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Division of Aging and DHS Divisions General Eldercare Locator HomeCare Association
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This
column appears in the July 2007 edition of Aging Arkansas,
Perhaps nothing can surpass July 4, 1826 in proving fact is stranger that fiction. To appreciate what happen on July 4, 1826 we must travel back to 1787 when John Adams and Thomas Jefferson lead the effort to create the US Constitution. Thomas Jefferson wrote it, but he was a poor speaker. The task of selling the constitution to the Continental Congress fell to John Adams. These two men became great friends and then bitter enemies. Following the adoption of the Constitution it was a foregone conclusion that George Washington would be our nation’s first President and was uncontested in his election. At this time in our history, there were no political parties. Adams served as the first Vice President and became the nation’s second President. It would be difficult for anyone to follow George Washington, but many factors made Adams first term choppy. Leading the opposition was his once friend, Thomas Jefferson, who opposed him in the election of 1800. John Ferling, Professor of History at the State University of West Georgia described it this way: “It was a contest of titans. Two heroes of the Revolutionary era, once intimate friends, now icy antagonists locked in a fierce battle for the future of the United States. The election of 1800 was a thunderous clash of a campaign that climaxed in a deadlock in the Electoral College and led to a crisis in which the young republic teetered on the edge of collapse. Adams vs. Jefferson is a gripping account of a true turning point in American history, a dramatic struggle between two parties with profoundly different visions of how the nation should be governed. Adams led the Federalists, conservatives who favored a strong central government, and Jefferson led the Republicans, egalitarians who felt the Federalists had betrayed the Revolution of 1776 and were backsliding toward monarchy. The campaign itself was a barroom brawl every bit as ruthless as any modern contest, with mud-slinging — Federalists called Jefferson "a howling atheist" — scare tactics, and backstabbing. The low point came when Alexander Hamilton printed a devastating attack on Adams, the head of his own party, in "fifty-four pages of unremitting vilification." The election ended in a stalemate in the Electoral College that dragged on for days and nights and through dozens of ballots. Tensions ran so high that the Republicans threatened civil war if the Federalists denied Jefferson the presidency. Finally a secret deal that changed a single vote gave Jefferson the White House. A devastated Adams left Washington before dawn on Inauguration Day, too embittered even to shake his rival's hand.” The two men, once working in tandem to create a great democracy would not speak to each other for over a decade. With some manipulation by Benjamin Rush, the founder of American psychiatry, Adams wrote a brief note to Jefferson. Jefferson leapt at opportunity responding “A letter from you calls up recollections very dear to my mind. It carried me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man, his right of self-government.” What followed was “one of the most extraordinary correspondences in American history—indeed, in the English language” according to Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough. Adams wrote, “You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.” Jefferson didn’t respond directly, but later offered what amounted to an apology, “Your prophecies proved truer than mine.” According to McCullough, Adams was asked how he and Jefferson could be on such good terms after all the abuse he had suffered from him. McCullough cites Adams response in an entry in Josiah Quincy’s diary: “I do not believe that Mr. Jefferson ever hated me. On the contrary, I believe he always liked me: but he detested Hamilton and my whole administration. Then he wished to be President of the United States and I stood in his way. Se he did everything that he could to pull me down. But if I should quarrel with him for that, I might quarrel with every man I have had anything to do with in life. This is human nature… I forgive all my enemies and hope they may find mercy in Heaven. Mr. Jefferson and I have grown old and retired from public life. So we are upon our ancient terms of goodwill.” And they did grow old. On July 4, 1826, fifty years to day from the birth of the country they founded, John Adams was ninety-one and Thomas Jefferson eighty-three. They were the only two survivors of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. On the morning of the fourth, as cannon and fireworks began to explode in the distance Adams said, “It is a great day. It is a good day!” That afternoon he spoke his last words, “Jefferson still survives.” In fact, just hours earlier Thomas Jefferson had died. The last two signers of the Declaration of Independence, the second and third Presidents of the United States, once friends then enemies then friends die on the same day, but not just any day, the 50th anniversary of our nation. If it were a movie, no one would believe it. Division of Aging and Adult Services |
