ABSTRACT
It must surely stand as one o f the m ost touching m om ents o f rapprochem ent in western history. T w o men, once close friends and colleagues, then bitter political opponents, had drifted apart. For some dozen years they had exchanged no w ord . N o w , although destined never to meet again face to face, through the intervention o f a m utual friend and participant in their earlier collaboration, they became correspondents and left a bulky record o f fourteen years o f shared intimacies. T h e one was seventy-seven years o f age w hen the letters recom m enced; the other was sixty-nine. T h e y had both been signers o f A m erica ’s Declaration o f Independence. Each had served both as V ic e - President and President o f the U nited States — indeed, one had served as Vice-President during the term o f the other. Their renewed correspondence was terminated only b y their deaths, w ithin five hours o f each other, on Ju ly 4, 18 26 . I refer, o f course, to Jo h n Adam s and Thom as Jefferson.
