America at 250, America at 50
On July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate a special Independence Day marking the 250th anniversary of America’s independence on July 4, 1776. While much attention will be on America’s 250th, this article will focus on the 200th anniversary of America’s 50th anniversary of its independence, better known as the American Jubilee or the July 4, 1826 semi-centennial. Of all of America’s full and half-centennials, the American Jubilee was unique in that three of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence – John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Carroll (who signed as Charles Carroll of Carrollton) – lived to see the occasion. Famously, both Adams and Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, with Jefferson, who followed Adams as president, preceding Adams in death (the fifth president, James Monroe, would die exactly five years later on July 4, 1831). Much has been written about the July 4, 1826 deaths of Adams and Jefferson. Below, I hope to approach the occasion from a different angle – covering the writings of Adams, Jefferson, and Carroll pertaining to the American Jubilee.
Leading Into the American Jubilee
Congress did not enact legislation for a national celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, thus leaving the matter to States and localities.1 For the instant purpose, we will focus on events in Washington, DC, where then-President John Quincy Adams was present along with Vice President John C. Calhoun.
Leading into the celebrations at the capital, the Mayor of Washington DC, R.C. Weightman, headed a Committee of Arrangement for celebrating the 50th Anniversary of American independence. The Committee deemed it fitting and proper to invite the four living former Presidents – John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe – and the third living signer of the Declaration, Charles Carroll, to the capital for the celebration. Writing on behalf of the committee, Chairman Weightman penned the following letter to these great men of the early Republic2:
Sir: As chairman of a committee appointed by the citizens of Washington to make arrangements for celebrating the 50th Anniversary of American Independence in a manner worth of the Metropolis of the nation, I am directed to invite you, as one of the signers of the ever-memorable Declaration of the 4th of July, 1776, to honor the city with your presence on this occasion. I am further instructed to inform you, that if it be convenient for you to accept this invitation, Captain Crane, of the Navy, will have the honor, on behalf of the Committee, to accompany you from your residence to this city, and back to your home. With sentiments of the highest respect and veneration, I have the honor to be your most obedient servant,
R.C. WEIGHTMAN Mayor of Washington, and Chairman of the Committee of Arrangement.
Mayor Weightman’s offer to arrange for the travel to and from the ceremony for Presidents Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe and Founding Father Carroll was appropriately reverential and generous. Unfortunately, none of the five men were able to attend, with the four former presidents citing to their age (Adams was 90, Jefferson 83, Madison 75, Monroe 78, and Carroll 89) and ill-health. I found the letters of declination penned by the four former presidents in the July 4, 1826 edition of Daily National Journal, and transcribed the text of the letters for your elucidation.3 I was not able to find Carroll’s letter of declination, although I found references to it (see my transcription of the full letters).4 Of the four letters I read, Jefferson’s stood out for his using it as an opportunity to share his thoughts on the occasion and what it meant for the present and posterity, and that letter is recognized as one of many examples of his incisive writing. But before focusing on Jefferson’s letter, I will share some select excerpts from the shorter letters of his three early-President contemporaries.
I feel very grateful for this mark of distinguished and respectful attention on the part of the citizens of the city of Washington, which the present state of my health forbids me to indulge the hope of participating, only with my best wishes for the increasing prosperity of your city, and the constant health of its inhabitants.
John Adams
This explanation will, I trust, be a sufficient pledge that, although absent, all my feelings will be in sympathy with the sentiments inspired by the occasion. Ever honored will be the day which gave birth to a nation, and to a system of self-government, making it a new epoch in the history of man.
James Madison
Having devoted my best efforts, through a long series of years, to the support of that great cause, and a large portion of them in the Metropolis, the kindness shown me by this invitation is gratefully acknowledged. Many engagements which press on me at this time, render it impossible for me to leave home, of which you will have the goodness to apprise the Committee of Arrangement.
James Monroe
On the subject of Jefferson’s letter, Christopher Flannery, writing for the June/July 2026 edition of Imprimis, How to Think About the American Revolution, stated that “Jefferson had intended to write a memorable letter, and he succeeded.”5 It would of course turn out to be Jefferson’s last public letter. I share the notable part of Jefferson’s letter after he completed his explanation for being unable to travel to Washington DC due to his infirmities:
I should, indeed, with particular delight, have met and exchanged there, congratulations personally, with this small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us, on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission and the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact that our fellow-citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made. May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to 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. The 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 lights 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 boosted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others–for ourselves, to let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.
