in Congress, you hear his desperation to get home. >> Mhm. >> I think it's interesting because we live in a world where our personal lives are very much on display uh more and more so, especially these younger generations. And we're looking at letters that feel so profoundly personal that they want to disguise the fact that they're in partnership, but at some point the correspondence also becomes I don't want to say performative, but these men start to understand that these letters are part of history. And I'd love to sort of tease out the years, these nent years where um they are really discussing some key differences in how they view people and citizens and maybe if you could speak to how they view power and political figures. um speaking about democracy or a republic and how much people should be involved, how much they shouldn't be involved, uh how much power should government have, how much should not have. So there's some real um it's incredible dialogue, but I also feel like at some point it starts getting written for posterity as well because they want this record and some of it is also they'll keep duplicates of their letters to one another as well. So one about the when do they start realizing this is part of building a country and this is for for the his historical record and two um what are these fundamental differences that you see as they start >> pulling these? to to start with the differences, I would say, you know, part of what informs their their divergent political views on some certain issues is to me the core difference between Adams and Jefferson is their view of human nature >> and they they look at the state of human affairs completely different. I mean Jefferson is the most positive uh trusting belie you know Gordon Wood described him as polyian-ish you know that that he had this this this way of just believing in the people if the people do it it can't be wrong right I mean there's a and that may be extreme but I but I really think that Jefferson just believed you know he has these quotes you know put a put a moral question to a professor and a plowman 90% of the time the plowman will get it right and the professor will get it wrong I mean he just he believed which is substantially correct. >> Yes. Which is which is exactly it. Having known a number of professors, I think we can both say that we've uh but I think you know with Adams, he he had a very dark view of human nature. I think he just felt that that's why structures and institutions were so important because you you you can't trust people. People people will do bad things. People will will abuse power. And so I, you know, it's interesting even in our own time when we think about where do we stand on this continuum. I've sort of lived my life as a Jeffersonian. I've been very sort of, you know, a glass half full kind of guy. No, no, everything will work out. Everything's going to be fine. And, you know, of late, I find myself thinking, you know, I think Adams was on to something. I mean, I'm not sure I'm not sure that we can just trust that everybody is going to make the right decisions and do the right thing. And I think it's okay to be a federalist. >> These institutions and structures are are important in some ways. So, so I think that really is in my mind one of the really key differences between these two and it helps to inform how they debate or how they interpret some of the different things like the French Revolution and other things that happened. Jefferson sees it as a great compliment to to himself and to his comrades to say look we we did this now they're doing it. This is what we want. We want the world to revolt. We want them to to to to become like us in that way. That's the greatest emulation is the greatest compliment. Do you think Adams is like aware that or is he writing for an audience of one during this point or do you think he's already sort of forward- facing and imagining that this is part of a dialogue that is going to shape the way our country? >> I I think they had a a sense I um very early on that they were I mean the entire founding generation realized that they were on the stage of history in a way that few generations ever are. I mean, Adams has the quote, I'll paraphrase it, I'll butcher it, but basically that the greatest political minds of all time would give their right arms to live right now, meaning the 18th century, because they were forming governments. And the idea of writing these state constitutions, which of course was a big deal for Adams, writing the Massachusetts Constitution, the the ability to create a government is is rare. It's unique. I mean, think of it. We're we're born as Americans. We're free. We have all these, you know, the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. All of this surrounds us. But we didn't make this government. We didn't invent it. We didn't create it. We inherited it. Just like people who live in monarchies and authoritarian regimes, you're born. That's how you get your government. But these guys made their own. And that's different. And that's what I think begins to unite them. So I don't know, Jane might have an idea of when it starts to dawn on them that they're doing something very unique and special. >> Person keeps his desk. >> I think it's early. I think it's very early that they that they realize this is this is something that people, you know, generations yet unborn was the quote they would use. They're going to look back and realize what we did was significance. So >> I and yet I think that their correspondence so um uh Jefferson wrote 21,000 plus letters over the course of his life and like anything any of us produces they exist in different registers. Um I think the Adams correspondence is quite intimate except when they are both um in national government together on