Thomas Jefferson and John Adams Die on the 50th Anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, Fulfilling Dr. Benjamin Rush’s Prophesy

The Dream of Dr. Benjamin Rush & God’s Hand in Reconciling John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

One of the more bitter aspects of the retirement of John Adams from the presidency in 1800 was the fact that several of those with whom he had early co-labored during the Revolution had become his fervent adversaries. This was especially true in the case of Thomas Jefferson who, although serving closely with Adams during the Revolution, had become one of his chief enemies during President Washington’s administration. This feud not only deeply embittered Adams emotionally but it also troubled Dr. Rush, who was still a close friend of both Adams and Jefferson. In his concern over the relationship between these two, one night several months after Jefferson’s retirement from the Presidency in 1809, Dr. Rush had a dream about the two which he felt was important. On October 17, 1809, he wrote down an account of that dream and sent it to John Adams. In describing that dream, he related what he had seen:

“What book is that in your hands?” said I to my son Richard [who later became the Secretary of State under President James Monroe] a few nights ago in a dream. “It is the history of the United States,” said he. “Shall I read a page of it to you?” “No, no,” said I. “I believe in the truth of no history but in that which is contained in the Old and New Testaments.” “But, sir,” said my son, “this page relates to your friend Mr. Adams.” “Let me see it then,” said I. I read it with great pleasure and herewith send you a copy of it.“1809. Among the most extraordinary events of this year was the renewal of the friendship and intercourse between Mr. John Adams and Mr. Jefferson, the two ex-Presidents of the United States. They met for the first time in the Congress of 1775. Their principles of liberty, their ardent attachment to their country. . . being exactly the same, they were strongly attracted to each other and became personal as well as political friends. . . . A difference of opinion upon the objects and issue of the French Revolution separated them during the years in which that great event interested and divided the American people. The predominance of the party which favored the French cause threw Mr. Adams out of the Chair of the United States in the year 1800 and placed Mr. Jefferson there in his stead. The former retired with resignation and dignity to his seat at Quincy, where he spent the evening of his life in literary and philosophical pursuits, surrounded by an amiable family and a few old and affectionate friends. The latter resigned the Chair of the United States in the year 1808, sick of the cares and disgusted with the intrigues of public life, and retired to his seat at Monticello, in Virginia, where he spent the remainder of his days in the cultivation of a large farm agreeably to the new system of husbandry. In the month of November 1809, Mr. Adams addressed a short letter to his friend Mr. Jefferson in which he congratulated him upon his escape to the shades of retirement and domestic happiness, and concluded it with assurances of his regard and good wishes for his welfare. This letter did great honor to Mr. Adams. It discovered a magnanimity known only to great minds. Mr. Jefferson replied to this letter and reciprocated expressions of regard and esteem. These letters were followed by a correspondence of several years in which they mutually reviewed the scenes of business in which they had been engaged, and candidly acknowledged to each other all the errors of opinion and conduct into which they had fallen during the time they filled the same station in the service of their country. Many precious aphorisms [truths], the result of observation, experience, and profound reflection, it is said, are contained in these letters. It is to be hoped the world will be favored with a sight of them. . . . These gentlemen sunk into the grave nearly at the same time, full of years and rich in the gratitude and praises of their country.” ¹

At the time this letter was written, Jefferson and Adams were still vehement opponents. None of what was described in this letter had begun to come to pass, nor did it seem likely that it ever would. Nevertheless, Adams received the dream from his dear friend with an open heart and candidly responded:

Your prophecy, my dear friend, has not become history as yet. I have no resentment of animosity against the gentleman [Jefferson] and abhor the idea of blackening his character or transmitting him in odious colors to posterity. But I write with difficulty and am afraid of diffusing myself in too many correspondences. If I should receive a letter from him, however, I should not fail to acknowledge and answer it. ² [To see the entire John Adams to Benjamin Rush letter click here.]

Shortly after this letter, Rush, who was also a dear friend of Jefferson, initiated a correspondence with Jefferson on the same topic, attempting to reconcile the two. Jefferson, too, listened to Rush with an open heart, and tentatively reached out to Adams with a gracious letter. Adams, as he had promised, did “not fail to acknowledge and answer the letter,” and thus began a cordial renewing of a warm and sincere friendship between the two.

