“Is it the Fourth yet?”  Thomas Jefferson on his deathbed July 4, 1826.

Five hours later, John Adams, spoke his last words, “Jefferson survives.”  It was the 50th. anniversary of the signing of a document that is one of the greatest written by man.  Jefferson, Adams and Franklin were commissioned to write and present a document to the Congress for a formal proclamation of Independence from our mother country.  Philadelphia in July can be as uncomfortable as one could get with the hot humid air and add to that working in a closed room on a publication that means their very lives if they were ever captured.  The document itself did not break new ground and Jefferson borrowed heavily from the day’s philosophers most notably Locke and Sydney.  They lived in an age we call “The Enlightenment” and what an age it was!  It was an age when political philosophy took a giant leap forward to break the shackles that western mankind was bound.  Shackles that are ever present and ready to be applied once again by those who fancy themselves as our masters. These three American leaders, imperfect as everyone of us, knew that all men should be free to set their own course.  The fact that they either owned or represented those who owned slaves does not discount their beliefs and where they were guiding this Nation.  They knew that the seed of liberty once planted would correct the societal miscues as long as liberty was not impeded.

Our Constitution, a document greatly debated, gave form to the country and set limits on the federal government and how they could rule.  Even in those days there were groups of people who wanted a strong authoritarian government led by a single leader, the thought of allowing people to govern themselves seemed ludicrous.  Much of that belief was fueled – as it is today – by their own self interest.  Cronyism is not an American phenomena, it has existed since man started to allow rulers.  The Founders, especially Adams and Jefferson, knew that the liberty of man is the best vaccination against the government cronyism.  Liberty is a word seldom used anymore.  That is unfortunate as it is a beautiful word to read and let roll off the tongue.  But it is so easily dismissed.

Even Jefferson and Adams caved in to the corruption that power brings when they were Presidents.  Adams was a thin skinned New Englander who in spite of his earlier and later proclamations about the sanctity of the individual forced passage of the ‘Alien and Sedition Act’ which permitted the government to arrest and jail critics of his administration and many spent time in jail.  It was an affront to the ideals that he and his generation fought for and is a smear on his legacy.  The power of the Presidency had blinded him to all he stood for and risked in his earlier life.  Jefferson on the other hand was an idealist who never showed reaction to attacks because of his firm belief that what he was doing was correct. He and Adams were very close friends until the election of 1796 which Adams beat Jefferson.  It was a nasty campaign that make todays election campaigns look like a walk in the park.  The personal attacks on Jefferson were vicious and he blamed Adams for allowing it but what troubled him most was the direction the Federalist Party was taking the country.  Four years later he beat Adams in another vicious campaign and what little communication that existed after the first election with his old friend ceased completely.  Jefferson took apart everything that his predecessor accomplished.  The Alien and Sedition Act was repealed and he implemented more democratic reforms in the government.  He pretty much dismantled the Army and Navy and believed that the ideal of America was force enough to protect Americans.  He did this at a time when both the British and French were attacking American shipping and taking sailors as they saw fit.  He was against a war to enforce American rights and instead implemented an embargo against  both warring countries.  He believed that the withholding of American goods to their marketplaces would cripple them and cause them to adjust their policies.  It did not and the embargo wrecked the economy of America.  There was not a group of Americans that did not suffer the effects of that embargo.  Jefferson did not  listen when told about the devastating effects it was having on Americans.  He went from being the most popular American alive to being hated by many and disliked by more.  Even his friends were badly affected by the embargo but Jefferson blinded by the power of the office chose to ignore the criticism.  The embargo was eventually lifted and the war that he thought he saved the country from fighting came anyway during Madison’s term a few years later.

Both Jefferson and Adams lead the true “Greatest Generation” of Americans, if such a thing exists, not only for the risks that they all took but also for the philosophy of liberty for the individual.  They also teach us through their own mistakes in governing that history does indeed repeat and the lessons from their temporary blindness due to power show that trouble follows when individual liberty is ignored or squashed by the political class.  History is a wonderful teacher if we allow it.  In the corruption of our educational system the proponents of state control have debased our national history to suit their own agenda.  What they fail to do however is to recognize that history teaches us that individual liberty while it is beaten down at times or pushed aside always progresses.  It is not easy and often painful but it does advance.

This nation in it’s very short history has had a few great leaders and some good and we have survived the rest.  We survived because that little thing that burns constantly within all of us – what Jefferson, Adams and the other Revolutionary thinkers and leaders called the flame of liberty – continues to lead each of us.  The times when we got into trouble were the times when that flame was ignored and diminished.  Diminished but not extinguished.  As hard as the “progressives” try they can not extinguish that flame.  There are times when their evil ways and constant pressure can be tiring, when you feel like just throwing up your hands in disgust and letting them have their own way.  It is during those times that I find a book about our history and read about what others had to go through; then it does not seem that bad.  History teaches us that this has been an ongoing struggle and it is one that will never cease.  There may be setbacks but they are temporary. Liberty will always advance against those forces that would subject the populace to a life without choices, a life that answers only to the ruling political class be they Monarchs, Dictators, Committees or Democrat/Republican party hacks.