Farewells to Founders
The deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4th, 1826, unified the nation in mourning the loss of these two founders. We've compiled a selection of primary source eulogies and remembrances for Adams and Jefferson from the 50th year of American Independence.
Daniel Webster: A discourse in commemoration of the lives and services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, August 2, 1826.
One of America's most famous orators, lawyer, diplomat and politician Daniel Webster of Massachusetts was a friend to both Jefferson and Adams. His eulogy to Adams and Jefferson is counted among his most memorable speeches.
“ Adams and Jefferson are no more....They are dead. But how little is there of the great and good which can die! To their country they yet live, and live forever. They live in all that perpetuates the remembrance of men on earth; in the recorded proofs of their own great actions, in the offspring of their intellect, in the deep-engraved lines of public gratitude, and in the respect and homage of mankind. They live in their example; and they live, emphatically, and will live, in the influence which their lives and efforts, their principles and opinions, now exercise, and will continue to exercise, on the affairs of men, not only in their own country, but throughout the civilized world.”
John Quincy Adams: Executive Order on the deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams
President John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, eloquently noted the deaths of his father and Thomas Jefferson, issuing the first Executive Order directing the observance of a period of mourning to commemorate a president's passing.
“ Such men need no trophies; they ask no splendid mausolea. We are their monuments; their mausolea is their country, and her growing prosperity the amaranthine wreath that Time shall place over their dust. Well may the Genius of the Republic mourn. If she turns her eyes in one direction, she beholds the hall where Jefferson wrote the charter of her rights; if in another, she sees the city where Adams kindled the fires of the Revolution. To no period of our history, to no department of our affairs, can she direct her views and not meet the multiplied memorials of her loss and of their glory.”
John Angier Shaw: Eulogy on John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
John A. Shaw was a noted proponent of public education in New England. His eulogy, delivered at the request of the citizens of Bridgewater, Connecticut, illustrates the phenomenon of public mourning not only in major cities, but in small towns, following the deaths of Jefferson and Adams.
“ Yes fellow citizens, it is owing to the wisdom and firmness of men like these, that ‘reason, faith, and conscience are all our own’...In shewing our respect for the memory of these benefactors, it is not necessary to exhibit them as faultless: for they were subject to like passions with ourselves. But although they may have had their faults, both as men and politicians, what does not our country owe to the founders of its liberties?”
William F. Thornton: Eulogy for Jefferson and Adams
William F. Thornton was a friend and advisor to both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. A physician, inventor, painter and architect, Thornton designed the U.S. Capitol, served as Architect of the Capitol, and was the first Superintendent of the U.S. Patent Office. His wife, Anna Thornton, was a friend of Thomas Jefferson and a prominent member of Washington society. Her diaries offer rare, first-hand insights into Jefferson's life in Washington and at Monticello.
“ Jefferson and Adams were patriots in the most unlimited and exalted sense of the word...Their history is the history of a nation...they lived for their country, not for themselves...Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston formed the ever memorable Committee which was instructed to report a Declaration of Independence; but to Jefferson and Adams alone - as a subcommittee - was resigned the glorious task. The one stood unrivalled in the strength and beauty of composition; - the other, in that wonderful talent, which persuades or convinces at will. Hence, to the pen of a Jefferson is the world indebted for that master-piece of human skill - and to the restless eloquence of an Adams for its final adoption by the most august assembly that ever met on the earth.”
