Pahrump’s Philip S. Bovee considers the importance of our Founding Fathers’ roles in constructing the Declaration of Independence

Late in the afternoon of July 4th 1826 — the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence — 90-year-old John Adams stirred in his sick bed and whispered clearly— “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” Just after 6 p.m. that day, Adams, the second president of the USA, breathed his last.

Adams’ last whisper was wrong. Thomas Jefferson had died earlier that same afternoon, shortly before Adams spoke his name and only a few hours before Adams’ demise.

The two great revolutionary patriots, the men most responsible for the existence, acceptance and enactment of the Declaration of Independence, both died the same day and that day, July 4, was exactly 50 years after the birth of their masterpiece of freedom, their legacy of liberty.

Adams and Jefferson were chosen for the committee of five who were tasked with coming up with a Declaration of Independence suitable for the new nation. Jefferson wrote the first draft of the document alone in his rented rooms on the outskirts of Philadelphia. During debate on the Declaration, Adams spoke incessantly, passionately and persuasively and he convinced his fellow delegates to agree to approval and he gained for himself the moniker “The Colossus of Independence.”

Jefferson was “The Pen” of the Declaration of Independence and Adams “The Voice” and both died the same day, exactly 50 years to the day after their genius and eloquence and passion and perseverance put the American mind in writing, giving the guide for the nascent United States of America.

Coincidence? I think not.

When John Quincy Adams, who was the president of the USA on July 4, 1826, learned that his father and Thomas Jefferson had both died on the 50-year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence he wrote in his diary that this could not be seen as a mere coincidence. John Quincy wrote that it was instead a “visible and palpable manifestation of Divine favor.”

John Quincy’s conclusion is undoubtedly correct. For one thing, excepting perhaps his own father and his mother, Abigail Adams, JQ Adams is, in all probability, the highest IQ individual to ever occupy the White House. Another full-on genius, Albert Einstein, may or may not have been the first to utter, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

The Declaration of Independence declares as self-evident truth that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Adams and Jefferson were humanity’s representatives to set in stone for all time the notion — the American creed — that our rights as human beings and Americans come not from government, not from lawmakers, not from bureaucrats and regulators, not even from majority opinion — but from God Almighty alone.

It makes sense that the God who was honored and acknowledged as the source of human rights by Jefferson and Adams would see fit to bestow “visible and palpable… Divine favor” upon the two men — and upon the country they created.

Maybe Adams wasn’t wrong. Maybe Thomas Jefferson does survive. Maybe both great American patriots and all the Founding Fathers survive so long as we love and honor and protect and preserve the immeasurably great gift they gave us: the Land of Liberty, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, One Nation Under God — the United States of America.

Happy 250!! and God bless America!

Philip S. Bovee is an attorney and writer who has lived in Pahrump since 2023.