WASHINGTON
Saturday Morning, July 15, 1826.
In noticing the extraordinary coincidence in the deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, on the day of our Jubilee, there appears to us to have been scarcely stress enough laid on the fact, that these two patriarchs were more especially identified with the Declaration of Independence, than all the rest of its signers and advocates; because they constituted, entirely and exclusively, the subcommittee to whom the composition of that most important of all state papers, since the creation of man, was assigned. Although, therefore, the draft was made by Mr. Jefferson, they are both to be regarded as the joint authors; it breathes the spirit, and embodies the sentiments of bothy; and it certainly renders the extraordinary character of the sublime departure of both, on that memorable day, still more conspicuous, when it is taken into the view, that these co-fathers of our great national charter, the author and the defender of our political faith, should have been permitted to expire almost at the same moment, while the act which proceeded from them, and which has clothed them with the immortality of a glorious fame, was still vibrating in our ears from a thousand different readers.
The venerable Carroll is now the last link which connects the living with this illustrious band. He also has reached an age to which it is not often permitted to man to obtain. We have now lying before us a letter of this patriarch of our land, dated in September last, every letter of which indicates advanced age. “On the 20th of this month, (says the venerated writer,) I entered into my eighty-ninth year. This, in any country, would be deemed a long life, yet, as you observe, if it has not been directed to the only end for which man was created, it is a mere nothing, an empty phantom, an indivisible point, compared with eternity. Too much of my time and attention have been misapplied on matters to which an impartial judge, penetrating the secrets of hearts, before whom I shall soon appear, will ascribe merit deserving recompense. On the mercy of my Redeemer I rely for salvation, and on his merits; not on the works I have done in obedience to his precepts, for even these, I fear a mixture of alloy will render unavailing, and cause to be rejected.”
Every expression—every fragment of a phrase from such a man, is now of inestimable value; it is like the voice of a departed age—an echo still lingering among the ruins of antiquity.