this side of the Atlantic. Um so even as you know Jefferson Jefferson keeps copies of all his correspondents especially later in life he has that machine called the polygraph machine that basically is creating a carbon copy. He knows uh you know he has a very orderly mind but he knows um uh that they have lived in significant times. Um I don't think their letters to each other are performing for somebody else. Um, uh, Jefferson says, I think it's in 1791 to Adams, um, I I think right when I think with you. >> Um, by which he does not mean you tell me what to think and I do it. Um, or I always agree with you. Far from it. I think it's like my knife gets really sharp when I stroke it against your wet stone. Um, >> sparring partners. sparring partners and I I hear that kind of genuine um uh ideiating in their letters. Um >> uh you know I think Adams is a a a pessimist perhaps in the way that only a New England Calvinist with a growing season of >> 42 days a year could be. Um and I don't know what accounts for Jefferson's optimism, right? He has he has quite a hard youth. His father dies when he's young. Um uh he loses most of his children. um >> tragic life in >> you know he he has he has a life of continual overcoming of difficulties and um as much as he thinks that the generation that uh this band right I I was only one of a band um that did this thing rose to a world historical challenge he also thinks that every generation has that in them right when people start to write to him in the 18s and say you know oh great father tell me about your greatest generation. He always says I you know I knew that time it was very like the present but without the wisdom of the present right in other words you have these capacities. Um uh you know I I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past is another quote that we um that we use a lot. There is a kick the can down the road element in it, right? You all will solve it. Um uh we've done our best. Um but the the optimism is relentless. There's a an exchange between Jefferson and Adams in 1813 while uh the War of 1812 is um they don't call it that. um is the second you know BritishAmerican war is playing out and and Adams writes to him and says you know where is now in 1813 the perfectability of human nature that you're always talking about like show me the goods um so that's one key difference between them I think you asked about political differences um >> that's at the core perhaps >> that's that's a core right that that attitude is a core they're fretful for the American experiment and they fear different things which makes them erect different guard rails. And Adams says this when they're first looking at the Constitution says to Jefferson, you are afraid of the one and I am afraid of the few. Um so you're afraid of monarchy, I'm afraid of of uh aristocracy or what we would call >> oligarchy. And so Jefferson is relentlessly negative about concentrated executive power. And Adams thinks that a strong executive could perhaps ameliate the tendency of an ambitious class of wealthy courters. Um, which is his great fear. So not far off from many of our our fears today. you know, like most broken relationships, I don't think there's one moment um where, you know, we know the last time they see each other is in 1801. Um very tragic, but there's quite a few incidents that show how divergent their ideas are. I wonder if you can break down when you think um at what point did their intellectual disagreements become perhaps more personal or become betrayals? Um did they misunderstand one another personally or did they misunderstand each other's ideas or maybe they just felt the others ideas had gone too far and were dangerous to the country? How do you think this fell apart? And I don't mean just the, you know, election of 1796 or the XYZ affair, not the facts, but but where did it really fracture to the point? >> Well, I think, you know, it's interesting. I was thinking about this earlier this afternoon, how in the you know, the 1780s are often referred to as the critical period because it's that period between the declaration, the constitution, and we where the articles of confederation, I mean, and you know, Madison writes that great track about the u the was it called the vices of the political system of the United States. I mean, all the problems with the legislature, all these things going on and and Adams and Jefferson are abroad during most of this time and they're, you know, together, but they they've got different issues that they're dealing with. So, in some ways, they don't live through that that critical period. But what happens after the Constitution, it's just like we said earlier about the Declaration. It's not like all of a sudden, oh, we have a country, everything's great. There's there's a great national presence, there's a strong federal government. It's not that at all. So to me the 1790s are almost like a critical period for Adams and Jefferson because they are both participating in the government. They're both they both have high office. Um you know Jefferson is secretary of state, Adams is vice president and then you know because of the way the vice president was elected in those days he ends up being vice president under when Adams is president. Um some some little snubs there about you know participation and how how things are going to work. And then of course ultimately I think the real rift comes with the election of of 1800 and just the the um I mean it's it's everything right what I mean Jefferson is accused of being an atheist. I mean, there's so many things that go that go on in that and they just I I think it becomes that's when I think I think from the late from the mid9s on I think that's when it became really personal to them and they probably you know the differences