An Inspiring Correspondence

How are you today, my beloved reader? Hoping that you are counting your blessings regularly as well as finding contentment with the person that you are, I want to share with you a story about an inspiring correspondence between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson which I first read about in 2010 in a speech given by Richard C. Levin, the then president of Yale University.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both played a pivotal role in the American struggle for independence that took place in the 18th century. After the United States gained independence, they both served as its president. Adams was the second President of the United States while Jefferson was the third.

On finishing their terms as presidents, they began exchanging letters starting from the year 1812 until 1826 when they both died on the same day. The letters they exchanged were about history, theology and politics of the day.

According to Richard C. Levin, there are three traits of Adams and Jefferson that emerge from their letters to each other: a passion for learning, capacity for independent thought and a friendship grounded in the deepest respect and admiration for one another.

Adams and Jefferson were voracious readers and prolific writers. Adams had a great library in Massachusetts; Jefferson, one of the finest in Virginia. They were both fluent in English, Greek, Latin and French. And they often recommended books to one another and discussed their contents with each other.

Take for instance Plato's Republic, a book they both loathed. Jefferson, in a letter that speaks much of his independence of thought, wrote to Adams, "I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the whole world should have consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this."

Adams replied, "I am very glad you have seriously read Plato, and still more rejoiced to find that your reflections upon him so perfectly harmonize with mine."

It's not only their breadth of learning that is impressing, but their passion for it. Adams wrote to Jefferson, "So many subjects crowd upon me that I know not which to begin with."

On the particular subject of government, where their passion was most intense, Adams insisted, "You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other."

Jefferson concurred and added, "...But why am I dosing you with these ante-diluvian topics? Because I am glad to have someone whom they are familiar with and who will not receive them as if dropped from the moon."

Then five years before their death, the 86-year old Adams wrote to Jefferson, "Must we, before we take our departure from this grand and beautiful world, surrender all our pleasing hopes of the progress of society? Of improvement of the intellectual and moral condition of the world? Of the reformation of mankind?"

A passion for learning, capacity for independent thought and a friendship rooted in deep respect and admiration for one another - again, these are the traits that Richard C. Levin said come out of the inspiring correspondence between Adams and Jefferson. I am striving to cultivate those traits in myself each passing day. Not an unwise thing for you to do as well, my beloved reader!