The letters are from late 1815. So: a couple things swirling around in the world at that time
— The aftermath of the war of 1812.
— Adams and Jefferson watched the meteoric rise of Napoleon with horror. (Jefferson had been a big fan of the French revolution, Adams had been horrified by it … but they both were horrified by the tyranny of Napoleon. Jefferson called him ‘the Attila of the age’)
— March to June 1815: The Hundred Days. (the end of the Napoleonic regime, the last chapter, as it were)
— But, let us add this in to the mix: Jefferson and Adams, now old men, wondered to one another: who was the greater tyrant, John Bull or this new tyrannical France? They hashed it out. Their anti-British feelings are still strong … and yet the two of them know, somehow, that the fortunes of the United States will be forever tied with the fortunes of that original parent nation. (I read about this this morning and thought of Emily, Bill and myself toasting Tony Blair the first time we all met, clinking our beer glasses together. Ha!)
These events are, collectively, center stage for Adams and Jefferson at this time. They are their current-day concerns. On a more uber level, they wonder: have the advances from the 18th century in political/moral theory and man’s enlightenment all been swept away? Is it so easy to regress, did all you and I worked for mean nothing?
Pertinent questions to them in their day, and, I believe, still pertinent to us in ours.