they had that they could talk about sort of intellectually in an earlier period became much more personal much more difficult to deal with. So I think that that is when I would see the the change happening in terms of their um in in terms of the the personal nature of their relationship. >> So I think in some ways I I agree on the on the period. I think in some ways their differences become less personal and more capital P political and um as long as George Washington is president the United States can talk about having political unity >> right um there there's no one else like Washington who stands for the entirety of the country even when um these sort of proto parties begin to develop in the early 1790s, no one will go directly at George Washington. Um, but when Washington is no longer president, um, uh, there's a a loyal opposition that is perceived by Washington's party as a disloyal opposition and Jefferson is at the head of that faction. Um, uh, I think Jefferson is also politically deaf in a way that Adams finds infuriating. Adams is one of those people that, you know, how do you know what Adams is thinking? He just said it. >> And um, and Jefferson, you know, butter won't melt in his mouth. So that he's pulling strings behind the scenes with Madison. He and Madison are um are kind of cabaling in central Virginia. and nothing sticks and Adams is just amazed by this. So, um it's the rise of an opposition. You know what by 1800 is a party is functioning as a party with its own newspapers and uh uh everything but electioneering. Um and uh and a a way of not owning that ambition. Adams is, you know, they're they're both ambitious men in different ways, ambitious for different things. Adams is right out in front raising his hand. Um I am ambitious for the good of the country and Jefferson is very like who me? >> I'm just down here in Virginia counting my P's, you know. Um so I think their political styles in a world of emerging partisanship um really make it difficult for them to feel like the personal integrity is enough to bridge the gap. >> Right. So it's a it's a definitely both is both right. >> It's both in politics for sure. Every coming apart is all always both, right? Is there ever one that isn't? >> Right. I think it's also I I agree that there's a there's a stylistic different but I think there's also like a skill difference. I mean there's their personalities are different and even going back to the beginning even going back to the Congress for example. You know it's it's funny how we we we we see it differently because Adams has lived in the shadow of Washington and Jefferson. I mean he is he is sandwiched in between you know a one-term president in between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. I mean just you know on the surface I mean you feel sorry for Adams just already just thinking about that. >> He's the committee of five. He's not the >> Yeah. The committee of five. Yeah. He's busy doing other things. He lets Jefferson draft the declaration and, you know, nominates him to do that and then is just peeved by the fact that Jefferson, you know, orchestrates his authorship. I mean, being remembered as the author of the declaration when it was really kind of a group efing that Adams had a lot of the intellectual framework Adams had put forward, etc., etc. So, so I think there's that difference. But but in the in those days, Adams was the only one of the early presidents who was really an orator. I mean, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, they were softspoken, quiet, and it turns out that reserve is better for your legacy than being a fire brand. I mean, Adams could leap to his feet, hold the jury, the Congress, any audience in the palm of his hand for hours at a time. I mean, he was he was a fire brand. And it's interesting. I was thinking walking through the galleries here today, uh, you know, with with President Reagan, what you know, the great communicator and how he was the perfect TV president if they were if all those founders were alive today. Adams would be more like Reagan in that regard than any of the other early presidents. He would be the better TV president than Jeff >> except to be sweating like Nick. >> Yeah. Well, that's true. That's true. Yeah. We'll save that for you, Belinda. blueprint. There's there's a great line in the Adams autobiography uh which is written I think it's 1802 um where he says you know he's speaking about his role writing about his role in the Continental Congress and he says you know eloquence in public debate is not the greatest route to perform uh to perform it right like I'm so good and it gets me nothing um and I love that he's self- knowing enough to realize that >> but not self controlled enough to stop it. He says it multiple times, I can't stop talking. He's he's well aware, >> but he worries even as a even as a much younger man, even before he's really in politics about this notion of ambition. I mean, he's that, you know, you talk about the the sort of Puritan sort of Calvinist. I mean, he's he's really introspective. He really is self-critical about am I pure enough? Am I am I are my motives where they need to be? And uh but I I think I think his um his his willingness to just always take a side and always speak was very helpful in moving legislation and things forward. I I don't think it it earned him the kind of I think the reserve of Washington and the and the quiet, you know, the eloquence of Jefferson with his pen, his rhetorical flourish. I mean, Jefferson was a master with the language. Adams was on his feet, but but he he was a clunky writer. And and he even said to Jefferson, one of the reasons he nominated him to write the Declaration, he said, "You can write 10 times better than I can." And I think he was sincere in that. I don't