Thomas Jefferson's 275th Birthday

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"I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

President John F. Kennedy
At a dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners of the Western Hemisphere
The White House
April 29, 1962

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It was 275 years ago today that my favorite president, Thomas Jefferson, was born.

Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and may well have been the most brilliant of the Founding Fathers — but he probably draws mixed reviews today.

A product of colonial Virginia, Jefferson benefited from the work of slaves on several plantations. He also, as Fawn Brodie's 1974 biography of Jefferson, "An Intimate History," revealed, fathered children with Sally Hemings, a slave who was said to be the half–sister of Jefferson's deceased wife.

Critics of Jefferson contend that Jefferson's ownership of slaves is a clear contradiction of his assertion that "all men are created equal."

But to focus on that is to force Jefferson, in hindsight, to live according to standards that were in place nearly two centuries after the end of his presidency. Ironically, Jefferson might not be an especially popular candidate for president today. He was tall — 6 feet 2½ inches — and voters do tend to prefer tall presidential candidates, but he was perhaps a little too relaxed for many voters' tastes. Jefferson, a senator of the day remarked, "sits in a lounging manner on one hip, commonly." He wasn't a particularly finicky dresser, either. He paid little attention to fashion and preferred to dress in whatever was comfortable, resulting in frequent mixing of styles from different periods.

Most fair–minded historians prefer to focus on his advocacy of the principle of individual rights, his championing of religious freedom and tolerance and the Louisiana Purchase, which was made during Jefferson's first term as president and doubled the size of the United States.

Jefferson considered himself a Deist, and his thoughts on religious freedom stemmed from Virginia's laws that made it a crime "not to baptize infants in the Anglican church; dissenters were denied office, civil or military; children could be taken from their parents if the parents failed to profess the prescribed creeds," wrote Jon Meacham in "The Art of Power."

"Jefferson believed it unjust (and unwise) to use public funds to support an established church and to link civil rights to religious observance," Meacham wrote. "He said such a system led to 'spiritual tyranny.' In theological terms, according to notes he made on John Locke, Jefferson concurred with a Christian tradition that held the church should not depend on state–enforced compulsion."

As for the Louisiana Purchase, it is hard to imagine any acquisition by any country that has been as financially feasible. For about 3 cents an acre, the United States acquired all or part of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.

Jefferson had authorized his negotiators to purchase only New Orleans and West Florida, but Napoleon, strapped for cash on the brink of war with Britain, offered the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson had his doubts about the constitutionality of the deal but quickly agreed to it before Napoleon could change his mind.

The Uniquely American Friendship of Jefferson and Adams

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"Adams and Jefferson could hardly have appeared less alike. Adams was eight years older and about five inches shorter, as thoroughgoing a New Englander as Jefferson was a Virginian. Adams had difficulty holding his tongue or his temper; Jefferson was a master of keeping his emotions in check. Yet the two men — and, in time, Abigail, Adams' wonderful wife — were to forge one of the greatest and most complicated alliances in American history."

Jon Meacham, "Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power"

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I have always been fascinated by the stories in American history, and there may be no more intriguing story in the history of this great nation than the relationship between two of its Founding Fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. For several reasons, their friendship is worth reflecting on as we celebrate the nation's 240th birthday — and observe the 190th anniversary of both Adams' and Jefferson's deaths.

Bearing in mind that political labels of the 21st century are wholly inadequate for describing the politics of 18th– and 19th–century men, they are still useful in enabling those of our time to get an idea where those men might stand on the modern political spectrum. It really isn't that much different from comparing baseball players of different eras — i.e., Babe Ruth vs. Hank Aaron or Barry Bonds. They played in different ballparks against a different caliber of competition. Ruth didn't play as many games in a season as Aaron and Bonds did, nor did he play when there were playoffs other than the World Series (unless two teams were tied atop their league standings at the end of the regular season).

And they didn't play night games during the Bambino's career. They did play quite a few doubleheaders, which were increasingly rare in Aaron's day and virtually nonexistent in Bonds'.

But, anyway ...

I would describe Jefferson as something of a libertarian, perhaps even a bit radical for his day. Adams was more of a strait–laced conservative — and the more emotional of the two.

Now, I must caution the reader that these labels must be seen in the context of the times. We have conservatives and liberals and libertarians today, but the issues are different — and America is different. Today the United States is a superpower. In the 18th century, it was small and fragile. In 1790, there were fewer than 4 million people living in the United States. There are more than 320 million today, and the Census Bureau projects a population of 417 million by 2060.

There is always a lot of rhetoric in modern political campaigns — sometimes it is justified, most of the time it is not — that the times are fraught with peril and disaster will strike if the wrong choices are made. In Adams' and Jefferson's day, that was no exaggeration. They knew the stakes were always high. The threat of attacks from enemies foreign and domestic was as constant a fact of life in 18th–century America as it is in 21st–century Israel.