Thomas Jefferson
L.H. Butterfield, writing for American Heritage Magazine in June 1955, noted that a member of Weightman’s committee presented the letters to then-President John Quincy Adams, who was happy to see that his 90-year father and presidential predecessor had signed his letter, and “marveled at the vigor and freedom” in Jefferson’s letter.6
While the first President Adams kept his letter of declination short and concise, he had, subsequent to mailing his response to Chairman Weightman, contributed a toast to his home Quincy, Massachusetts’ 4th of July celebration. I quote from Mr. Flannery’s article7:
[O]n June 30, 1826 … [Adams] received in his home in Quincy, Massachusetts, the Reverend George Whitey and representatives of Quincy’s July 4th celebration committee. They asked the great statesman for a toast to be presented in his name on the Fourth of July. Adams proposed, “I will give you, ‘Independence Forever!'” They asked if he would like to add anything, and he replied, “Not a word.”
The Deaths of Adams and Jefferson
The first President John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the American Jubilee. Most of the country, including Adams’ son, then President John Quincy Adams, learned about their deaths days after the fact.8
Daniel Webster, then a member of the United States House of Representatives and already renowned as one of America’s great orators, delivered a long eulogy for Adams and Jefferson. It is far too long to re-print in full, but I will excerpt the sixth paragraph of the eulogy for Webster’s thoughts on the significance of two of the three living signers of the Declaration dying on the document’s 50th anniversary.9
But the concurrence of their death, on the anniversary of Independence, has naturally awakened stronger emotions. Both had been presidents, both had lived to great age, both were early patriots, and both were distinguished and ever honored by their immediate agency in the act of independence. It cannot but seem striking and extraordinary, that these two should live to see the fiftieth year from the date of that act; and that they should complete the year; and that then, on the day which had fast linked forever their own fame with their country’s glory, the heavens should open to receive them both at once. As their lives themselves were gifts of Providence, who is not willing to recognize in their happy termination as well as their long continuance, proofs that our country, and its benefactors, are objects of His care!
Daniel Webster
Months later, John Quincy Adams addressed the deaths of his father and Jefferson in his second address to Congress.10
Since your last meeting at this place the 50th anniversary of the day when our independence was declared has been celebrated throughout our land, and on that day, while every heart was bounding with joy and every voice was tuned to gratulation, amid the blessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former age had handed down to their children, two of the principal actors in that solemn scene—the hand that penned the ever memorable Declaration and the voice that sustained it in debate—were by one summons, at the distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of All to account for their deeds done upon earth. They departed cheered by the benedictions of their country, to whom they left the inheritance of their fame and the memory of their bright example.
Then-President John Quincy Adams
The Last Surviving Signatory: Charles Carroll
The deaths of Adams and Jefferson left America with one surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence: Charles Carroll. Carroll was a Delegate to the Continental Congress from Maryland, and notably, was the only Roman Catholic signer. He would go on to serve in the Maryland State Senate and as one of Maryland’s first two United States Senators. Because I am based in Brooklyn, I will note that the Brooklyn neighborhood of Carroll Gardens, which has featured in many of my articles, is named in honor of Charles Carroll (he had funded a regiment in New York in the War of Independence). That Carroll was, as of the end July 4, 1826, the last surviving signatory to the Declaration, did not go unnoticed. Daniel Webster made a point of noting his admiration of Carroll in his eulogy for Adams and Jefferson.11
Of the illustrious signers of the Declaration of Independence, there now remains only CHARLES CARROLL. He seems an aged oak, standing alone on the plain, which time has spared a little longer after all its contemporaries have been levelled with the dust. Venerable object! we delight to gather round its trunk, while yet it stands, and to dwell beneath its shadow. Sole survivor of an assembly of as great men as the world has witnessed, in a transaction one of the most important that history records, what thoughts, what interesting reflections, must fill his elevated and devout soul! If he dwell on the past, how touching its recollections; if he survey the present, how happy, how joyous, how full of the fruition of that hope, which his ardent patriotism indulged; if he glance at the future, how does the prospect of his countries advancement almost bewilder his weakened conception! Fortunate, distinguished patriot! Interesting relic of the past! Let him know that, while we honor the dead, we do not forget the living; and that there is not a heart here which does not fervently pray, that Heaven may keep him yet back from the society of his companions.
