These Two Founding Fathers BOTH Died on the 4th of July, Exactly 50 Years After the Declaration of Independence

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s second and third Presidents respectively, each handed away on the 4th of July inside hours of one another in 1826.

The 2 political adversaries turned nice pals of their later years and ended up dying precisely 50 years after the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

Adams, George Washington’s successor, lived to the age of 90 whereas Jefferson was 83 on the time of his death.

Jefferson really handed away shortly after midday. Hours later, Adams, unaware of the information, uttered his final phrases: “Thomas Jefferson survives.”

Feuding founders Thomas Jefferson and John Adams each died hours aside on July 4, 1826 — the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence https://t.co/PNnrEmMle3 pic.twitter.com/HYODqe23RV

— CNN (@CNN) July 5, 2018

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4th of July Coincidence – John Adams and Thomas Jefferson Each Die

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson turned politically estranged for eleven years after the presidential election (what some name the Second American Revolution) of 1800. Jefferson defeated Adams that yr after what’s described as a bitter marketing campaign.

Adams had narrowly defeated Jefferson within the 1796 election.

The election introduced forth the present two-party dominance in presidential elections and is usually cited as the primary instance of a ‘fashionable’ election, replete with regional divisions and smear campaigns created by each events.

Adams would ultimately pen a letter to Jefferson on January 1st, 1812, and the 2 would correspond with one another proper up till their coincidentally-dated deaths.

On July 4th, 1986, then-President Ronald Reagan honored their relationship in his personal Independence Day handle to the nation.

After a bitter and divisive marketing campaign, Jefferson defeated Adams for the Presidency in 1800. And the evening earlier than Jefferson’s inauguration, Adams slipped away to Boston, disillusioned, brokenhearted, and bitter.

For years their estrangement lasted. However then when each had retired, Jefferson at 68 to Monticello and Adams at 76 to Quincy, they started by their letters to talk once more to one another. Letters that mentioned virtually each conceivable topic: gardening, horseback driving, even sneezing as a treatment for hiccups; however different topics as effectively: the lack of family members, the thriller of grief and sorrow, the significance of faith, and naturally the final ideas, the ultimate hopes of two previous males, two nice patriarchs, for the nation that they’d helped to discovered and beloved so deeply. “It carries me again,” Jefferson wrote about correspondence together with his cosigner of the Declaration of Independence, “to the occasions when, beset with difficulties and risks, we have been fellow laborers in the identical trigger, struggling for what’s most respected to man, his proper to self-government. Laboring at all times on the similar oar, with some wave ever forward threatening to overwhelm us and but passing innocent . . . we rowed by the storm with coronary heart and hand . . . .”

It was their final present to us, this lesson in brotherhood, in tolerance for one another, this perception into America’s power as a nation. And when each died on the identical day inside hours of one another, that date was July 4th, 50 years precisely after that first present to us, the Declaration of Independence.

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John Adams Thought Independence Day Ought to Be July 2nd

John Adams really thought July 2nd, 1776 marked essentially the most important day for America’s independence – the day the Continental Congress formally declared its freedom from Nice Britain.

“The second day of July, 1776, would be the most memorable epoch within the historical past of America. I’m apt to imagine that it will likely be celebrated by succeeding generations as the good anniversary pageant,” he wrote to his spouse Abigail.

“It must be commemorated because the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty,” said Adams.

“It must be solemnized with pomp and parade, with exhibits, video games, sports activities, weapons, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one finish of this continent to the opposite, from this time ahead eternally extra.”

Do you know? John Adams believed that July 2nd was the proper date on which to have fun the delivery of American independence, and would flip down invites to seem at July 4th occasions in protest. Adams and Thomas Jefferson each died on July 4, 1826—the fiftieth anniversary.

— Kambree (@KamVTV) July 4, 2021

On July 4th, 1831, 5 years after Adams and Jefferson handed away, the fifth President of america, James Monroe, also died.

Making him the third Founding Father to cross on that historic date.