From the time they met at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1775 until they were driven apart by the politics of George Washington's first term as president (during which Adams was vice president and Jefferson was secretary of State), Adams and Jefferson worked together frequently — and quite well at that. In 1784, roughly five years before Washington became president, Adams said of Jefferson, "He is an old friend with whom I have often had occasion to labor on many a knotty problem and in whose abilities and steadiness I always found great cause to confide."

For his part, Jefferson said of Adams, "I never felt a diminution of confidence in his integrity and retained a solid affection for him."

The men signed the Declaration of Independence — of which Jefferson was the principal author — 240 years ago today and were allies in nearly everything. But they came to a parting of the ways over the size and scope of the federal government. Adams was a devout believer in a strong, centralized government. Jefferson favored a hands–off approach and a deference to the rights of the states to conduct business as they saw fit.

Adams, who was the nation's first vice president, was elected to succeed Washington in 1796 — at a time when the runnerup in the presidential election became vice president. Jefferson, as Adams' runnerup, became the second vice president and called on the president–elect the day before his inauguration. History professor Fawn Brodie wrote, in "Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Biography," that Adams suggested that Jefferson go to France to mend relations between the two countries. That was something that desperately needed to be done, but that, apparently, was not the whole story.

"Had Jefferson been anything but vice president," Brodie wrote, "the offer would have been an act of statesmanship. But Adams, disarmingly tactless as only he could be, betrayed his real feelings in a single sentence. Jefferson reported him as saying 'that it would have been the first wish of his heart to have got me to go there, but that he supposed it was out of the question as it did not seem justifiable for him to send away the person destined to take his place in case of accident to himself nor decent to remove from competition one who was a rival in the public favor.'"

Having been Washington's vice president, Adams was also aware of the threats that were made to the president's life, even in those nascent days of the republic. He may have feared a plot against his life from Jefferson's supporters or perhaps even Jefferson himself.

Four years later, Jefferson defeated Adams for the presidency. They did not switch places, though, as Adams finished third. Aaron Burr became vice president.

After he became president in 1801, Jefferson trimmed the powers and expenditures of the federal government but also was known for acquiring the Louisiana Purchase, more than doubling the size of the United States.

Adams and Jefferson died exactly 50 years after signing the Declaration of Independence, on this day in 1826, having resolved their differences after Jefferson left the presidency in 1809.

As he died, Adams seemed to draw comfort from his belief that Jefferson would survive. What he did not know was that Jefferson had died some five hours earlier.

It is the only time in American history that two former presidents died on the same day. And how much more appropriate could it have been — two old friends who signed the Declaration of Independence dying on the document's 50th anniversary?

It was a uniquely American story.

The First Secretary of State

Until two years ago, the prevailing wisdom in America was that, although there is no foolproof path to the presidency, the best preparation for the presidency — or, at least, a campaign for one's party's nomination — was experience in the statehouse.

In the last 35 years, that has been a tough conclusion with which to argue. Four of the five men who were elected president between 1976 and 2004, after all, were sitting or former governors.

(Ironically, the single exception, George H.W. Bush in 1988, defeated a governor.)

Many others (both before and after that time frame) either won or ran at least reasonably competitive campaigns for their party's presidential nomination, in large part because their executive experience gave them added credibility with the voters.

Well, that's the way it's been in modern — or, at least, semi–modern — times.

But in the early days of the republic, the real stepping stone to the presidency was seen as secretary of State. That was only natural, I suppose, especially once people began to see how things were playing out.

Nearly half of the men who were president before Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 had been secretary of State, starting with the very first one, Thomas Jefferson, who was appointed on this day in 1789.

It's a sign, I guess, of the role that foreign relations played in the economic development of the new nation. As minister to France, Jefferson was instrumental in promoting trade relations with Prussia. Early in George Washington's presidency, he was appointed secretary of State, a position that had evolved from secretary of Foreign Affairs, but he was reluctant to take the position initially, wrote Fawn Brodie in "Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History" — perhaps because diplomacy, not trade, was to be the focus.

But take it he did, and he went on to establish a tradition that continued through the first half of the 19th century.

Six of the 15 presidents who preceded Abraham Lincoln were secretary of State, and other secretaries of State (i.e., Henry Clay and Daniel Webster) aspired to the presidency at some point in their careers.

No one who has served as secretary of State has been elected president in the 150 years since Lincoln was elected — although some noteworthy people who sought the presidency (i.e., William Jennings Bryan, Ed Muskie, Al Haig, Hillary Clinton) as well as some who were mentioned as prospective nominees (i.e., Colin Powell) have held the job.

But that doesn't mean a past (or future) secretary of State won't sit in the Oval Office again one day.

And, in the meantime ...