In retrospect, the amazing accuracy and future fulfillment of several parts of Dr. Rush’s dream are absolutely astounding. As accurately described in his dream, Adams and Jefferson did again become close friends, and there did indeed follow the “correspondence of several years” described in the dream. Furthermore, the “world was favored with a sight of the letters” as entire volumes were eventually published which contained the letters written between those two in their latter years. Interestingly, seventeen years after his dream, they did “sink into the grave nearly at the same time” as the two men died within three hours of each other on the same day: July 4th, 1826 – the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence! Finally, both expired “full of years and rich in the gratitude of praises of their country.” It would appear that Providence had indeed given this dream to Dr. Rush since, although extremely unlikely at the time, it all eventually came to pass. (For similar Providential involvement in dreams, see Genesis 41:25+ and Daniel 2:28+).

In 1812, some three years after Dr. Rush had related his amazing dream to John Adams, Dr. Rush gratifyingly noted that a reconciliation between the two had begun:

I rejoice in the correspondence which has taken place between you and your old friend, Mr. Jefferson. I consider you and him as the North and South Poles of the American Revolution. Some talked, some wrote, and some fought to promote and establish it, but you and Mr. Jefferson thought for us all. I never take a retrospect of the years 1775 and 1776 without associating your opinions and speeches and conversations with all great political, moral, and intellectual achievements of the Congresses of those memorable years. ³

Shortly after this letter, Dr. Rush wrote with similar excitement to Jefferson, also expressing to him his pleasure over the rekindled friendship:

In a letter which I received a few days ago from Mr. Adams, he informs me, with a kind of exultation, that after a correspondence of five or six and thirty years had been interrupted by various causes, it had been renewed, and that four letters had passed between you and him. In speaking of your letters, he says, “They are written with all the elegance, purity, and sweetness of style of his youth and middle age, and with (what I envy more) a firmness of finger and steadiness of chirography [handwriting] that to me are lost forever.” It will give me pleasure as long as I live to reflect that I [Dr. Rush] have been in any degree instrumental in effecting this reunion of two souls destined to be dear to each other and animated with the same dispositions to serve their country (though in different ways) at the expense of innumerable sacrifices of domestic ease, personal interest, and private friendships. Posterity will do you both justice for this act. If Mr. Adams’ letters to you are written in the same elevated and nervous style [at that time, the word “nervous” was defined as “possessing or manifesting vigor of mind; characterized by strength in sentiment or style”], both as to matter and language, that his letters are which he now and then addresses to me, I am sure you will be delighted with his correspondence. Some of his thoughts electrify me. I view him as a mountain with its head clear and reflecting the beams of the sun, while all below it is frost and snow. ⁴

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.”

On the death of Adams and Jefferson on the very same day, some 17 years after Benjamin Rush has seen that event in his dream, the Rev. Edward Everett (a U. S. Representative & Senator, Governor, Diplomat, Secretary of State, and President of Harvard) delivered an oration in remembrance of the two in which he noted the great impact on America of their dual influence, both before and after their reconciliation:

Having lived and acted and counseled and dared and risked all, and triumphed and enjoyed together, they have gone together to their great reward. . . . Forgetting the little that had divided them and cherishing the communion of service and peril and success which had united, they walked with honorable friendship the declining pathway of age; and now they have sunk down together in peace into the bosom of a redeemed and grateful country. . . . They were useful, honored, prosperous, and lovely in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided. ⁵

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!”

The last words of John Adams were: “Thank God, Jefferson lives!” He had no idea that Jefferson had already died about 2-3 hours earlier.

Five years after Adams and Jefferson, the fifth President James Monroe, died on JULY 4th 1831.

