John Adams and Thomas Jefferson: Creating the American Republic reveals the thoughts and actions of two founders of the American Republic who could hardly have been more dissimilar in background and personality. Both their friendship and rivalry were born in the cauldron of the American Revolution and nurtured by the flames of ambition and clashing political philosophies. Together they helped plan and plot a revolution and led its defining moment, the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. After a new American Republic emerged from the revolution, Jefferson and Adams became lightening rods in the political storms that nearly wrecked the American ship of state on the shoals of sectionalism, political parties and personal principles. Adams's belief that Jefferson had become a Jacobin and Jefferson's belief that Adams was a monarchist fueled a desperate struggle to control the direction of the American nation. Personal friends and political enemies, Adams and Jefferson might be called frenemies in today's vernacular. Principle, ambition and pride were the mainstays of their successes and their failures.