Between Liberty and Stability : John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the Enduring Difficulty of Building and Maintaining a Regime

This book gives much needed attention to John Adams’ and Thomas Jefferson’s decades-long intellectual rivalry, showcasing the full scope of their political thought within the context of their distinct understanding of how to establish a functional liberal political order.

John Adams’s and Thomas Jefferson’s political careers spanned the most formidable times of the early republic. They worked together to draft the Declaration of Independence only to become bitter political rivals, serving as the candidates of the first American political parties and competing in the first competitive presidential election. Most accounts of their relationship tend to focus on their political rivalry and the politics of the Federalists and Republicans. Between Liberty and Stability: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the Enduring Difficulty of Building and Maintaining a Regime shows how their decades-long intellectual relationship shaped their political aims and informed their distinct understanding of how to establish a functional liberal political order. Beyond their politics are important philosophic discussions of human nature, constitutionalism, and statesmanship that can help readers today to understand and reevaluate many of the contemporary commitments that are commonly associated with a liberal political order.