Brown University historian Gordon S. Wood explores relationship between two Founding Fathers in "Friends Divided."

"Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson," by Gordon S. Wood. Penguin Press. 512 pages. $35.

On May 17, 1776, an exuberant John Adams informed his wife, Abigail, that American independence had finally been declared. Two days before, the Second Continental Congress approved a radical preface to a set of resolutions calling for the creation of new state governments. The preface, drafted by Adams, read in part: it was now “necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed.” Adams noted that it was “considered” as “equivalent to a declaration of Independence.”

History, however, rarely notes the May 15 preface or the resolutions connected to it. What is part of our collective memory is the Declaration of Independence and July 4, 1776. Adams was always bitter about this. “Jefferson ran away with the stage effect ... and all the glory of it,” wrote Adams in 1811. Although Jefferson often remarked during his life that he was satisfied with being a junior to his friend John Adams (he was indeed eight years younger), Adams certainly never felt that the nation treated him as Jefferson’s equal, let alone his superior.

The Adams-Jefferson relationship has long fascinated American historians, especially the remarkable reconciliation that took place between the two men late in life which led to an exchange of well over 150 letters between 1812 and their deaths, just hours apart, on July 4, 1826. However, the reconciliation was largely superficial, for the two men still differed on many critical issues. As the eminent historian Gordon S. Wood, a professor emeritus at Brown University, notes in his engaging new book, “no two men who claimed to be friends were divided on so many crucial matters.” For example, at the heart of Adams’ “entire understanding of society and politics,” writes Wood, lay the “social division between a leisured aristocracy and the common people.” The slaveholder Jefferson was never preoccupied by this difference.

The Adams-Jefferson correspondence is a narrative of the founding of the nation, an ongoing dialogue about the meaning and legacy of the Revolution. During the 1770s, Adams and Jefferson were both radical revolutionaries, espousing a profound belief in the capacity of the people to rule. However, their later letters reveal two stories about America. During the height of the French Revolution, Adams came to disavow the “enlightened view that all men were created equal.” As Wood argues, to the “end of his life Adams always felt a deep need to emphasize the natural inequality of people.” Jefferson did not. Jefferson’s idealism served as an inspiration for reformers of all stripes. Adams’ realism, by contrast, rarely inspired. He was a lone voice in the wilderness, warning about an impending storm that would destroy the democratic ship of state.

Wood, the dean of Revolutionary-era historians, has skillfully utilized the papers of Adams and Jefferson to write a remarkable dual biography that offers fresh insights into the lives of the two philosophical giants. The book is especially strong on Adams’ constitutional thought, along with the contentious politics of the 1790s. "Friends Divided" should be required reading for students and scholars of the founding period.

— Erik J. Chaput, PhD, a longtime reviewer, teaches American history at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and in the School of Continuing Education at Providence College.