Both served in the Continental Congress.
Both signed the Declaration of Independence.
Both served as U.S. Ministers in France.
Both were U.S. Presidents, one elected the 2nd President and the other the 3rd.
Once political enemies, they became close friends in later life.
An awe swept America when they both died on the same day, JULY 4, 1826, exactly 50 years since they approved the Declaration of Independence.
Their names were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson's handwritten Declaration of Independence used the wording "inalienable rights" as seen in the copies at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, the New York Public Library, and the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston.
John Adams hand copied Jefferson's original draft and changed the spelling to "unalienable rights" when he oversaw the printing of the Declaration on the Dunlap broadside.
The Broadway musical 1776 even has a scene portraying their disagreement over the spelling.
According to The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style (Houghton Mifflin Co.), "unalienable" and "inalienable" both mean:
"that which cannot be given away or taken away."
John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, was the 6th President at the time and told Congress, December 5, 1826:
"Since your last meeting at this place, the 50th anniversary of the day when our independence was declared ...
two of the principal actors in that solemn scene -- the HAND that penned the ever-memorable Declaration and the VOICE that sustained it in debate --
were by one summons, at the distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of All to account for their deeds done upon earth."
John Quincy Adams wrote in an Executive Order, July 11, 1826:
"A coincidence ... so wonderful gives confidence ... that the patriotic efforts of these ... men were Heaven directed, and furnishes a new ... hope that the prosperity of these States is under the special protection of a kind Providence."
Defending the Declaration, John Adams told the Continental Congress, July 1, 1776:
"Before God, I believe the hour has come ...
All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it ...
... Live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment. Independence now, and Independence for ever!"
John Adams stated, June 21, 1776:
"Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.
The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue,
and if this cannot be inspired into our People ... they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty."
In 1819, John Adams wrote to Jefferson:
"Have you ever found in history, one single example of a nation thoroughly corrupted that was afterwards restored to virtue? ... And without virtue, there can be no political liberty ...
Will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly? ... No effort in favor of virtue is lost."
The Jefferson Memorial has a warning from Jefferson:
"God who gave us life gave us liberty.
Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever."
Inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial on the south banks of Washington D.C.'s Tidal Basin, are Jefferson's words:
"Almighty God hath created the mind free ...
All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens ... are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion ...
... No man ... shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion."
After Abigail Adams died in 1818, John wrote to Jefferson:
"I do not know how to prove physically, that we shall meet and know each other in a future state; nor does Revelation, as I can find, give us any positive assurance of such a felicity.
My reasons for believing it, as I do most undoubtedly, are that I cannot conceive such a Being could make such a species as the human, merely to live and die on this earth.
If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God. This Universe, this all would appear, with all of its swelling pomp, a boyish firework.
And if there be a future state, why should the Almighty dissolve forever all the tender ties which unite us so delightfully in this world, and forbid us to see each other in the next?"
Jefferson replied, assuring Adams:
“It is of some comfort to us both that the term is not very distant at which we are to deposit, in the same cerement, our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved & lost and whom we shall still love and never lose again.”
Jefferson described Adams as::
"The pillar of the Declaration's support on the floor of Congress, its ablest advocate and defender."
John Adams' last words were:
"Thank God, Jefferson lives!"
In his last letter, Jefferson reiterated his rejection of overpowering government, as he told Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826:
"The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them."
Calvin Coolidge, the only President born on July 4th, stated at the 150th Anniversary of
the Declaration of Independence, 1926:
"The principles ... which went into the Declaration of Independence ... are found in ... the sermons ... of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live.
They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man ...
They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image ...
This preaching reached the neighborhood of Thomas Jefferson, who acknowledged that his 'best ideas of democracy' had been secured at church meetings."
An item of interest is that five years after Adams and Jefferson died, the fifth President James Monroe, died on JULY 4, 1831.
James Monroe stated in his Eighth Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1824
"For these blessings we owe to Almighty God, from whom we derive them, and with profound reverence, our most grateful and unceasing acknowledgments ...
Having commenced my service in early youth, and continued it since with few and short intervals, I have witnessed the great difficulties to which our Union has been exposed, and admired the virtue and intelligence with which they have been surmounted ...
That these blessings may be preserved and perpetuated will be the object of my fervent and unceasing prayers to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe."
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American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate.
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Image Credits: Artist: John Trumbull (1756–1843); Declaration of Independence, depicting the five-man drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence presenting their work to the Congress. The painting can be found on the back of the U.S. $2 bill. The original hangs in the US Capitol rotunda; Blue pencil.svg wikidata:Q369263; Date: 1819; Collection: United States Capitol; Blue pencil.svg wikidata:Q54109; Accession number: NPG D1357 (National Portrait Gallery); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Declaration_of_Independence_(1819),_by_John_Trumbull.jpg
Thank you for keeping our history relevant fir our times. I cannot give financial support to you and to many other ministers but I pray you will be blessed abundantly in all your heart desires and needs.
Thanks Mr. Federer for all of the timely and insightful lessons from history, and histories great men and women.
Thanks Mr. Federer for all of the timely and insightful lessons from history, and histories great men and women.