think that was just a cover. I think he recognized in Jefferson a a a a real writer. And and Adams, like you said, just always one more thing. Yeah. But yeah, but yeah, but and he would always add add something else. And so he was um he he he ended up being, I think, sort of overshadowed by those people on either side of him. I think that that great admiration for each other is why this long period of estrangement is so heartbreaking. So in 1801 after the inauguration Adams takes off >> before the inauguration. >> Yes. Right before actually you're right. Um >> and they don't speak again for over a decade. They don't write to each other. There's um a little bit of an effort from Abigail uh after Jefferson's daughter passes. Um, I'm curious from your vantage point, what makes it possible again? Like what what changed between 1804 and 1812 um that allowed them to to use Benjamin Rush's words to embrace each other again? How did that come to pass? >> Well, I think um you know, I think it's it's part of the human experience as well, right? We kind of mellow as we age a little bit. I think that people just feel like, well, am I really going to make such a big deal out of that disagreement we had 20 years ago? Or can, you know, can we talk about how things are today? You know, I I they know one others families. I mean, how are the kids? how that sort of an opportunity the the uh the line that I think and I know you're going to bring it up at some point the >> that I think is is to me the the the the jewel of this whole correspondence is when Adam says uh you and I had ought not to die before we've explained ourselves to one another. And I think that to me is such a powerful statement because they weren't they didn't set out to con to change one another's minds. They didn't set out to sort of settle the score or let's argue or let's let's let's just relitigate this. It's like let's listen to one another. Let's explain ourselves to one another. And to me, that's what that correspondence represents is is these two titans really I mean they they ribbed one another for sure uh at different times in those letters. But but I think there was so much respect. And the other thing too is they just flat out outlived everybody else from that generation. And I think that's a huge thing. They would they would write, of course, there's no, you know, news feed coming in. So, they they would write and say, you know, I think I think there's only five there's there's three of us left. Two, whatever. I think we're the last two. And then I I heard that so and so died. Uh, you know, one of the one of the final signers of the of the declaration or whatever. So, it's that that founding generation was disappearing and disappearing fast. Those two lived. I mean, for the time they outlived, you know, the the sort of life expectancy that that would be normal for that for that period. I think it really does matter that they're both aging and out of power. I was looking at the um these two portraits um that that are decorating us for tonight which are they're at the peak of their political power, right? You want the sully of Adams that's in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston where you see his cataracts and his uh you know his rotundity and uh and and just his um his diminishment with age and the portrait of Jefferson that's the last the major portrait that he had taken that's in our entrance hall. Um you know they are uh they're they're backwards looking more than forward. They know that their lives are coming to a close and they're out of power, right? They have they have nothing left to take from each other or to give each other. Um, uh, Rush brokers the deal as you've said and and the letters between Adams and Rush, especially um, uh, I think Adams as late as October, November of 1811, says he's not going to do it. um and and has this really interesting way of putting this. He says, "Jefferson and I have are are always friends, right? We're we're friends now. We just don't speak." >> Yeah. >> Um like I'm gonna >> I have love for him. >> I'll keep I'll keep him there in my heart. I don't need to take that risk. And then he does on January 1st of 1812, which I it's not an accident that it's a new it's the new year that he writes this first letter. Um, I don't think Jefferson would ever have made the first step. It's not who he was, right? He was the sought, not the seeker. Um, >> and then Benjamin Rush actually goes and shares what Adam says. He's like, Adams says he still loves you. It's almost like a correspondence of back and forth of trying to reunite. >> It's like the movie Clueless, right? You know, like, no, he really want He really wants you. >> No, he really does like you. >> Yeah. Um, so I think the fact the fact that they're old, the fact that they're distant, right? They're 800 miles apart. Um, which uh which gives them a kind of spaciousness. They're not gonna fight it out in the cabinet room. Um, uh, and um, it's a time for taking risks and a time, I think, as Kurt's saying about the generational baton pass, a time to assess. and they really can't assess with anybody else as well as they can with each other. I'm I'm thinking like who can I talk to but my sister about my parents >> who are both gone, right? Nobody, right? Like they have that um that siblinghood of being present at the creation and so respecting each other's minds. But but they were different and I mean even then their their relative weight I think was already set. I mean, Jefferson's a rock star by by this point, right? >> One of the most famous people in the world, right? >> Completely. And people are writing to him to find out, you know, >> Adams can't stand >> what kind of a wine do I serve with this dinner? I mean, he was he was somebody who knew things that that the only only