To John Adams.
Monticello, March 25th, 1826.
Dear Sir—My grandson, Thomas J. Randolph, the bearer of this letter, being on a visit to Boston, would think he had seen nothing were he to leave without seeing you. Although I truly sympathize with you in the trouble these interruptions give, yet I must ask for him permission to pay to you his personal respects. Like other young people, he wishes to be able, in the winter nights of old age, to recount to those around him what he has heard and learnt of the heroic age preceding his birth, and which of the Argonauts individually he was in time to have seen.
It was the lot of our early years to witness nothing but the dull monotony of a colonial subservience, and of our riper years to breast the labors and perils of working out of it. Theirs are the halcyon calms succeeding the storms which our Argosy had so stoutly weathered. Gratify his ambition, then, by receiving his best bow, and my solicitude for your health, by enabling him to bring me a favorable account of it. Mine is but indifferent, but not so my friendship and respect for you.
TH. JEFFERSON.
The leaders of different parties bitterly opposed to each other, and living at a time when party spirit ran so high, there is something remarkable, as well as beautiful, in the friendship which existed between these two distinguished men, and which, surviving all political differences and rivalry, expired only on the same day which saw them both breathe their last.[77]
In the spring of the year 1826 Jefferson's family became aware that his health was failing rapidly. Of this he had been conscious himself for some time previous. Though enfeebled by age and disease, he turned a deaf ear to Mrs. Randolph's entreaties that he would allow his faithful servant, Burwell, to accompany him in his daily rides. He said, if his family insisted, that he would give up his rides entirely; but that he had "helped himself" from his childhood, and that the presence of a servant in his daily musings with nature would be irksome to him. So, until within a very short time of his death, old Eagle was brought up every day, even when his venerable master was so weak that he could only get into the saddle by stepping down from the terrace.
As he felt the sands of life running low, his love for his family seemed to increase in tenderness. Mr. Randall says, in his excellent biography of him, in alluding to this period:
Mr. Jefferson's deportment to his family was touching. He evidently made an effort to keep up their spirits. He was as gentle as a child, but conversed with such vigor and animation that they would have often cheated themselves with the belief that months, if not years, of life were in store for him, and that he himself was in no expectation of speedy death, had they not witnessed the infant-like debility of his powerful frame, and had they not occasionally, when they looked suddenly at him, caught resting on themselves that riveted and intensely-loving gaze which showed but too plainly that his thoughts were on a rapidly-approaching parting. And as he folded each in his arms as they separated for the night, there was a fervor in his kiss and gaze that declared as audibly as words that he felt the farewell might prove a final one.
In speaking of his private life, Dr. Dunglison, in his Memoranda, says:
The opportunities I had of witnessing the private life of Mr. Jefferson were numerous. It was impossible for any one to be more amiable in his domestic relations; it was delightful to observe the devoted and respectful attention that was paid him by all the family. In the neighborhood, too, he was greatly revered. Perhaps, however, according to the all-wise remark that no one is a prophet in his own country, he had more personal detractors there, partly owing to difference in political sentiments, which are apt to engender so much unworthy acrimony of feeling; but still more, perhaps, owing to the views which he was supposed to possess on the subject of religion; yet it was well known that he did not withhold his aid when a church had to be established in the neighborhood, and that he subscribed largely to the Episcopal church erected in Charlottesville. After his death much sectarian intolerance was exhibited, owing to the publication of certain of his letters, in which he animadverted on the Presbyterians more especially; yet there could not have been a more unfounded assertion than that of a Philadelphia Episcopal divine that "Mr. Jefferson's memory was detested in Charlottesville and the vicinity." It is due, also, to that illustrious individual to say, that, in all my intercourse with him, I never heard an observation that savored, in the slightest degree, of impiety. His religious belief harmonized more closely with that of the Unitarians than of any other denomination, but it was liberal, and untrammelled by sectarian feelings and prejudices. It is not easy to find more sound advice, more appropriately expressed, than in the letter which he wrote to Thomas Jefferson Smith, dated February 21st, 1825.[78]
It was beautiful, too, to witness the deference that was paid by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison to each other's opinions. When as secretary, and as chairman of the faculty, I had to consult one of them, it was a common interrogatory, What did the other say of the matter? If possible, Mr. Madison gave indications of a greater intensity of this feeling, and seemed to think that every thing emanating from his ancient associate must be correct. In a letter which Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr. Madison a few months only before he died (February 17th, 1826), he thus charmingly expresses himself. [Here follows the conclusion of a letter to Mr. Madison already given, beginning at the words "The friendship which has subsisted between us," etc.]
Mr. Randall gives us, in his work, the following accounts of his last hours and death, written by two of those who were present—Dr. Dunglison and his grandson, Colonel T. J. Randolph. I give Dr. Dunglison's first: