Team of Rivals

On the day of his political rival’s inauguration, John Adams ducked out of town via stagecoach at four o’clock in the morning. After a bruising political contest, Thomas Jefferson prevailed. But Jefferson’s victory presented one of modern democracy’s first major tests: Could presidential power in the United States pass between rivals without incident?

In his first inaugural address, Jefferson chose to emphasize unity and civic charity. He declared memorably “we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.”

This month, the United States will once again witness an inauguration following a particularly bitter campaign season. Charity and unity are once again the messages Americans need to hear. We are all Republicans, we are all Democrats, we are all Americans.

In his book, “Bonds of Affection: Civic Charity and the Making of America,” Elder Matthew S. Holland, a General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a scholar of American history, traces the evolution of Jefferson’s youthful secularism to a more seasoned appreciation for what he called “benign” religion’s role in fostering civic happiness. Jefferson writes in his first inaugural, “benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter — with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people?” America’s third president came to understand the way religious impulses, at their best, could foster unity, virtue and national felicity.

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In our first issue of 2025, an essay drawn from the forthcoming book “Cross Purposes,” Brookings Institution fellow Jonathan Rauch explores the ways in which religion can still serve as an agent for greater civic charity. He quotes President Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the church’s First Presidency and a former jurist: “I love this country, which I believe was established with the blessings of God. I love its Constitution, whose principles I believe were divinely inspired. I am, therefore, distressed at the way we are handling the national issues that divide us.”

Emerging technologies present a different challenge to democracy. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, and Lyric Kaplan, a lead counsel for generative AI at Snap, both provide thoughtful examinations of artificial intelligence’s potential impact on democracy. Mariya Manzhos explores what’s next for conservatism’s most influential media empire. And Randal Quarles, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, makes the case for an economic growth approach to combating ballooning deficits. “The annals of history are littered with the husks of empires … that lost control of their finances, and thus of their fate,” Quarles writes. “We do not need to be among them, provided we learn the lesson of history.”

It took some 12 years for Adams and Jefferson to reconcile after Jefferson’s first inauguration. It finally happened when Jefferson’s neighbor visited Adams, who said of Jefferson, “I always loved (him), and still love him.” For Jefferson, it was “enough for me. I only needed this … to revive towards (Adams) all the affections of the most cordial moments of our lives.” One of those cordial moments must have included working together on the drafting committee for the Declaration of Independence. Fifty years after signing it, reconciled at last, the two men died on the same day: the Fourth of July.

This story appears in the January/February 2025 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.

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