... in the unlikely event that the president, the vice president, the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate all die on or around the same date, the secretary of State is next in the line of succession.

Pursuing Happiness

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"In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress."

John Adams
From the musical 1776

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The Fourth of July seems like a good time for reflecting a bit on the life and times of America's second president, John Adams.

This is something I began doing this afternoon as I watched Turner Classic Movies' presentation of the 1972 film "1776," which was based on a successful musical that went into production three years earlier — but was, as I understand it, a little loose with the facts.

I guess you could call it "artistic license."

Adams often seems to be overlooked, particularly by schoolchildren who are more dazzled by tales of the heroic exploits and patriotic achievements of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as they begin their studies of American history.

Well, it certainly seems to me — as I try to remember how it was when American history became one of the subjects I studied in school — that far less attention was paid to Adams' single four–year term as president than to the eight years that every president (with the noteworthy exception of Adams' son) served in the first half–century of the nation's existence.

Mathematically, of course, that makes sense, but, unfortunately for Adams, he is frequently misunderstood even when he is remembered.

Part of that, I'm guessing, is due to bad PR. In "1776," a Tony Award–winning musical about the events that led up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Adams was presented as disagreeable and unpopular, but the truth is that he was highly regarded at the Continental Congress, considered by many the most capable member of the Massachusetts delegation.

His role in the struggle for the independence of the colonies is often minimized by historians — who, it has been suggested, were influenced by Adams himself, who wrote in a letter late in his life that he had been "obnoxious, suspected and unpopular" as a delegate.

But the portrayal of Adams in "1776," like Adams' own assessment of his image among his fellow delegates, was skewed.

Many scholars have concluded that Adams was, in fact, manic–depressive, prone to erratic mood swings. It has been said that he was paranoid, too, often seeing plots by those around him to deny him credit for something and/or seize credit for themselves.

From what I have read, Adams had a somewhat Nixonian personality. Nixon, it has been noted by some presidential historians, did not have a personality that was suited for a politician's life. Politicians typically love to be around people, but Nixon found it difficult to be with people. And so did Adams. "There are few people in this world with whom I can converse," Adams said. "I can treat all with decency and civility and converse with them, when it is necessary, on points of business. But I am never happy in their company."

It is probably a good thing for Adams that technology was so primitive in his day, or he might have been tempted to make many of the mistakes Nixon did.

On the other hand, Adams — who was hardly a physically imposing figure, standing just 5'6" and stocky with a generally fragile constitution — seems to have been intelligent at a level that most other presidents have not been.

And, while it was actually Thomas Jefferson who penned the Declaration of Independence, it may be that we can see Adams' fingerprints all over that document — especially the part that asserts that Americans are free to pursue happiness.

Adams, as I understand it, was something of a stickler for words, which was reflected in his faith. A devout Unitarian, Adams rejected Calvinism and the belief in, among other things, predestination. The concept clashed with his personal belief in a fair and just God.

"Abuse of words," Adams wrote, "has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society."

So it seems to me that it would be appropriate for Adams to insist that the Declaration of Independence say Americans were entitled to pursue happiness — not that they were entitled to be happy.

The wording of the document leaves happiness as an undefined — and unguaranteed — objective. I believe Adams may have privately advocated that subtle distinction in the wording — and his friend Jefferson may have agreed with him.

Happiness always seems to be just over the horizon for most people, just beyond one's fingertips. But the Declaration insists that we Americans have the right to pursue it, whatever it may mean to us, however unlikely our success may be.

And, I suppose, the right to pursue happiness is virtually absolute. Unless one's vision of happiness is adversely at odds with someone else's rights to life and liberty, one is free to pursue it.

By the way, I don't believe Adams ever said the words at the top of this post that were attributed to him in "1776." But he did say this:

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"No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. He will make one man ungrateful, and a hundred men his enemies, for every office he can bestow."

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Adams was succeeded by his sometime friend, sometime rival Thomas Jefferson. Adams lost a contentious election to Jefferson in 1800, about a quarter of a century before presidential electors were determined by the popular vote in each state so my guess is that their relationship when Jefferson took office was a bit strained. If Adams had any words of friendly advice he was tempted to share with his successor, he may not have chosen to pass them along.

But they became friends again in later years, as I understand it. And it is one of the great ironies of American history that both Adams and Jefferson, the only future presidents who signed the Declaration of Independence, died on the 50th anniversary of the nation's birth.

For nearly 200 years, Adams held the distinction of being the president who lived the longest — nearly 91 years. But, in the last decade, both Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford exceeded Adams' record for presidential longevity. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush will surpass it as well if they live another five years.

"Thomas Jefferson ..." were the last intelligible words that Adams spoke before dying, although there were those who asserted that he tried to say the word "survives." But Jefferson didn't survive. What Adams did not know was that the 83–year–old Jefferson had died a few hours earlier.