HISTORY OF THE 4th OF JULY

Perhaps no one person is more associated with the 4th of July in American
History than Thomas Jefferson, probably because he penned the immortal
Declaration of Independence.

As my friend Clay Jenkinson says in his book Thomas Jefferson: Man of Light 
"The Third President is the Muse of American life, the chief articulator of our
national value system and our national self-identity. Jefferson was a man of
almost unbelievable achievement: statesman, man of letters, architect,
scientist, book collector, political strategist, and utopian visionary. But he
is also a man of paradox: liberty-loving slaveholder, Indian-loving
relocationist, publicly frugal and privately bankrupt, a constitutional
conservative who bought the Louisiana Territory in 1803." Even by 1782, 
as an admiring French visitor observed, Jefferson, "without having quitted his 
own country," had become "an American who ... is a musician, draftsman, astronomer, 
natural philosopher, jurist and a statesman." He knew about crop rotation, 
Renaissance architecture, could dance a jig, play the fiddle, or tie an artery.

Though friends in their youth, disagreements separated Thomas Jefferson and our
second President John Adams in later years. They were eventually reconciled
toward their twilight years and though they never saw each other again after
Adams left the White House to be replaced by Jefferson, in the last 14 years of
their lives they exchanged 156 letters, some of them quite warm. This
correspondence is generally regarded as the intellectual capstone to the
achievements of the revolutionary generation and the most impressive
correspondence between prominent statesmen.

They both died on the same day, July 4th, the 50th anniversary of the
Declaration of Independence, two of the last three signers. At the age of 91
John Adams collapsed in his favorite reading chair and died that afternoon, his
last words were, "Thomas Jefferson still lives." But Jefferson would have said
"wrong, as usual." In his last days his health had failed and he passed in and
out of consciousness. On the 4th of July, 1826 just a few hours before Adams
died -- in his home in Monticello, Virginia -- surrounded by his daughter and
some special slaves, shortly after noon, at the age of 83, Thomas Jefferson
died. His last words were, 
"Is it the 4th?"


	Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian 
	www.billpetro.com


Read more at: http://www.th-jefferson.org/home.html