BY LEAH FISHER

It was six o’clock in Quincy, Massachusetts, and would have been considered evening if the summer had not prolonged the days. The unpleasant mixture of heat and humidity might remind one of former days in Philadelphia. But here laid an old man dying. His strength at last was failing, and his kin had kindly gathered around. Though the thunder crackled with the sound of distant storms and stole away the sun’s glorious rays, the day would nonetheless be counted as the great golden jubilee.

The fever had set in with a mild case of delirium, and he couldn’t help but think of Caesar—that funny man with an angel’s spirit! Pressed to it, could he have raised himself out of that bed of death: physicians, friends, and family gathered about?…so much like the present time…but each of them speaking against it, advising by reason and sense, all in great accord of logic, saying: “Don’t go!” Yet is a man’s spirit in his deed, and Rodney defied them. For what? A Country. No… more. A vision. Belief! Yes, that. He knew then. He would have gone. Surely, he would have gone with the providence of God, in which he still believed against fashion. He too would have ridden through that cursed thundering storm, because he shared that same fire of believing. They two were happy traitors.

In the distance rang out cannons. He could hear them. He was sure. They were fitting for the day. There should come fireworks later, another of his visions, ne’er forgotten.

Now his eyes turned to his son, his very namesake, sitting there beside him, looking so dashing, even in his shirtsleeves: the President of the United States. You followed in my footsteps…and to think, I would have spared you… John Quincy held his own son on his knee, hugged the boy and kissed his head with tears. Who’s dying, anyway? If my life is over, why is it not I who weep? the old man wondered, examining his son’s distress, but he knew it was left to the living to mourn. Here I go to God, and you must weep, but I, only if my time was ill-spent.

“‘The days of a man’s life are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow…’ and what shall be said of my ninety Years? ‘John Adams,’ they’ll write, ‘we couldn’t be rid of him.'” He mustered a smile, coughed, and closed his eyes. “But we are short-sighted mortals.” He drew a labored breath. “Abigail…” he exhaled the name. “I have seen both labor and sorrow, have had my share of each, and now…’through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory.'”

Everyone watched him, but for Adams it was as though none were there at all apart from the angels and those bright shadows of a magnificent past which still walked in his mind. How much more alive did they become for him that day, just before the light was passing into dusk? But everything that day was Jefferson’s: his words, his spirit, his document now signed, immortalized forever. Two days before, it would have belonged to them all, but this day was Jefferson’s. The Fourth…it was the Fourth, and not the Second. So, his vision was darkened as his sight with the shadows now dancing. What was real? What was present? He longed to remember.

A young man had come but five days prior and asked him for a toast. By now, surely it was given: INDEPENDENCE FOREVER! He had happily proclaimed it to the man who came asking, given it as a gift. A short phrase, and yet with such great meaning. But the boy did not understand, and when he asked for more, the old man shook his head with a knowing smile.

“Won’t you add something to it?”

“Not a word.”

He had hoped for something longer. He wouldn’t get it. He said what he meant.

Yes, that was now; but what was before? Memories came, flooding his mind as he slipped into another realm where dead men lived and laughed and wept…caught up in that ravishing light.

“Independence forever!” But at the first? There was a pox then upon the troops, a frown of providence which he had laid to heart. There were so many times he had wanted this independence, had yearned for it far longer than he would have liked, and yet when it came, it was as though it was the right time…God’s time, with its many great advantages. The hopes of reconciliation, which were fondly entertained by multitudes of honest and well-meaning though weak and mistaken people, had been gradually and at last totally extinguished. Time had been given for the whole people, maturely to consider, the great question of independence and to ripen their judgements, dissipate their fears, and allure their hopes. So that by the time that it happened, the whole people in every colony of the thirteen, had then adopted it, as their own act. That, he believed, would cement the Union. 

He stood with Jefferson at the front of the assembly, a terrible heat having driven many others of the various state delegations to the open windows where they might catch the kindness of the breeze alongside the unamiable buzz of a flying insect. But that day there was something more than a gentle wind coasting on the humid air, so thick a man could swim in it. There was a storm, a terrible storm decided to be set upon them. The sun had gone away and hid, and now all they did was wait for that blasted humidity they had been enduring all week to change at once with the crack of thunder and become a torrent of rain. They would have to close the windows then, but as for now they would remain open to whatever freshness the weighty air would afford. 

It was early still. Other men were yet arriving, and McKean waiting anxiously in the back, pacing this way and that, keeping faithful watch for his friend, and ready to run out into the impending thunderstorm upon his arrival, if necessary. The Delaware delegation was split, which would result in a failure to pass the resolution on independence, were it not for the miraculous return of that third member of the delegation, who was said to be home in Dover on his deathbed. McKean had sent word to Rodney the previous night: Read would not be moved. There would be no independence should Rodney not appear, so he must forget this silly thing of dying and come. They would not know the answer to that appeal until McKean’s messenger returned, with or without the man to whom he had been sent, a man whose body was weak and breaking, riddled with cancer and pain. Long had the absent representative neglected his health for the sake of the colony, but whether he would be able to do so again here, in this time of greatest need, who could say with all certainty? McKean dared to speculate, indeed would have sworn: the answer was yes. Rodney would come. 

Adams picked up the document as tenderly as a man would lift his infant child. “Every line is perfect!” he proclaimed, his eyes alight with hope. “I wouldn’t change a word.”

Jefferson smirked. “Ah! Maybe you wouldn’t, but…” – he glanced around the room, filled with contemporaries – “there are many voices to be heard, some not so flattering.”

