HUU Sermon Archives

John Adams versus Thomas Jefferson: Unitarians Struggling Over the Soul of our Nation

Barkley Rosser
February 20, 2005

I shall present here an outline of the sermon rather than a fully complete version.

There are three main points.

1. Were they really Unitarians and why does it matter?

It matters because many people, such as D. James Kennedy, claim that the United States is a “Christian nation” and that this was the intention of the founding fathers, who are also claimed to have been Christians.

In lists of religious affiliations of US presidents, John Adams is listed as being Unitarian, along with his son, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, and William Howard Taft. The main basis of this is his lifelong affiliation with the First Church of Quincy, MA (formerly Braintree), which was one of the 120 founding churches of the American Unitarian Association in 1825, the year before Adams and Jefferson both died (on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence). He and his wife Abigail and his son and wife Louisa are all buried in the crypt of that church, now the First Unitarian Church of Quincy.

However, it can be argued that this is a late affiliation, and certainly he and his son were of the more conservative branch of Unitarianism. His Pulitzer Prize winning biographer, David McCollough, describes him as “simple, pious, and Christian.” He originally set out to be a minister when he attended Harvard, but was concerned with needing to conform to certain views. In contrast to the more conservative Puritan (Calvinist) Congregationalists, he rejected predestination, supported free will, “Arminianism,” as preached by a minister at First Church when he was young. In writings he denounced Calvinism and “Athanasianism,” a code word for believing in the doctrine of the Trinity.

In 1823, he declared that preferred only one denomination, although he attended many different churches. He strongly supported religious freedom. His last public political act was in 1820 (at age 85) to attempt to get the constitution of Massachusetts amended to allow religious freedom, especially for Jews. However, while in Philadelphia, he refused to attend the Unitarian Church led by Joseph Priestly (which Jefferson did attend) because of his disagreement with Priestly (and Jefferson) over the French Revolution.

While Adams almost certainly was of the William Ellery Channing faction who considered themselves to be “Unitarian Christians,” in 1797 as president he presented the Treaty of Tripoli to the US Senate containing the statement, “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,” which was accepted without amendment.

Thomas Jefferson was not a member of a Unitarian Church (there was none near where he lived in Virginia), and was officially a member of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, providing it with financial and other support, while refusing to serve as anyone’s godparent due to his disagreement with the doctrine of the Trinity. He did attend Joseph Priestly’s Unitarian Church while staying in Philadelphia. While officially less of a Unitarian than Adams, he was arguably more vigorous a one theologically, certainly more assertively radical in his views, although arguably still a Christian of some very vague sort, at least in admiring the moral code of Jesus. He famously rewrote the Bible to remove elements he thought untrue, but with the goal of emphasizing the true words and moral code of Jesus.

Besides also denouncing Athanasianism, Jefferson on at least two occasions made statements many have seen as showing his Unitarian sympathies, if not outright belief or adherence.

“The population of my neighborhood is too slender, and is too much divided into other sects to maintain any one preacher well. I must therefore be contented with being a Unitarian by myself.” (date uncertain)

“I rejoice that in this blessed country of free ideas and belief, which has surrendered its creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests, the genuine doctrine of one only God is reviving my trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian.” (from letter to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June 26, 1822)

Jefferson authored the Statute of Religious Freedom of Virginia, the model for the First Amendment of the US Constitution. In 1802, in a letter to the Baptists of Danbury, CT, he argued that the First Amendment established a “wall of separation between church and state,” which he supported, despite his own public attendance at church services in public places during his presidency. During the hard-fought presidential election of 1800, which he won against Adams, opponents (not including Adams) accused him of being a “howling atheist.” But it is clear that whatever else he believed in he did believe in the existence of a divine “Creator.” It is also controversial whether or not he was a “deist” or not, a question not pursued further here.

2. What did they struggle over?

• Adams was a leading Federalist; Jefferson was the leading Democrat-Republican (generally called “Republicans” in their day).
   
• They ran for president against each other in 1796 and in 1800, Adams winning the first time, Jefferson the second, the latter a tie vote in the electoral college that led to a determination in the House of Representatives, the only time this happened besides 1824 when John Quincy Adams was elected president.
   
• Adams supported urban big business and banking; Jefferson supported farming and small business, opposed a national bank.
   
• Adams opposed slavery; Jefferson opposed it in theory, but practiced it and raised problems about ending it.
• Adams supported the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, although with little enthusiasm; Jefferson strongly opposed them.
• During the 1790s, Adams supported Great Britain; Jefferson supported France (the basis of their not both attending Priestly’s Unitarian Church in Philadelphia during that time).
• Despite many similarities in their theological positions, they were of very different characters: the puritanical Adams preferring a simple life and the “epicurean” Jefferson a life of much greater luxury and extravagance.

3. Although they differed deeply, they were ultimately friends.

They began as friends, with Adams proposing that Jefferson make a first draft of the Declaration of Independence, and Adams serving with Benjamin Franklin on the committee that edited it further. Adams strongly supported it in the Continental Congress, with both of them supporting a clause that denounced King George for his support of the British slave trade, a clause ultimately not accepted by the Congress. They split during George Washington’s administration when Adams was vice president, and supported the Federalists led by Alexander Hamilton, and Jefferson was the Secretary of State, the main leader of the Democrat-Republicans. However, after both were out of office, the Universalist and Declaration signer, Benjamin Rush, reconciled them in 1812. After that they corresponded regularly about many issues, with both of them becoming apparently more liberal in their views of religion with age. They both died on the same day, July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the famous document they shared responsibility for. Although Jefferson had died a few hours earlier, the 90-year old Adams’s last words were “Jefferson still lives.”

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