place to get some of that kind of information. >> Adams wrote that their correspondence. It's like three to one. >> Four to one. >> Yeah. A Adams is is writing that many letters to Jeff to getting one from Jeff because Jefferson's so busy writing. He says, "How many letters do you get in a year?" And it's it's a t-fold difference. People write to Adams, he he he responds to every letter, you know, but or or I mean he he gets a fraction of what Jefferson gets. It's easier for him to keep up. And I'm not sure he I'll correct myself. I'm not sure he did respond to every letter, whereas Jefferson, I think, made an effort at least to try to to uh respond to anyone who who got with him. I think Jefferson tired of the letters. I think it became a real burden to him. Yes. >> At some point. So, we're we're in the house that Ronald Reagan built and I I would love for you to indulge me and we're talking about civic friendship. And I think something that makes people very nostalgic about um the 40th president and is the premise of the civic friendships he held with people across the aisle, Tiff O'Neal, the lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy. And I think the big takeaway that we want to really try to understand is you know these things happen relationships erode. Um how do we come together again? So maybe you know and we talked about this which is Reagan was definitely more of a Jeffersonian if you look at the historical record but something he talks about uh frequently is the fact that these two did reconcile and that we can work together and they called them uh he uses the quote uh laborers in the same cause which I believe is is Jefferson in his second correspondence after the long estrangement. Um, what does this friendship, what does it tell us about um what this generation, what we have to do to not only preserve uh Americans ideas and ideals, but preserve our ability to argue and talk to each other again. >> Well, I think, you know, I think maybe Reagan holds the key to some of that in the sense that he said, >> you know, let's talk about the things that we can agree on. let's focus on the 80% or 60% or 70% or whatever that maybe that percentage changes in you know from administration to administration. But the fact is >> why we we tend to rush to the things that we we disagree on and and we focus on that and we blow those things up into bigger than they need to be. Whereas if we would really look at where we can agree then I think and I think that's where Reagan you know would look at that reconciliation and say you know we can do this and of course we can that doesn't mean we're going to convince anybody. Again as I said earlier I don't think the goal of Adams and Jefferson was to convince any each other that you know I was right all along. That's not it. It's let's understand one another. Let's talk about and and there were many many things they agreed about. They shared that rich legacy. Well, we as Americans today, we share a rich legacy. You know, we we inherit this system and we have way more in common, but we have to do what Reagan suggested and look at look at things, you know, that we can where we can make progress. But you look at our legislative process today, both at the state levels and at the national level, and this isn't a partisan point. It's just it it grinds to a halt because it's it's it's easier to make your point that way. Say, "Well, they won't they won't go for it. They won't go for it." instead of saying what could we do? What's I mean it, you know, just the passing of Dolly Pardon and realizing that somebody made the comment that can you believe that Jane Fonda and Donald Trump both came out with a a a positive statement about someone and and you realize like how how incredible is that that I mean maybe maybe Dolly Parton is the glue that we can all you know here here we come again. But I I think that you know we need to find you know we we do have things in common. We do have people we respect. We do have things that that matter to all of us. Um and I think that there, you know, there certainly are are ways to get there. >> So I think that not trying to change each other's minds is crucial. Um they ask questions more than they make sermons. Um and they seem actually to want to know each other's answers. They proceed from curiosity um and also from empathy. These are two people who love each other as laborers in the same cause. and to remember that um you know even though we mostly exist at 200 feet above sea level there is a big ceiling that we all share right it's this flag and what it stands for and they remind each other of that um in their in the second correspondence they allow each other to make mistakes and proceed uh as Jefferson says at one point um uh to give your ideas the same forbearance that I would wish for my own. Um, sort of basic golden rule kind of stuff. And they, um, they respect each other as people, not because they agree, but because they fought for the same things. Um, they've been through literally a war together, and that tends to powerfully focus the mind. So I do think um you know one of the reasons we developed the tour uh was not just to share more content about the revolutionary generation but to share this content about the revolutionary generation um and to impart through a story of civic friendship um civic love and civic hope >> um which I think we all really badly need right now if all you can do together is fix that pothole, fix the pothole. Um, and they proceeded in that spirit. Well, they did a lot more than that. Um, we are close, we are closely out of time, but I wanted to give you really quickly before because we have so many amazing opportunities with the feast of reason and the uh amazing documents back there from the American Journey experience. But final quick