In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Link: Fathers of America both pass on ‘liberty’s birthday’
Background: Jefferson and Adams collaborate on Declaration of Independence
Historical Context: Expansion and regional conflict
Key Players: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
Opinion & Analysis: Leaving behind a legacy
Later Developments: Another president passes on Independence Day
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Associated Press
John Adams
John Adams
On this Day: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson Die
July 04, 2008 12:10 AM
by
Erin Harris
On July 4, 1862, exactly 50 years after the Declaration of Independence first asserted American sovereignty, former U.S. Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both passed away.
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Adams, the second U.S. President and Jefferson, his successor in office, had both helped to draft the Declaration of Independence.
As leading figures in America’s quest for freedom from Great Britain, Adams and Jefferson worked with their party of “Whigs” to wage a political, and then an actual, war against Parliament.
Adams served as a diplomat in Europe before succeeding George Washington as President in 1797. His presidency was marked by conflict with the Alexander Hamilton-led Federalists, who convinced Congress to create a large standing army as preparation for a potential war with France.
Jefferson served as Adams’s Vice President from 1797 to 1801. Between 1801 and 1809, Jefferson helped to double the size of the United States by facilitating the Louisiana Purchase, and authorized Lewis and Clark’s legendary expedition to explore the geography, peoples and biology of the Pacific Northwest.
Jefferson was 83 years old when he died. His tombstone memorializes him as “author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia,” but he was also both an architect and linguist.
At age 90, on the morning of the day he died, John Adams was asked to give a toast honoring the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Adams proclaimed, “Independence forever.”
As leading figures in America’s quest for freedom from Great Britain, Adams and Jefferson worked with their party of “Whigs” to wage a political, and then an actual, war against Parliament.
Adams served as a diplomat in Europe before succeeding George Washington as President in 1797. His presidency was marked by conflict with the Alexander Hamilton-led Federalists, who convinced Congress to create a large standing army as preparation for a potential war with France.
Jefferson served as Adams’s Vice President from 1797 to 1801. Between 1801 and 1809, Jefferson helped to double the size of the United States by facilitating the Louisiana Purchase, and authorized Lewis and Clark’s legendary expedition to explore the geography, peoples and biology of the Pacific Northwest.
Jefferson was 83 years old when he died. His tombstone memorializes him as “author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia,” but he was also both an architect and linguist.
At age 90, on the morning of the day he died, John Adams was asked to give a toast honoring the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Adams proclaimed, “Independence forever.”
Headline Link: Fathers of America both pass on ‘liberty’s birthday’
The second and third presidents died just hours apart on July 4, 1862. According to The Claremount Institute, Adams uttered his final words, “Jefferson survives,” unaware of the fact that “his onetime rival, fellow booklover, and friend of more than five decades had already passed away at his beloved home of Monticello.”
Source: The Claremount Institute
Background: Jefferson and Adams collaborate on Declaration of Independence
In 1774, Thomas Jefferson wrote a pamphlet entitled “A Summary View of the Rights of British America,” which served as the framework for the Declaration of Independence. By 1776, the declaration had been drafted and signed by a group of 56 men known today as the America’s “founding fathers,” among them John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
Source: USHistory.org
Historical Context: Expansion and regional conflict
When Jefferson and Adams died in 1826, the United States was experiencing great expansion, with frontier settlers pushing west and populating newly acquired territory between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Following the War of 1812, the Federalist Party dissolved and the “Era of Good Feelings” ensued, until the country faced economic crisis with the Panic of 1819. Sectional conflict between the North and South was soon to follow. Read more about the political and social climate of the time in this outline of U.S. History.
Source: International Information Programs
The findingDulcinea U.S. History Web Guide features resources for learning about the American Revolution and the early years of the country.
Source: findingDulcinea
The findingDulcinea U.S. History Web Guide features resources for learning about the American Revolution and the early year of the United States.
Source: findingDulcinea
Key Players: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
John Adams
Born in Massachusetts, John Adams started his career as a Harvard-educated lawyer. After serving in the Continental Congress and helping to negotiate treaties with France and Holland during the Revolutionary War, Adams served as vice president under George Washington. In 1796, he was elected as the fledgling country’s second president, with Jefferson as his vice president. During his term, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, a series of four bills written by Federalists which aimed to protect the U.S. from foreign citizens and Republican attacks on the government.
Source: The White House
Thomas Jefferson
Before taking over the presidency in 1801, Jefferson served as the secretary of State for President George Washington and as vice president under Adams. In addition to co-authoring the Declaration of Independence, he established the University of Virginia and instituted religious freedom in Virginia. Jefferson served as the third U.S. President from 1801 to 1809, during which time he nearly doubled the size of the U.S. by acquiring 828,000 square miles of land in the Louisiana Purchase.
Source: Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello
Opinion & Analysis: Leaving behind a legacy
Renowned American statesman Daniel Webster was called to deliver a eulogy for Adams and Jefferson at Boston’s Fanueil Hall one month after their deaths. His speech praised both men’s achievements, saying that they would influence society for the rest of time: “No two men now live … who, more than those we now commemorate, have impressed on mankind their own opinions more deeply into the opinions of others, or given a more lasting direction to the current of human thought. Their work doth not perish with them.” He encouraged the crowd to honor the liberty granted to them by Adams and Jefferson, saying, “let us cherish a strong affection for it, and resolve to maintain and perpetuate it. The blood of our fathers, let it not have been shed in vain; the great hope of posterity, let it not be blasted.”
Source: Dartmouth College
Later Developments: Another president passes on Independence Day
James Monroe, fifth president of the United States, died exactly five years after Adams and Jefferson, on July 4, 1831. During his term in office, Monroe approved the Missouri Compromise in 1820, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state while banning slavery in northern American territory. He also issued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, which prevented European powers from interfering with newly independent Latin American colonies.
Source: Miller Center of Public Affairs
© 2008 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