Daniel Webster
Carroll, who had been born on September 19, 1737, would live quite a bit longer, joining the society of his companions on November 14, 1832, at the age of 95.
A 1918 biography of Carroll by Lewis A. Leonard noted that in the spring of 1826, the United States Congress decided to celebrate the Jubilee “by having facsimile copies of [The Declaration of Independence] made.”12 Adams, Jefferson, and Carroll were to receive two copies each, while the families of the other signers would also receive two copies. Unfortunately for Adams and Jefferson, the copies were finished and prepared for delivery on September 1, 1826, leaving Carroll as the only living signatory to be able to accept his. Carroll was notified that a committee from Washington D.C., accompanied by a messenger, would personally deliver the two copies to Carroll on September 21, 1826. Turning to the next page of Leonard’s text13, the committee to present the copies of the Declaration to Carroll was headed by Ezekel F. Chambers, who was one of Maryland’s two U.S. Senators at the time. Before receiving the document, Carroll had written an attestation on August 2, 1826, which was attached to his final copy.14
Grateful to Almighty God for the blessings which, through Jesus Christ our Lord, He has conferred on my beloved country, in her emancipation, and upon myself, in permitting me, under circumstances of mercy, to live to the age of 89 years and to survive the 50th year of American Independence, and by certifying my present signature my approbation of Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress on the fourth day of July, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred seventy-six, which I originally subscribed on the second day of August of the same year, and of which I am now the last surviving signer, do hereby recommend to the present and future generations the principles that important document as the best earthly inheritance their ancestors could bequeath to them, and pray that the civil and religious liberties they have secured to my country may be perpetuated to the remotest posterity and extended to the whole family of man.
Charles Carroll
According to Leonard, two of the men present when Carroll received his facsimile copy of the Declaration were J.H.B. Latrobe, author of the section on Carroll in Sanderson’s Lives of Signers, who had planned to write a full biography of Carroll. Carroll, as Webster had hoped in his eulogy, shared stories from the revolution, which were relayed by Latrobe and Chambers.15
Carroll noted that the Declaration was only signed by John Hancock and Charles Thompson on July 4, 1776. He explained that the Continental Congress voted on July 19 to direct a copy of the Declaration to be made on parchment, and on August 2, all members present, including Carroll, added their signatures.
Carroll “made it clear always that he did not have the opportunity to vote for independence,” but the reason was not at all tied to a lack of patriotic fervor. Mr. Carroll was not present for the vote because he was in Annapolis, Maryland in the last days of June and first days of July, working to persuade the Maryland Assembly to revoke its instruction to the Maryland Delegation to the Continental Congress, of which Carroll was a member, to vote against independence. While Carroll did succeed in his task, he was unable to return to Philadelphia until after July 4, thus missing the vote for independence. Carroll was however able to share what he had heard second-hand about the debate regarding the language of the Declaration.
Carroll was in Philadelphia for the signing of the Declaration on August 2, 1776, and he shared his recollection of affixing his signature to the document. According to Carroll, as relayed through Latrobe and/or Chambers, John Hancock presented the copy of the Declaration on parchment and stated: “Now, gentleman, the document is read for your signatures.” Another individual present noted that Hancock had not signed the copy, to which Hancock replied “as I signed the original document in signing the minutes of July 4th, I incur no added responsibility in signing this copy.” Then, Hancock turned to Carroll and asked whether Carroll had any objection to signing, to which Carroll replied, “Not the least. Where shall I sign!” Hancock then handed Carroll a quill pen and Carroll signed the document, followed by the rest of the Maryland delegation. 35 delegates signed that day, and those not present would sign later, with the final two delegates signing in December 1776.
According to Leonard, Carroll maintained a scrapbook of his recollections which had been since lost (Leonard was writing in 1918).16 In Leonard’s account, Carroll “did not entirely agree with Jefferson in some of his more radical views,” and thought that the changes applied to Jefferson’s draft had made the Declaration “more expressive and impressive…” The book, according to Leonard, showed that Carroll held in high esteem “the views of Washington on questions of peace as well as war,” and that Carroll cooperated closely with Washington throughout his political career.
