Adams made the first move. On New Year’s Day 1812, he gifted Jefferson two pieces of “homespun,” or handmade fabric, as a token of goodwill, along with a brief letter wishing Jefferson well and providing an update on his own family, including his daughter’s recovery from a painful operation.
Jefferson responded wistfully, reminiscing about the good old days when he and Adams had fought side by side with the other Founding Fathers for the right to self-determination. Jefferson also shared that he had “taken final leave” of politics, thereby opening up room in his life for his long-lost friendship with Adams. He also shared that, in addition to retreating from public life, he had “given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier.”
Over the next 14 years, the two Founders corresponded in more than 150 letters. They discussed their familial rather than their political legacies: “I live in the midst of my grandchildren, one of whom has lately promoted me to be a great grandfather,” Jefferson wrote to Adams on Jan. 21, 1812. Their exchanges explored habits of self-care and exercise routines: “I walk every fair day, sometimes 3 or 4 miles,” Adams wrote to Jefferson in a Feb. 3, 1812, letter.
They continued their friendship and correspondence until the day they died — coincidentally, within hours of each other on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
Reasoned, spirited debate is central to a free and flourishing democracy. But Jefferson and Adams learned the hard way that politics is not worth ending relationships over.