Forebodings of the Founders

The Adams-Jefferson Letters, edited by Lester J. Cappon. University of North Carolina Press, 2 vols., $12.50 So far as I can determine, the publication two years ago of the Adams-Jefferson correspondence has not been widely cheered, which reminds one of John Adams’ story of the Greek who, hearing his speech clamorously applauded, turned to a friend to ask if he had said something foolish. And yet silence is not what one would have expected; one would have thought the serious critic’s first problem would have been to differentiate for the interested Adams’ and Jefferson’s lively wit (and the mature civilization it implies) from the amusing witticisms of provincial personalities whose fame rests upon some accident of time or place.

As an exercise in such differentiation, one might start with Jefferson’s conclusion from watching France: that one could only “pray that heaven may send them good kings”; or his answer when Adams wrote that England seemed intent on acting against her own long-range interests: “I never yet found any other general rule for foretelling what they will do, but that of examining what they ought not to do.” These, if spoken at a Presidential press conference, would seem merely glib; but they are not. The range of reading and observation, and that of the most patiently intelligent sort, that lies behind any statement these men made is almost unbelievable. (The first volume of their correspondence records their untiring, precise, meticulous attention to details while at the French and English capitals.)

VM

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Vincent Miller

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Declaration of Independence

The Adams-Jefferson Letters, edited by Lester J. Cappon. University of North Carolina Press, 2 vols., $12.50 So far as I can determine, the publication two years ago of the Adams-Jefferson correspondence has not been widely cheered, which reminds one of John Adams’ story of the Greek who, hearing his speech clamorously applauded, turned to a friend to ask if he had said something foolish. And yet silence is not what one would have expected; one would have thought the serious critic’s first problem would have been to differentiate for the interested Adams’ and Jefferson’s lively wit (and the mature civilization it implies) from the amusing witticisms of provincial personalities whose fame rests upon some accident of time or place.

As an exercise in such differentiation, one might start with Jefferson’s conclusion from watching France: that one could only “pray that heaven may send them good kings”; or his answer when Adams wrote that England seemed intent on acting against her own long-range interests: “I never yet found any other general rule for foretelling what they will do, but that of examining what they ought not to do.” These, if spoken at a Presidential press conference, would seem merely glib; but they are not. The range of reading and observation, and that of the most patiently intelligent sort, that lies behind any statement these men made is almost unbelievable. (The first volume of their correspondence records their untiring, precise, meticulous attention to details while at the French and English capitals.)