closing thoughts. Um, we carry presidential legacies as we talked about and legacies more so for these founders. Um, what should we do after the semi-quincentennial year? What should we do? We're 250 is not the end. What can we do? >> Well, I think the interesting thing about being in the presidential legacy business, as we all are, is that presidential legacies are to a degree about the presidents that we're discussing. But to a much larger degree, those legacies are about us and they simply give us an opportunity to talk about what what what we need to be doing and going forward. So I think when we think about what does the declaration mean, what did the constitution mean, what do these early I mean all these anniversaries that are coming up, I think it's an opportunity to reflect on what matters to us as a people. I think of the difference between America 250 and America 200. You know, those of us old enough to remember the the bicesentennial, you know, tall ships, parades, fireworks, it was a way, you know, coming out of Vietnam, coming out of Watergate, it was a way to remind ourselves that no, we're a good people. We we want to do good things. And and so throwing a party was enough. It was a it was a way to kind of jump start and remind of ourselves of our innate goodness in a very Jeffersonian kind of way that the the good of the people was there. I think for us now as we think about not just this 250 year but as Janet has said these upcoming anniversaries it it's not about tall ships and fireworks. Yes, we need to remind ourselves that we're good people but more importantly we have to be a good people. You know, Adams famously once said, um, you know, to to be good and to do good, that's all we all we have to do. I mean, that that's what it is. And that's what civics is, is just being good. Being good to one another, being being a good a good citizen means to participate, to help, to to put the needs. I mean, the the founders, you know, that that notion of of disinterestedness was putting the good of the whole ahead of your own self-interest. I mean that was something that was was religion to them. I mean that's what it would take to create this kind of a country was to put the good of the of the entire polity ahead of your own self-interest. And I think Adams and Jefferson they may have disagreed about some of the particulars but I think they did that they did that in a way that we need to use these anniversaries to remind ourselves that we too can do that. This is not herculean. This is not out of reach. this is something that that we can do and I think hopefully we feel that call to action. I I would say it is herculean and it's not out of reach and that's the exemplar right is that this scrappy band of 56 people who stood on a mountain of public opinion right and and we've talked in our anniversary year uh Jefferson's enslaved valet Robert Hemmings was with him uh when he wrote the declaration right he too was a founder small f founder um they had a herculean task and they dug deep within their bags of tricks to figure out what they could contribute. >> So in addition to finding our goodness, I think we have to pull up our damn socks and [clears throat] find our skills, right? Um uh not just to think about founders, but to be founders. And this is the the Jeffersonian notion that each generation needs to invest a new for a republican form of government to prevail and to succeed. Um so to look not only at the extraordinariness of these men and women um but at their ordinariness right the fact that they were young people of uh some privilege and some difficulties who've figured out a way forward um and that's all anybody ever does in history is like life is herculean right it's hard um when I talk about Adams and Jefferson I often end with a slide from our mountaintop activities center where people practice writing with a a quill pen and for young people um not only the quill pen but cursive is hard so they're um and and I have a picture of a a a I'd say she was nine writing life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and at the bottom she writes PS this is hard >> and and she means the writing with a quill pen um but it works so pretty well for democracy, right? Democracy is not constitutional democracy is not an easy form of government. It's a demanding form of government that calls for virtue and energy um learning skills and and dispositions in all of us. So I think to take their example as people who did a herculean thing imperfectly, right, as they knew, right? Put set an experiment in motion and to think about you're all here. You're all patriots. Um >> what are you going to do with your special what it's the Mary Oliver line? What are you going to do with your one wild and precious life? What are you going to do with your one wild and precious country tomorrow, tonight? Um, because it's a proposition that needs continual renewal. Lincoln calls it a proposition. I say to audiences who are skeptical of Jefferson, and you'll be shocked to know that there are many. >> Um, you may not believe in Jefferson, but Jefferson believed in you. So, what are you going to do about that? Kurt Jane, thank you so much. >> Excellent. [applause] >> I think um we all look forward to visiting the soonto open Adams Presidential Center, but very appreciative of the work that you're doing to carry the legacy of one of my favorite presidents uh federalists here. And then Jane Monachello is an absolute civic treasurer. And for all of those those of you who have not visited yet, please please please add that to your future plans. Um truly a spectacular privilege to learn about uh the man and the men who have built our country. So thank you for being here tonight. And one more round of applause. And Justin Reed, please come up to the stage.