Good Day Thomas Jefferson, our podcast listeners.

And we're so excited to present this show this week.

It's the first of four planned conversations

with Professor Joseph Ellis about the Jefferson Adams correspondence and it was a

great conversation I will you will not be disappointed listening to Clay and

Professor Ellis.

Jefferson lived to be 83 years old, John Adams 91, of all the periods of their lives, the

one I think that's richest, at least in terms of their friendship is the period between 1812 and 1826 when they exchanged

about 150 letters. Adams wrote two essentially for every one by Thomas Jefferson, but you learn more about the nature of

the revolution and this extraordinary friendship between these two men during this period.

And it's also a kind of reviewing of their lives. They both knew that they were

approaching the end and as Adam said we must not to how we have explained ourselves to each other.

I find that just exceedingly moving as a thought.

They didn't actually fully succeed in that, but they made a good run at trying to each of them explain his philosophical

and political point of view to a skeptic at the other end of America.

You know it's really fascinating to read these letters. I would encourage listeners if they're interested to get a copy of the book that we talk about and you sir were so kind as to give me a copy of it years ago and it is

dog-eared and well-read. But these two men, they bounce between these serious discussions about what democracy means.

We didn't even touch on their exchanges about religion,

but they're also, they're almost playful at time and they're both very sentimental

about their relationship during the revolution.

Well, Jefferson called them a band of brothers and he really measured his life from 1775.

That was when he became a national figure.

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