Dad Said it Best
Age-Old Truths for Modern Times
By Estelle Rodis Brown
…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…
From the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
My father’s last best day on earth was July 4, 2008.
Independence Day had always been precious to Dad due to his unique perspective as a history scholar and a son of Greek immigrants. He knew just how precious and fragile freedom can be… and how quickly power-hungry tyrants can steal this most precious commodity from the common person.
During my childhood, we would spend many an Independence Day at Lakewood Park, first watching the high school marching band in the annual parade, then settling in for a picnic on the lawn before the open-air concert of patriotic tunes followed by a huge fireworks show.
Along the way, Dad would be sure to invoke the Founding Fathers, their passionate differences in how to shape the new nation, and especially the bitter feud between former presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. These two signers of the Declaration had such opposing visions for how to form “this more perfect union,” these one-time friends became fierce enemies over a 50-year period… only to each die within hours of each other on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1826.
Historians believe Adams’ last words were, “Thomas Jefferson survives,” before typhoid overtook him. Unbeknownst to Adams, Jefferson had actually passed away several hours earlier.
What this leaves us is a poignant illustration that the ideal of freedom certainly remains a fraught point of contention within the bounds of government, especially as American society evolves. These Founders united in friendship during colonial times because both were passionate about gaining freedom from British rule. But Adams believed in a strong central government whereas Jefferson championed states’ rights, among other differences.
Jefferson (the first US Secretary of State, its second vice president and third president) and Adams (the first US vice president and its second president) became two of the most influential authors on the Declaration of Independence. At first, they respected each other’s differences, but when they both sought the office of president after George Washington’s second term, they became political rivals who refused to speak to each other for 12 years.
Their points of view on freedom are perhaps best expressed by their own words:
“Timid men… prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”
Thomas Jefferson
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”
John Adams
“I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.”
John Adams
“Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to liberty, and few nations, if any, have found it.”
John Adams
It took a third Founding Father to bring these rivals back together. Benjamin Rush, a civic leader and fellow Declaration signer, wrote to both Adams and Jefferson, saying the other wanted to rekindle their friendship.
Rush told them he had a dream in which they revitalized their friendship through letter-writing before they later “sunk into the grave nearly at the same time, full of years and rich in the gratitude and praises of their country.”
In 1812, the two started writing again and eventually mailed more than 185 letters to each other. A year after they started writing each other, Adams wrote, “You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.”
They were somewhere along that path of reconciliation when, as Daniel Webster eulogized them, “they took their flight together to the world of spirits.”
My father carried the ideals of both Jefferson and Adams with him throughout his long life, which ended July 6, 2008. Through his respect for both men from different sides of the political aisle —and our shared freedom of speech — he taught me to find common ground with those I may disagree with, on whatever ideal unites us. In this case, it is liberty, the single principle America was founded upon. It is our duty to protect it, this Independence Day and always.
