Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis

The letters of chapter seven range from April 1790 to March 1801. The letters of the 1790s display only a very small portion of the interaction between Adams and Jefferson in those years. In the early years, they were in close personal contact, so few letters needed writing and later there were few letters due to their political differences.

When Jefferson first heard of Adams's election to the vice-presidency, he was pleased. Returning home six months later, he was made secretary of state. While Jefferson was secretary of state for four years, he wrote only two letters about foreign policy to Adams. The first covers the long-standing disputes with Great Britain over the US's northeast boundary and the other the Consular Convention of 1788 with France.

Separations between Adams and Jefferson appeared at this time. When Thomas Paine's Rights of Man was published, Jefferson...