bration, at Washington, of the 4th of July. During
the 3d of July he dozed hour after hour under the influence of opiates,
rousing occasionally, and uttering a few words. It was evident that his
end was very near. His family and he himself fervently desired that he
might live till the 4th of July. At eleven in the evening of July 3 he
whispered to Mr. Trist, the husband of one of his granddaughters, who sat
by him: "This is the fourth?" Not bearing to disappoint him, Mr. Trist
remained silent; and Mr. Jefferson feebly asked a second time: "This is
the fourth?" Mr. Trist nodded assent. "Ah!" he breathed, and sank into a
slumber from which he never awoke; but his end did not come till half past
twelve in the afternoon of Independence Day. On the same day, at Quincy,
died John Adams, his last words being, "Thomas Jefferson still lives!"

The double coincidence made a strong impression upon the imagination of
the American people. "When it became known," says Mr. Parton, "that the
author of the Declaration and its most powerful defender had both breathed
their last on the Fourth of July, the fiftieth since they had set it apart
from the roll of common days, it seemed as if Heaven had given its visible
and unerring sanction to the work which they had done."

Jefferson's body was buried at Monticello, and on the tombstone is
inscribed, as he desired, the following: "Here was buried Thomas
Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the
Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of
Virginia."

Jefferson's expectation that Monticello would remain the property of his
descendants was not fulfilled. His debts were paid to the uttermost
farthing by his executor and grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph; but
Martha Randolph and her family were left homeless and penniless. When this
became known, the legislatures of South Carolina and Louisiana each voted
to Mrs. Randolph a gift of $10,000. She died suddenly, in 1836, at the age
of sixty-three. Monticello passed into the hands of strangers.

Jefferson had his faults and defects. As a statesman and ruler, he showed
at times irresolution, want of energy and of audacity, and a
misunderstanding of human nature; and at times his judgment was clouded by
the political prejudices which were common in his day. His attitude in the
X Y Z business, his embargo policy, and his policy or want of policy after
the failure of the embargo,--in these ca