On the subject of why Charles Carroll famously added “of Carrollton” to his signature, he apparently explained that he signed his name “Charles Carroll, of Carrollton” while his cousin, also named Charles Carroll, signed as “Charles Carroll, barrister.”
According to another Carroll biographer, Laura Laurenson Byrne, when Carroll died in 1832, “Congress for three months wore mourning, a tribute hitherto paid only to Washington.”17
John Adams in 1776
Having sifted through Carroll’s recollections of The Declaration of Independence, I conclude by returning to 1776, when the Continental Congress voted for independence, but the outcome of its independence bid was yet uncertain. The elder John Adams, a prolific letter-writer, wrote a letter to his wife Abigail after the vote was complete.18 I will quote a few passages from the letter while encouraging you to read it in full.
The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.
John Adams
As it would turn out, Independence Day would fall on the fourth. The same issue of the Daily National Journal newspaper which included the letters of declination from Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe stealthily edited Adams reference to July 2 to July 4, perhaps to avoid confusion. Adams expressed his hopes for the day:
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
John Adams
I dare say that the 250th festivities have checked at least a few of Adams’ boxes. Of course, Adams them added a note that the road to realizing independence would be difficult:
You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. – I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. – Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
John Adams
Adams’ faith was, of course, well-placed. Not only would he take the presidential oath of office to serve as the second President of an independent United States just over 20 years after his letter to his wife, but his son would preside over the 50th anniversary celebrations as the sixth President of the United States 50 years later. Today — with today being the date of publication of the instant article — the United States of America marks 250 years since the events memorialized in John Adams’ letter to his wife, since Thomas Jefferson, with the help of Adams, defended Jefferson’s initial draft of the Declaration, and since Charles Carroll was returning from Maryland to Philadelphia after having helped persuade the Maryland Senate to reverse course in its opposition to independence.
As the elder John Adams exclaimed in 1826: “Independence forever!”
Footnotes
1 Strauss, Jacob R., “Congressional Involvement in the Celebration of Anniversaries of the Declaration of Independence,” Congressional Research Service, 2025, p. 16, https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R48473/R48473.1.pdf.
2 Founders Early Access. n.d. “To Thomas Jefferson from Roger Chew Weightman, 14 June 1826.” Accessed July 3, 2026. https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=FOEA-print-04-02-02-6163.
3 Daily National Journal (Washington, District of Columbia). 1826. “Letters from Declaration Signers on 50th Anniversary — Daily National Journal (Jul 4, 1826).” July 4. https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-national-journal-letters-from-decl/200339282/.
4 Butterfield, L.H.. 1955. “July 4 In 1826.” American Heritage, June. https://www.americanheritage.com/july-4-1826.
5 Flannery, Christopher. 2026. “How to Think About the American Revolution.” Imprimis, June 18. https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/how-to-think-about-the-american-revolution/.
6 L.H. Butterfield.
7 Flannery, Christopher.
8 Paranick, Amber. 2022. “Deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson on July 4th.” Webpage. The Library of Congress, July 6. https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2022/07/deaths-of-john-adams-and-thomas-jefferson-on-july-4th.
9 Webster, Daniel. 1853. The Great Orations and Senatorial Speech of Daniel Webster : Comprising Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, First Settlement of New England, Bunker Hill Monument, Reply to Hayne. With Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection. Little Brown & Co., Boston; Wilbur M. Hayward. http://archive.org/details/greatorationssen00webs. p. 4.
10 John Quincy Adams. 2016. “December 5, 1826: Second Annual Address.” Miller Center, October 20, 2016. https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-5-1826-second-annual-address.
11 Webster, Daniel. p. 23.
12 Lewis A. Leonard. 1918. Life of Charles Carroll of Carrollton,. Moffat, Yard and Company. https://www.loc.gov/item/18005886/. p. 145.
13 Id. at p. 146.
14 “COPY OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE SIGNED BY CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON. HIS CERTIFICATE RECOMMENDING THE PRINCIPLES.” 1897. The American Catholic Historical Researchers 14 (July): 117–19. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44373990.pdf.
15 Leonard, Lewis A. p. 133-36.
16 Id. at p. 138-39.
17 Laura Laurenson Byrne. 1920. Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Newman Club of the University of California. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/public/gdc/00118368496/00118368496.pdf. p. 25.
18 Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776, “Had a Declaration…” [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17760703jasecond.
