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From the Preface
No correspondence in American history is more quotable or more readily
recognized for its historical significance than that of John Adams and
Thomas Jefferson. Yet, only now, a century and a third after their deaths
in 1826, is their exchange of letters presented in full. Publication was
first anticipated in their lifetime but never encouraged by them. During
the political controversies which case a long shadow over their public
careers, they suffered embarrassment from the unauthorized printing of
occasional letters written in confidence. The years of retirement, they
hoped, would provide a partial escape from the virulence of party strife
and the publicity of high office. But statesmen, even in retirement, still
belong to the public, as Jefferson learned from personal experience. He
concluded in 1815 that his correspondence with Adams had been observed in
the post offices, because a printer "has had the effrontery to propose to
me the letting him publish it. These people think they have a right to
everything however secret or sacred." [1]
If idle curiosity or selfish motives often aroused the momentary interest
of the public, the intelligent citizen had some appreciation, however
limited, of the writings of these statesmen as records of historical
events. Adams and Jefferson, who lived long enough to acquire perspective
on their own times, had become historical figures to the younger
generation. As actors on the Revolutionary stage, they were asked
innumerable questions about that heroic period, scarcely a half-century
removed, which had already acquired the aura of history in the minds of the
American people. The two venerable patriots themselves were well aware of
their role as "Argonauts"[2] to be remembered by posterity. Adams best
expressed the point when he hoped for publication of all of Jefferson's
letters "in volumes." Even though some letters might "not always appear
Orthodox," he wrote, "they will exhibit a Mass of Taste, Sense, Literature
and Science, presented in a sweet simplicity and a neat elegance of Stile,
which will be read with delight in future ages."[3] This is explanation
enough for Adams's saving all he had received. Jefferson too preserved his
great accumulation of correspondence, although he agreed that "an hour of
conversation would be worth a volume of letters."[4] It is the recipients'
copies, originally filed at Quincy and Monticello, that provide the basis
for the present edition.
"Posterity," asserted Adams, who seemed more willing than Jefferson to
designate their papers public property, "would . . . know on what kind
terms they lived";[5] but during the course of a century this information was
derived only piecemeal from successive editions of their letters, from
Henry Randall's discursive account of Jefferson's life and times and
friendship with Adams,[6] and, as a centennial commemoration, from Paul
Wilstach's selection from their correspondence of 1812-26.[7] Actually,
many
of the letters exchanged by Adams and Jefferson have been in the public
domain a long time, although they are scattered throughout their published
writings rather than assembled as the integrated correspondence of both.
During the nineteenth century a small percentage of Jefferson's letters
appeared in the writings edited soon after his death by his grandson Thomas
Jefferson Randolph, by Henry A. Washington in the 1850's, and by Paul
Leicester Ford in the 1890's, the last being the most reliable in respect
to texts. The sole edition of Adams's Works, carefully prepared by his
grandson Charles Francis Adams from the manuscripts in the family's
custody, was published in the early 1850's. Soon after the turn of the
century came the Lipscomb and Bergh edition of Jefferson's Writings, more
extensive but less authoritative than Ford. All of these were based
largely, if not exclusively, upon retained copies (loose or in
letter-books, in polygraph or letter-press) rather than upon the
recipients' copies which have prime value for research. Until the planning
in the mid-1940's of the Princeton edition of The Papers of Thomas
Jefferson by Julian P. Boyd, no one had dealt with the problem of
evaluating for publication the total correspondence what
Jefferson read
in his mail as well as what he wrote in his own letters.
The richness of the Adams-Jefferson correspondence can be most fully
appreciated by following the letters in chronological sequence. Only then
can the reader sense the mental vigor of the two men and exclaim with
Adams, "So many Subjects crowd upon me that I know not, with which to
begin."[8] During their years in public office they gave close attention to
the daily problems that pressed upon them, with occasional reflections
revealing the statesmanship behind their decisions. Later, as elder
statesmen in retirement, they sat in judgment on the world which had passed
through two revolutions, on their country which had won independence and
confirmed it, and on themselves; and they did so with an open-mindedness
and a feeling of conviction that subsequent generations cannot fail to
admire. Lester J. Cappon, editor
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