Editor's Letter: Good cheer for the Fourth

last updated 8 January 2015

The Fourth of July is so inextricably entwined with Thomas Jefferson, whose pen provided the original fireworks, that it might as well be his birthday along with the nation’s. As it happens, of course, the Glorious Fourth is Jefferson’s death day, along with that of John Adams. In a great, mystical marvel, Jefferson and Adams died within hours of one another on July 4, 1826, the jubilee of the republic. For a man whose religious convictions were always suspect, who had had the infinite audacity to edit the Bible (deleting miracles and other passages he found frivolous), Jefferson’s mortal drama concluded with an ironic twist: a minor miracle of his own.

As Americans learned of the Founders’ timely demise, sadness was leavened by awe. Adams’ much-celebrated last words—“Thomas Jefferson survives”—were most likely apocryphal, never uttered. (Then, as now, some stories were simply too good to check.) Still, for many citizens of a nation aflame with the spirit of the Second Great Awakening, the joint departure was a galvanizing confirmation of America’s Divine sanction. In large cities and small towns, public orations marked what the Common Council of the City of New York called, “the remarkable dispensation of Divine Providence, in the death of two of the illustrious signers of the Declaration of Independence, on the 50th anniversary.” In Washington, U.S. Attorney General William Wirt said, “Heaven itself mingled visibly in the celebration and hallowed the day anew.” You needn’t share the era’s particular fervor to embrace its celestial version of events. With oil menacing our shores and enmity and suspicion tearing at our polity this Fourth, we can all use a story too good to check.