July 4^th is coming up. A most interesting day in history.

Those of us with some knowledge of freaky American history know that in 1826, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of  the Declaration of Independence.

 How did Jefferson die? Well, by June 1826 he was confined to bed. His death was from a combination of illnesses and conditions including uremia, severe diarrhea, and pneumonia.

^] On July 3 Jefferson was overcome by fever.

  He woke at 8 o'clock in the evening and spoke his last words, "Is it the fourth yet?". His doctor replied, ''It soon will be". 17 hours later on July 4 Jefferson died at the age of 83, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and a few hours before John Adams.

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President Adams’ death? On July 4, 1826,  he  died at his home  . Told that it was the Fourth, he answered clearly, "It is a great day. It is a good day."

His last words have been reported as "Thomas Jefferson survives" (Jefferson himself, however, had died hours before he did).

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They wrote a bunch of letters to each other between 1812 and 1826, which , an historian assures me, ‘’ are among the best things either ever wrote -- witty, often profound, and always revealing. Love or loathe either Adams or Jefferson (or both), these letters display their wonderfully self-conscious and always interesting reflections about the era and their roles in it.’’

They were different fellows, these two. Jefferson was said to be secretive. Adams? A “Gabby Abby’”, utterly transparent.

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I love Adams’ letters. Here are a few;

§  There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.

§  Letter to Jonathan Jackson (2 October 1780), 

§  You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.

§  Letter to John Quincy Adams (14 May 1781).

§  Thanks to God that he gave me stubbornness when I know I am right.

§  Letter to Edmund Jenings (1782),  

§  All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.

§  Letter to Thomas Jefferson (23 August 1787

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Adams was a guy you could easily make an award winning miniseries about. Jefferson? Not really…

And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism

again obscure the science and libraries of Europe,

this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them.

In short, the flames kindled on the fourth of July, 1776,

have spread over too much of the globe

to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism;

on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

§  Letter to John Adams (12 September 1821).

That is pretty much the tenor of his letters, which I have reviewed. Guy was a thinker, not a ‘’gusher’’ like his pal Adams. Ah, but a thinker needs a gusher. And vice versa.

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A lot of interesting people were alive in this great time of revolution and war and …ultimately, crackdown . The European “powers that be” in the first half of the 19^th century were determined to turn back the clock and undermine all the revolutionary fervor of  the previous era.

Things were hard in England especially.

A silly, shameful thing happened there at the height of the French Revolutionary wars: the (not then, but later-to-be) great renowned revered poet William Blake was hassled, but good! He was brought up on charges of speaking against the English Monarchy, for which he could have received a death sentence. Here is how Wikipedia sums the whole sordid affair up:

“Blake's trouble with authority came to a head in August 1803, when he was involved in a physical altercation with a soldier called John Schofield.^[

^] Blake was charged not only with assault, but also with uttering seditious and treasonable expressions against the King. Schofield claimed that Blake had exclaimed, "Damn the king. The soldiers are all slaves."^[

^] Blake would be cleared in the Chichester assizes of the charges.

 According to a report in the Sussex county paper,

"The invented character of [the evidence] was ... so obvious that an acquittal resulted."

Blake was not one to not hold a grudge, though:

^] Schofield was later depicted wearing "mind forged manacles" in an illustration

 to  Blake's final masterpiece, Jerusalem. 

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. By the way, Blake wrote an obscurantist mystical take on the American Revolution, back in the day when it was happening.

(As Wordsworth said,  paraphrasing, ‘’what a time to be alive this was!!”  He, alas,  eventually lost his poetic juice, conforming  to the resurgence of reactionary politics  that seems to always follow a little bit of revolution. Blake? He didn’t. But after his trial, he  learned how to be more….obscure…not too explicit…..)

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America a Prophecy is a 1793 prophetic book by English poet and illustrator William Blake. It is engraved on eighteen plates, and survives in fourteen known copies. It is the first of Blake's Continental prophecies.^[1]

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America, A Prophecy

The shadowy Daughter  …

 silent she stood as night;

'On the Canadian wilds I fold; feeble my spirit folds,

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(this is metaphor, you understand…Orc, the 'hairy youth', is the personification of revolutionary energy: young, headstrong, full of unrestrained sexuality, but chained up...he will get loose and rage a bit, and then...he will be be contained again...and so it goes, on and on...)

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 How does it end, I want to know, as an impatient American,  tired of metaphor, and coded speech, and all forms of obscurantism?

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Wow!

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Adams:

§  “But what do we mean by the American Revolution?

    Do we mean the American war? 

   The Revolution was effected before the war commenced.  

  The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people;

a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. ...

This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.

  By what means this great and important alteration in the religious, moral, political, and social character of the people of thirteen colonies,

    all distinct, unconnected, and independent of each other,

    was begun, pursued,

  and accomplished,

   it is surely interesting to humanity to investigate, and perpetuate to posterity.

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Jefferson:

I regret that I am now to die in the belief,

 that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776,

 to acquire self- government and happiness to their country,

is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons,

 and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it.

 If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away,

 against an abstract principle

more likely to be effected by union than by scission,

they would pause

before they would perpetrate this act of suicide

 on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world.

 To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.

§  Letter to John Holmes (22 April 1820).