John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 10 November 1823
From John Adams
Quincy 10th November. 1823.1
Dear Sir
Your last letter was brought to me from the Post office when at breakfast with my family. I bade one of the misses open the budget, she reported a letter from Mr Jefferson and two or three newspapers. A letter from Mr Jefferson says I, I know what the substance is before I open it; There is no secrets between Mr Jefferson and me, and I cannot read it, therefore you may open and read it—when it was done, it was followed by an universal exclamation, The best letter that ever was written, and round it went through the whole table—How generous! how noble! how magnanimous! I said that it was just such a letter as I expected only it was infinitely better expressed—A universal cry that the letter ought to be printed, No, hold—certainly not without Mr Jefferson’s express leave.—
As to the blunder-buss itself which was loaded by a miserable melancholly man, out of his wits, and left by him to another to draw the trigger. The only affliction it has given me is sincere grief of the melancholly2 fate of both. The peevish and fretful effusions of politicians3 in difficult and dangerous conjunctures from the agony of their hearts are not worth remembering, much less of laying to heart—
The published correspondence is garbled. All the letters are left out that could explain the whole mystery, The vengence against me was wholly occasioned because he could not persuade me to recommend him to the national government for a mission abroad or the government of a territory—services for which I did not think him qualified—
J.A.
In the 89. year of his age still too fat to last much longer
John Adams
RC (DLC); entirely in Louisa C. Smith’s hand; at foot of text: “Thomas Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ as received 20 Nov. 1823 and so recorded in SJL. FC (Lb in MHi: Adams Papers); salutation, dateline, and first three sentences in William S. Shaw’s hand, with remainder by Smith; partially dated.
The blunder-buss was the recently published Correspondence between Adams and Cunningham, which contained passages by Adams critical of TJ. Following the 1823 suicide of the miserable melancholly William Cunningham, the letters in question were published by his son Ephraim May Cunningham.
During James Madison’s presidency, the elder Cunningham had unsuccessfully sought Adams’s assistance in obtaining an appointment from the national government (Adams to Cunningham, 16 Jan. 1810 [FC in MHi: Adams Papers]).
1. FC: “Montezillo 9 Nov.”
2. RC: “maloncholly.” FC: “melancholly.”
3. FC: “politics.”
Index Entries
- Adams, John; and appointments search
- Adams, John; andCorrespondence between the Hon. John Adams, late president of the United States, and the late Wm. Cunningham, Esq. beginning in 1803, and ending in 1812 search
- Adams, John; and publication of TJ’s letters search
- Adams, John; family of search
- Adams, John; health of search
- Adams, John; letters from search
- books; of correspondence search
- Correspondence between the Hon. John Adams, late president of the United States, and the late Wm. Cunningham, Esq. beginning in 1803, and ending in 1812 search
- Cunningham, Ephraim May; andCorrespondence between the Hon. John Adams, late president of the United States, and the late Wm. Cunningham, Esq. beginning in 1803, and ending in 1812 search
- Cunningham, William; andCorrespondence between the Hon. John Adams, late president of the United States, and the late Wm. Cunningham, Esq. beginning in 1803, and ending in 1812 search
- Cunningham, William; seeks federal appointment search
- health; and weight search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Correspondence; publication of papers search
- Madison, James (1751–1836); and appointments search
- Shaw, William Smith; as J. Adams’s amanuensis search
- Smith, Louisa Catharine (John Adams’s niece); as J. Adams’s amanuensis search