Not far from Boston, there is a small town called Quincy, which got its name from the south shore of Quincy Bay. In addition to this, this town has a very loud name - Presidential City. The president who was born in this town, in addition to the Adams father and son, was also known as the "true first president" of the United States because he was president of the Continental Congress during the American Revolutionary War.
The American Revolutionary War began in Massachusetts in the north, and Adams was the dominant leader in the early days of the Revolution. At the Second Continental Congress in June 1775, Adams proposed that George Washington from Virginia be appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. A year later, he recommended Thomas Jefferson from Virginia to participate in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, the most important document in American history. After victory in the Revolutionary War, George Washington was elected the first president of the United States, while John Adams was vice president. In the Cabinet, Thomas Jefferson was appointed Secretary of State. But after that, differences between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson over governing philosophy and strategy began to surface and gradually became public.
In 1796, George Washington stepped down as president and returned to his hometown. According to the election rules of the time, the president and vice president were the two presidential candidates with the most votes. In the 1796 election, Adams was elected president, and Jefferson, who disagreed with him, became vice president. Because of their different governing philosophies, their practices in some political activities have damaged their long-standing friendship. This pair of presidents and vice presidents are very different in almost all major matters, such as home and foreign affairs.
In 1800, Adams lost the election and Jefferson was elected president. At the time, Adams did not heed Jefferson's call, dismissed Jefferson's olive branch, and returned alone to the small town of Quincy in the north. When John Adams returned to Quincy, he was in a very depressed and resentful mood. However, the two of them still have the tribulation between their old friends, and the relationship has not really broken down. However, the communication between the two was broken.
After the 1808 election, Jefferson left office and returned to virginia's former home. Adams had been living in loneliness and pain. In addition to his family, he was comforted by an old friend of his, another signer of the American Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush. They were once common founders and old friends who had a deep friendship with each other. During Adams' most painful days, Rush continued to correspond with him. In a letter rush to Adams, he paints a dream in which Adams wrote a letter to Jefferson, and then Jefferson replied; in the years that followed, Adams and Jefferson corresponded with each other, reflecting on the mistakes they had made and bridging their well-known friendship. Most bizarrely, Rush even dreamed of the deaths of Adams and Jefferson, who were filled with praise and sank to their graves at the same time.
Something stranger happened. In 1811, Adams expressed his friendship with Jefferson to a friend, saying that he had never stifled his feelings for Jefferson, and that he had been and remains so. When Jefferson heard about it, he immediately wrote a letter to Rush, expressing his admiration for Adams' past political judgment. On New Year's Day in 1812, Adams sent Jefferson a letter saying that he was going to send Jefferson two pieces of "home-woven earthen cloth" as gifts. When Jefferson received it, he discovered that it was a two-volume book newly published by Adams' son, John Quincy. Over the next 14 years, the most famous correspondence in American history began between the small town of Quincy in Massachusetts in the north and Jefferson Manor in Virginia in the south. For 14 years, the second president of the United States, John Adams, and the third president, Thomas Jefferson, in their respective homes, look back, on paper and pencil, the groundbreaking experiences and exploits of their generation of revolutionaries.
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, people in Virginia and Massachusetts extended invitations to Jefferson and Adams, respectively, but the two elderly men were already in poor health and could not attend any public events. On the evening of July 3, Thomas Jefferson suddenly fell unconscious, and his last words were asked to the doctors and family members around him: "Is today number four?" He persisted in his coma, as if waiting for something. The next day, Thomas Jefferson stopped breathing. Fifty years ago, a generation of American founders was beginning to sign the Declaration of Independence he drafted. Almost at the same moment as Jefferson's death, far north in the small town of Quincy, John Adams, who was sitting in a chair, suddenly suffered a stroke and lost consciousness. That afternoon, John Adams also died. Fifty years ago, at this moment, the United States of America declared its independence to the world!
The two promoters of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, left this world on the same day as the Declaration of Independence's fiftieth anniversary, less than five hours apart. I didn't expect that a dream of their good friend Rush many years ago had become a reality today.