Jefferson and Adams Live

It is arguably America’s greatest historical coincidence. Exactly 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence announced America’s birth as a nation on July 4th, 1776, the Declaration’s author, Thomas Jefferson, and the man who recommended him for the job, John Adams, both died. The date was July 4th in 1826.

For both men it had been a remarkable half century, one in which they had begun as allies, but had spent much of as political enemies. Fortunately, in the last few years of their lives they became friends again through a remarkable correspondence in which, among many other subjects, they shared their recollections of the nation they had helped create and their hopes for its future.

It was John Adams, after all, who had first noted Jefferson’s “felicity of composition” in recommending that the young Virginian take first crack at a written declaration explaining to the world why “…these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States,” which Jefferson penned in prose unmatched in American history. Their budding friendship then blossomed in the 1780s as both men served together on several diplomatic missions to Europe. It continued in George Washington’s administration, where Adams served as vice president and Jefferson as secretary of state.

But friendship turned to friction when their evolving political philosophies began to put them at odds. In the 1790s Adams had become de facto head of the Federalist Party, whose belief in a stronger central government had always been an anathema to Jefferson. Their differences came to a head in the presidential election of 1800, in which Jefferson succeeded Adams and promptly reversed many of Adams’ most important presidential acts (including repeal of the hated Alien and Sedition Acts — the latter essentially made it a criminal offense to criticize the government). Adams, who was notoriously thin skinned and always convinced that his contribution to America’s founding would never be fully appreciated, was especially bitter at Jefferson’s undoing of his presidential handiwork, and the two subsequently became estranged. It was only through a mutual friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush, that their affection for each other was finally rekindled and lasted until that fateful fiftieth Fourth.

Of course, neither man knew of the other’s demise. Jefferson died first, sometime around two in the afternoon at his Virginia home near Charlottesville, and his last words were “Is today the 4th?” Adams died some three hours later in his Massachusetts home near Quincy, and his last words were “Jefferson lives.”

Obviously, Adams was mistaken in the short term, but as it would turn out, he was prophetic in the long term. One hundred and eighty-eight years later, Jefferson still lives. And so does Adams.