Why does Ellis think Adams agreed to and participated in correspondence with TJ? Chapter 6 only

When Ellis considers why Adams would recommence the correspondance, his first proposed answer is that Adams wished to directly “challenge the Jeffersonian version” of the American Revolution, to basically win the argument (223). The second answer is that he wished to be recorded appropriately for history. Ellis indicates that both men knew they were writing for posterity, and shaped their language for that purpose. He notes how Adams frames himself in the letters as an equal partner to Jefferson in the Revolution. However, Ellis also notes how Adams could not stay dispassionate for long, and how his emotional tone often overtakes his otherwise deliberately constructed letters. Ellis laments the following about Adams: “If he could only control himself, if he could speak the lines that history wanted to hear, if he cold fit himself into the heroic mold like a kind of living statue, he might yet win his ticket to immortality” (224).