The Political Inquirer

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Parts 3 and 4) (Parts 5 and 6) (Part 7)

I finished watching the last episode of the John Adams miniseries by HBO. It was another moving episode, definitely one of the the best. It obviously follows the end of the life of Adams, his wife, his daughter and many of his friends. Adams’ makes mention that all of those who were important in 1776 were now dead, save himself and Jefferson.

Before Benjamin Rush’s death, he persuaded Adams to write a letter to Thomas Jefferson and begins correspondence with him, mainly so that they can explain themselves instead of dying angry at each other. This led to one of the greatest series of letter exchanges that ever took place in the history of man. Adams and Jefferson wrote on anything and everything, from their political days in Philadelphia and France to philosophical and religious issues. You can really begin to get into the mind of these two men as you read more and more of their letters and see how they thought.

At the end, John Adams passes away on July 4, 1826. Thomas Jefferson also dies on that day, a few hours before Adams did. John Adams utters the words “Jefferson survives” shortly before his death, not knowing Jefferson was already dead.

And thus ended the history of the Revolution. Words cannot express the esteem and honor I personally hold these two political figures up to. Their intelligence and knowledge is far beyond that of most people who are considered “educated” today. What they did for this country is beyond what I can say or think.

The end of the series closed with John Adams saying this (though I am not sure if he actually wrote this at some point or not):

Well, posterity, you will never know what it cost us to preserve your freedom. I only hope that you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.