Adams let out a disgruntled sigh. “Men never seem to know a truly magnificent work when it’s in front of them. One day, – mark my words, Jefferson! – one day, they’ll look back at this and call it the single most influential document of our time! Men a hundred years from now, – two hundred! – will look on this and say: ‘Here stands the testament of freedom.’”

The corner of Jefferson’s mouth turned upward. “If only they should be so kind. But I care much less for what men should say in a hundred years than I do that which they should say in an hour. That this resolution should be passed at all is what ought to occupy our minds today.”

Adams shook his head and returned the document to the table. “That’s not good enough for me,” he answered openly, much more openly than he would have liked. It was a habit of his, a feature of his personality to be blunt, and he somewhat reproached himself for it at times. He was sure it was a contributing factor to his unpopularity amongst his peers and yet another reason why he could not have written something so pleasing as his friend had. He looked again at the parchment, decorated with the beautiful ink of his companion’s pen. “It isn’t enough for me that this should be some form of legacy or personal achievement. I want a world for my children, and their children after them…” His words faded and his eyes became earnest, as though he gazed into a far-off time. “Is it not intolerable that the spring, which I should enjoy with my wife and children upon my little farm, should pass away and laugh at me for laboring? But it is for them I work. I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, and commerce in order to give their children a right to study the arts, that their children may one day enjoy beautiful paintings, poetry, music, and porcelain–wholly American! Yes, posterity will one day know a country where they are at full liberty to live their lives as God intended that they live, and the spring will no more mock them. Posterity…” he whispered the word as though it was something sacred, then looked at Jefferson, who was watching him with a curious gaze. “They will never know how much it has cost us to preserve their freedom for them. But I hope they will make good use of it. If not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it. So, you see…what posterity shall say of us matters quite a bit to me.”

A soft smile spread over Jefferson’s lips, hopeful yet sad. “I would that my words were half as devoted as your heart is.” He spoke in a low voice, as though attempting to convey sympathy to a man who had sustained a mortal wound. Now it was he who picked up the document. “We hold these truths…you and I, we hold these truths quite literally. But a hundred years from now…? I am unconvinced. Men become blinded. Even such lofty works as this begin to tarnish, fading into indistinguishable ink upon disintegrating parchment.”

There was the crash of thunder and the storm. At once, all was darkness and a bolt of lightning lit the room. Hastily, the windows were closed by those who had sought refuge by them. Perhaps the rain would bring with it some relief from the hellish heat. That he hoped. Representatives were running in from the storm, and at that moment, Adams heard something that caused his heart to leap for joy and gratitude: it was the shout of McKean. 

“Ceasar! Ceasar, you old scoundrel!” the Scotsman cried, running out into the rain against the flood of delegates, and John Adams followed him. 

Through the doors of the stately hall and down the stairs to the street he ran, abandoning Jefferson. There, sure enough, was Rodney’s horse, its master cloaked with a green scarf over his face and drenched from the storm on which he had rode as though he were the wind that brought it. “Rodney, you hapless fool!” John shouted through the sound of the water pouring out over the muddy streets. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to ride in thunder?”

“My duty here this day, dear Adams, is greater than my death,” the sickly man replied, and he fell from his horse, exhausted. 

Thus, Adams ran towards him, but McKean had already helped the man to his feet before anything could be done by him. Then the bell rang for the hour and the vote to begin upon the Virginia resolution. 

“We’d best get in there, gentlemen,” Rodney remarked. “For today we’ll have our independence, if only also I may have your help.” Therefore, they two were the shoulders upon which Rodney rested himself, his feet somewhere between walking and dragging as they went. 

Adams could hear voices from the inside. “And what happens if this independence is had?” Dickenson was saying, ever hoping to find some forgotten solution that did not involve the grave misfortune of treason. 

“Then we shall be free of a tyrant,” Jefferson retorted, already sounding somewhat weary of the prolonged and senseless arguments to come.

A tyrant… the words fixed in the old man’s mind. I would not have called him a tyrant, had I penned it. I never knew him to be one…even after, when I saw him. Perhaps that is why he would see me. What a funny thing, what a very funny thing…but I wouldn’t change a word. He smirked, supposing that it mattered precious little.

He remembered the people, the day…the darkness and then…the coming of the light again. Franklin said the sun was rising. And indeed, the sun was rising. Now it set, but only on him. The nation would live on. Jefferson and his words would live on. Posterity would know them. 

We will have independence today, he thought to himself. “Independence forever,” he corrected in a voice so weak that no man heard but too loud a thought to have been left unspoken. 

His mind again leapt back through the years, to the desk in his room, back there in Philadelphia, where he wrote his dearest friend…

 “But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America…the great anniversary Festival.” Still he believed in the words he had told her: “It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade with shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” 

Forever more…yes. Then all posterity shall have it…shall know.

He opened his eyes once more and again beheld the land of mortal ambition and triumph, his loved ones gathered around his bedside like a great cloud of witnesses. At last he drew a final breath and sighed: “Thomas Jefferson Survives.” With that, he died. 

It was the Fourth of July, 1826, and somewhere south of Massachusetts there was another man who told another tale but heard a similar call. For that many men proclaim down through the generations that John Adams was mistaken. But others know what Adams knew: that Jefferson survives, even in death, and his voice echoes in the hearts of every American, speaking still those lofty words of fading ink upon disintegrating parchment.

“You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.” – John Adams, July 3, 1776