On July 4th, 1826 the United States celebrated the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. President John Quincy Adams wrote that it was a day when "every heart was bounding with joy and every voice was turned to gratulation". In towns and villages around the country, celebrations began with the ringing of village bells, displaying of the National flag and the salute of 50 guns. Parades included veterans of the war. In the town of Flemington, Revolutionary War veterans "were given badges of broad white ribbon, stamped with the American Eagle, and the words and figures ‘Survivors of 1776,’ [which] were affixed to the left button-hole of their coats.” (Goodspeed).
The day was a joyous occasion, but on that same day "amid the blessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former age had handed down to their children" as penned by Adams, two of our founding fathers passed a way. Thomas Jefferson, "the hand that penned the ever memorable Declaration" and John Adams "the voice that sustained it in debate" both passed away on that same fateful day. They were 700 miles away from each other, but died just few hours apart. Adams remarked that as they departed, the people celebrated the blessings brought to America by these men. Their fame and "bright examples" would never be forgotten. On July 4th 1826, John Adams died around 6:20 PM, it is said that in his last words he paid tribute to his lifelong friend and political rival saying "Thomas Jefferson survives", unaware that Thomas Jefferson had left this world sometime earlier that same morning. Five years later, another founding father and president, James Monroe passed away on July 4th. It had become a tradition, one that must have been left an indelible mark on the mind of John Quincy Adams; that is perhaps until July 2nd, 1836 when James Madison passed away on June 28th, one week shy of Independence Day. John Quincy Adams died on February 23, 1848 at the age of 73, two days after collapsing on the floor of the House of Representatives from a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Here are John Quincy's words from his second Annual Address to Congress about that fateful day of July 4th, 1826.
"In closing this communication I trust that it will not be deemed inappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are here assembled to indulge a momentary retrospect, combining in a single glance the period of our origin as a national confederation with that of our present existence, at the precise interval of half a century from each other. Since your last meeting at this place the 50th anniversary of the day when our independence was declared has been celebrated throughout our land, and on that day, while every heart was bounding with joy and every voice was tuned to gratulation, amid the blessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former age had handed down to their children, 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. They departed cheered by the benedictions of their country, to whom they left the inheritance of their fame and the memory of their bright example."
References
Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2018). John Quincy Adams: Second Annual Message. [online] Available at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29468 [Accessed 10 Apr. 2018].Goodspeed, M. (2018). The Jubilee of 1826. [online] GOODSPEED HISTORIES. Available at: https://goodspeedhistories.com/the-jubilee-of-1826/ [Accessed 10 Apr. 2018].
The Vintage News. (2018). Adams, Jefferson, Monroe: The three presidents who died on the 4th of July. [online] Available at: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/07/08/adams-jefferson-monroe-the-three-presidents-who-died-on-the-4th-of-july/ [Accessed 10 Apr. 2018].
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