My Provocation For The Day

I read the article in the Los Angeles Times about how when the fifth president, James Monroe died on July 4th, 1831, after both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day in 1926, people thought they saw the hand of God in it.   Of course, there's no way to know that.  While this passage probably should have been included,  it's kind of pathetic that the last part. observing there is no historical evidence to help you decide which to believe,  has to be said to adults.

Although scholars are typically weary of analyzing unexplained phenomena, in 2005 historian Margaret P. Battin entertained the meaning behind the same-day deaths of Adams and Jefferson by offering six possibilities, 

Coincidence.
Divine intervention.
“Hanging on” to life in order to ensure death on July 4.
Caused to die by others.
Allowing oneself to die.
Causing oneself to die.

Each of these theories, she said, lacks historical evidence.

But I don't much care about what Daniel Webster or other sleeveens like him had to say about the coincidental death dates, I want to kick up some mischief and annoy some poeple over what John Adams is reported to have said shortly before his death.

“Thomas Jefferson survives,” were rumored to be among Adams’ last words from his deathbed in Quincy, Mass. He was unaware that his friend died that day, July 4, 1826, at his beloved Monticello estate more than 500 miles away in Virginia.

It's kind of an odd thing for him to have said on that occasion, considering there were no phones, the mail was extremely slow and unreliable so there would have been every reason for Adams to think that he wouldn't know if Jefferson had kicked the bucket until days or weeks after it happened.  And presumably he would have been more fixed on his own soul which he believed was about to be changed in the blinking of an eye as he faced eternity.

I don't recall who it was who raised the possibility that Adams might have been having a near death experience in which his friend who, without his knowledge, had died shortly before, came to him. What he could have been doing is experss surprise that the quasi-deistic Jefferson had survived death, probably a big surprise to Jefferson who might have wanted to share the news with someone he'd written to on religious subjects a lot.   If he had a vision of Jefferson already in the afterlife, his statement would make sense more than him believing he knew something he couldn't know on this side of the veil.

That's not an historical statement requiring evidence, I make it only to annoy those who would find such a speculation annoying.  I say believe it and annoy the atheists.  If you're wrong, they won't be able to hold it over you.  If you're right, why wait to the afterlife to crow about it?

Update:  Who knows?  Adams is believed to have died of a heart attack, I've read.  Maybe it was brought on by the shock of seeing Jefferson from the afterlife.   Just to annoy the atheists.