Endnotes

1. Benjamin Rush, Letters of Benjamin Rush, L. H. Butterfield, editor (Princeton: The American Philosophical Society, 1951), Vol. II, pp. 1021-1022, to John Adams on October 17, 1809.
2. From a handwritten letter from John Adams to Benjamin Rush, dated from Quincy [Massachusetts], December 21, 1809, in possession of the author.
3. Benjamin Rush, Letters of Benjamin Rush, L. H. Butterfield, editor (Princeton: The American Philosophical Society, 1951), Vol. II, p. 1127, to John Adams on February 17, 1812.
4. Benjamin Rush, Letters of Benjamin Rush, L. H. Butterfield, editor (Princeton: The American Philosophical Society, 1951), Vol. II, pp. 1127-1128, to Thomas Jefferson on February [i.e., March] 3, 1812. Letter was actually received on March 19, 1812.
5. Edward Everett, An Address Delivered at Charlestown, August 1, 1826, in Commemoration of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (Boston: William L. Lewis, 1826), pp. 8-9.

Sources: WallBuilders.com, Bill Federerer

Another perspective comes from James Perloff on this subject in his article presenting compelling evidence that Thomas Paine, not Thomas Jefferson, wrote the Declaration of Independence:

Much of the American republic’s history is surprisingly shrouded in secrecy. All the men who took part in the Boston Tea Party swore a 50-year oath of silence. This is why no participant published a description of it until George Hewes’s memoir in 1834.

In my post The Secrets Buried at Lexington Green, we explored the fact that Americans firing shots at Lexington was also kept publicly secret until 50 years after the event.

Was there also, then, a 50-year oath of silence regarding the Declaration? Thomas Jefferson dropped no hint of authorship for 45 years. Finally, in 1821 he recalled:

The committee were J. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston & myself. Committees were also appointed at the same time to prepare a plan of confederation for the colonies, and to state the terms proper to be proposed for foreign alliance. The committee for drawing the declaration of Independence desired me to do it. It was accordingly done, and being approved by them, I reported it to the house on Friday the 28th of June when it was read and ordered to lie on the table.⁷

“It was accordingly done” is not a very emphatic claim to authorship. If there was a 50-year oath of silence associated with the Declaration, it might be noteworthy that that both Jefferson and John Adams died on the exact day it would have expired: July 4, 1826. I have always romanticized that coincidence, and perhaps it should just stay romanticized. In any event, Jefferson said nothing about writing the Declaration until after Paine’s death.

But why couldn’t Paine be acknowledged as the Declaration’s author? Three reasons stand out:

1. The Declaration was supposed to be written by elected delegates, something Paine was not.
2. Since Paine hadn’t lived in the colonies before November 30, 1774, it was debatable if he could even be described as an “American.” Although his allegiance to the revolutionary cause might certainly have merited that characterization, most Americans would have been surprised to learn their Declaration was penned by someone who had resided so briefly on their continent. (Paine later returned to Europe, living there from 1787 until 1802.)
3. But the most important reason Paine couldn’t be acknowledged was that he later wrote The Age of Reason, in which he bitterly denounced Christianity.

Extracts:

It is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend.⁸

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity.⁹

I have shown in all the foregoing parts of this work, that the Bible and Testament are impositions and forgeries.¹⁰

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church.¹¹

Since America was predominantly Christian, it couldn’t be admitted that someone of such views had penned the nation’s birth certificate. It would have caused what we now call “cognitive dissonance.”

See also: (WND) The eerie coincidence of 1826

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Gr 2-4-Suzanne Tripp Jurmain makes early American history more accessible and our founding fathers more human for young students in her book (Dutton, 2011) about the friendship and feud between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. She profiles both the differences between these two men as well as the bond that grew between them as they worked together to forge a new nation. Problems arose over the question of balance of power: Adams believed that the president should be given more power, while Jefferson feared that a president who was too powerful might damage the new government. Their dispute was exacerbated when Adams was elected president, with Jefferson as his vice president, and their opposing political parties escalated the feud to the point of violence. When Jefferson defeated Adams for the presidency in the next election, it seemed that their friendship would be doomed. The book ends on a positive note, however, as the two did reconnect through a long string of correspondences, and they died on the same day. Richard Poe expressively reads this engaging, heartwarming tale with clarity and humor. By humanizing these two friends, rivals, and leaders, students will be better able to understand this segment of American history and the intricacies of our early government.-MaryAnn Karre, Horace Mann and Thomas Jefferson Elementary Schools, Binghamton, NYα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.