Lynch at Large

It is a strange coincidence that the two last signers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson each died on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was the principal author and was invited to national commemoration, and his letter of response provides us with his last writing, and his final thought on the event we celebrate this holiday. Here is what Jefferson said:

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (in some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.

That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spured, ready to ride them legitamately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others.

For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

Thomas Jefferson on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.