While I Breathe I Shall Be Your Friend

The conclusion of a letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson. These political opponents in early life, one from Massachusetts and the other from Virginia, both crafters of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, became friends after their days in political life. They carried on an extensive correspondence until the year they died. One of the quirks of history is that their deaths occurred on the same day, which happened to be July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of signing of the Declaration of Independence. This letter was written February 25, 1825. It is a deep token of friendship but contains no word of hope or mercy in Christ.

I wish your health may continue to the last much better than mine. The little strength of mind and the considerable strength of body that I once possessed appear to be all gone, but while I breathe I shall be your friend. We shall meet again, so wishes and so believes your friend, but if we are disappointed we shall never know it.

The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson & Abigail & John Adams, edited by Lester J. Cappon, The University of North Carolina Press, 1959, p. 610.

Independent Minds Rejecting Christianity

A selection from a letter by John Adams to Thomas Jefferson. Though rivals in the political realm for many years, they came to appreciate one another and were friends, evidenced by their extensive correspondence. This letter was written near the end of their lives. It makes clear that Adams shared with Jefferson the religion of Deism. Both were guilty of excising all from the Bible except the moral principles they approved of. In this letter Adams mocks those who have creeds and confessions of the Christian faith, stating his devotion to liberal science instead. The letter was written January 22, 1825.

Your University is a noble employment in your old Age, and your ardor for its success, does you honour, but I do not approve of you sending to Europe for Tutors, and Professors. I do believe there are sufficient scholars in America to fill your Professorships and Tutorships with more active ingenuity, and independent minds, than you can bring from Europe. The Europeans are all deeply tainted with prejudices both Ecclesiastical, and Temporal which they can never get rid of; they are all infected with Episcopal and Presbyterian Creeds, and confessions of faith, They all believe that great principle, which has produced this boundless Universe. Newtons Universe, and Hershells universe, came down to this little Ball, to be spit-upon by Jews; and until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.

The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, edited by Lester J. Cappon, The University of North Carolina Press, 1987, p. 607.

Attend to the Education of Your Children

A selection from a letter by John Adams, who had just been elected president of the recently formed United States of America, to his daughter Abigail “Nabby” Adams Smith, about a proper education for her three sons. He was as interested in his grandchildren’s education as he had been about his own children’s. The letter was written February 21, 1797, two weeks prior to his inauguration as the second president of the United States.

In your solitary hours, my dear daughter, you will have a delightful opportunity of attending to the education of your children, to give them a taste and attachment to study, and to books. A taste for science and literature, added to a turn for business, never can fail of success in life. Without learning, nothing very great can ever be accomplished in the way of business. But not only a thirst for knowledge should be excited, and a taste for letters be cultivated, but prudence, patience, justice, temperance, resolutions, modesty, and self-cultivation, should be recommended to them as early as possible. The command of their passions, the restraints of their appetites, reverence for superiors, especially parents, a veneration for religion, morals, and good conduct.

You will find it more for your happiness to spend your time with them in this manner, than to be engaged in fashionable amusements, and social entertainments, even with the best company.

Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children, Dorie McCullough Lawson, Doubleday, 2004, p. 26.