Two men among our founding fathers, one a northerner and the other a southerner, met along with three others to compose the Declaration of Independence. The northerner, whose favorite form of conversation was argument, was short and stocky. The southerner was tall, elegant, and reserved. The former was a better speaker than writer. The latter was a better writer than speaker. The northerner gave an account of how his southern friend came to write the initial draft.
The subcommittee met. He proposed to me to make the draft.
I said, “I will not.”
“Why?”
“You should do it.”
“Why will you not?”
“Reasons enough. I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. And you can write ten times better than I can.”
“Well, if you are decided, I will do as well as I can.”
When the task was completed, the other men suggested a few changes. The changes were made and a nation was born.
“It will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival,” proclaimed the northerner. “It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.”
The signing of the document and the war with England brought the two men closer. When the southerner’s wife died, his northern friend and his wife consoled him. They considered him to be a member of their family and often had him as a guest in their home.
Some six years after independence was won, a permanent government was formed and George Washington became America’s first president. The two men served under him in his cabinet.
But then their political differences began to emerge. The northerner wanted a strong central government. The southerner feared that giving too much power to a central government would bring back the tyranny they had fought a war to abolish.
When Washington stepped down after eight years, the two men vied for his vacated position. The northerner narrowly won. The southerner, as the number two vote getter, became his vice-president. It was a miserable experience for both, as each wanted to take the nation in different directions. The new president brought men into his cabinet with whom his former friend could not work. In retaliation the vice-president secretly hired a newspaperman to slander the northerner’s presidency.
Four years later they again ran against each other. This time the southerner eked out a victory. His former northern friend was so embittered that he left the newly built White House in the new capitol of Washington City early, refusing to greet the incoming president when he arrived. Twelve years of silence between them followed.
The feud not only deeply embittered the two men, but greatly troubled Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the document that birthed our nation, who was still a close friend of both. One night, several months after the southerner left the presidency, Dr. Rush had a dream about the two. He wrote an account of his dream and sent it to both men, urging them to write to each other.
The southerner answered Rush that he admired his former friend as “always an honest man, often a great one, but sometimes incorrect and precipitate in his judgments.” But he would not make the first move in writing. Finally, the northerner broke the ice with a letter to his former friend dated January 1, 1812. Thus began a fourteen-year correspondence.
At first their letters were polite and formal, as both men tried to discern how open they could be with one another. But in time they brought up the subjects upon which they differed, each trying to understand the other’s point of view.
“You and I ought not to die, before we have explained ourselves to each other,” said the northerner. “Whether you or I were right, posterity must judge.”
One of the subjects upon which they disagreed was the French Revolution. The southerner saw that revolution as a continuation of the spirit of the American Revolution—the fight for freedom against monarchial tyranny. The northerner was deeply troubled by the savagery of the French Revolution.
They discussed their differing views on the form a functioning republic should take. The southerner, believing that man was perfectible, wanted a new kind of society, without the class divisions of Europe. He believed that in every free nation a natural upper class of the most talented men would rise up that would represent “the will of the people.”
The northerner, believing humanity to be hopelessly corrupt, regarded his friend’s utopian vision for America to be an illusion. Checks and balances in the government were necessary to fight the inevitable corruptions that come with political power.
They did find things upon which they agreed. Both hated the banking industry. Both shared their doubts about the existence of an afterlife. Both worried that the issue of slavery might one day tear the nation apart.
All through those fourteen years they maintained a respectful, affectionate tone in their writings. The friendship they had known in the early days of the American republic was fully restored.
One of the great ironies of American history is that both men died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. They were the last of our great founding fathers to leave the scene. “Is it the fourth yet?” the southerner Thomas Jefferson asked his family that morning. Informed that it was, he died peacefully at 12:50 that afternoon. His northern friend John Adams died a few hours later. His last words, “Thomas Jefferson survives.”
If there is one word in the English language that I love above all others, it is the word “reconciliation.” It is possible for people of good will, but of differing opinions, to remain friends. Two of our founding fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson have shown us the way. I wish it could also be true in our present political divide.
