This week we present the third of four conversations between the author and historian Joseph J. Ellis and The Thomas Jefferson Hour creator Clay S. Jenkinson about the letters exchanged between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams from 1812 until the death of both men on July 4, 1826. In this third episode Ellis says that during this age, “letter writing was an art and these are two of the best letter writers in in late eighteenth century America. I don’t know that anybody is better. Franklin is pretty good, but Madison’s letters read like the footnotes of an insurance policy.”
#1390 Jefferson-Adams Letters (Part Three)
This week we present the fourth and final of four conversations between the author and historian Joseph J. Ellis and The Thomas Jefferson Hour creator Clay S. Jenkinson about the letters exchanged between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams from 1812 until the death of both men on July 4, 1826. In this fourth episode, Clay and Joe discuss the vision Jefferson and Adams held for for America and Joe questions Clay’s assertion that we are no longer a republic, while Clay offers 10 ways we can correct that.
This week we present the third of four conversations between the author and historian Joseph J. Ellis and The Thomas Jefferson Hour creator Clay S. Jenkinson about the letters exchanged between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams from 1812 until the death of both men on July 4, 1826. In this third episode Ellis says that during this age, “letter writing was an art and these are two of the best letter writers in in late eighteenth century America. I don’t know that anybody is better. Franklin is pretty good, but Madison’s letters read like the footnotes of an insurance policy.”
We present the second of four conversations between the author and historian Joseph J. Ellis and The Thomas Jefferson Hour creator Clay S. Jenkinson about the letters exchanged between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams from 1812 until the death of both men on July 4, 1826. In this second episode, they discuss some of what the letters reveal about both men including their thoughts on slavery in America. As Joseph Ellis says in the program, “Jefferson is the most resonant figure in American history because he straddles the greatest insights and the worst instincts.”
We present the first of four conversations between the author and historian Joseph J. Ellis and The Thomas Jefferson Hour creator Clay S. Jenkinson about the letters exchanged between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams from 1812 until the death of both men on July 4, 1826. In this first episode, we discuss how the correspondence began. As John Adams wrote to Jefferson on July 15, 1813, “You and I, ought not to die, before we have explained ourselves to each other.”