John Adams vs. Thomas Jefferson Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

John Adams vs. Thomas Jeffer countersign - Research Paper ExampleWhether it was a clash of ideologies or clash of personalities, it was an ugly situation which came win to accusation campaigns against each other. Jeffersons people were heard accusing President Adams as having a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a piece of music nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman to which Adams crowd responded by calling the Vice President Jefferson a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father (Swint 2008). Hence the two characters were introduced to the general public and eventually discussed widely in the academia. While Adam was labeled with bounderish terms like fool and criminal as well as tyrant and hypocrite, Jefferson was regarded as an atheist, coward, a weakling and libertine. Since there was no campaigning for the presidential candidates in the past, these political fig ures spent the election period at their homes, Adams in Massach maptts and Jefferson in Virginia. The core difference between the two politicians was in the use of tactics to get to win the elections. Jefferson used James Callendar as hatchet man to convince America that Adams was keen on attacking France which was not the integrity but it did win him the election because people bought his story. Adams considered himself above such tactics. Callendar has to serve in jail because of Jefferson and felt he owed him all the respect even later he was released from jail in 1801. When he did not receive any conciliation from Jefferson, he wrote a story revealing that Jefferson had an affair with one of his slaves pass Hemings who had five children from him and lived in France. Things continued to become dirty between Jefferson and Adams. It is still mind boggling when one recalls the friendship between the two which was so close that Jefferson himself announced Adams as a visionary man who was accurate in his judgments. He referred to Adams as a warmhearted soul who did have his weaknesses but they did not overweigh his faithfulness (Swint 2008). Adams and Jefferson had contrasting lives. While Adams was the eldest son of a middling farmer in Braintree who worked as a shoemaker in winters for survival of his family, Jefferson was the eldest son of a wealthy planter in Virginia who owned thousands of acres of land and more than hundreds of slaves. Adams was raised in a strict Calvinist atmosphere where he was taught to subordinate an individual for a positive outcome in the community, respecting the authority figures. Raised in Anglican Church, Jefferson was rather impressed with his fathers spread out to power by merely surveying and speculation of the plants. He never said a word about his beliefs in his formative years. His father motherfucker Jefferson was a learned man who worked hard to come to his stature. Adams and Jefferson both received schooling in th eir early life but Adams stayed home while go to a preparatory school and Jefferson was sent for early schooling away from home. Adams went to Harvard later in life while Jefferson to William and Mary (Ferling 18). Jefferson wanted to be accepted as a unique figure even among the planter elite. He dismissed the aristocratic ways and acknowledged his worth for seeing things in a progressive light. Adams had no choice but to choose his career but Jefferson always had an option because of