Life of Thomas Jefferson

39. Nunc Dimittis, Domine

The work of establishing the University of Virginia represented the concluding labors of one who had numbered more than four score years and devoted sixty of them uninterruptedly to the service of his country. Long after most of those who were his original adherents or opponents had disappeared from the world, he continued the championing of the same political doctrines which he espoused in the fire of youth; nay, upon the verge of the grave he stood, as it were, the embodied spirit of the Revolution in all its purity and power, nourishing with its wholesome influence the acting generation of his country and distributing its revolutionary energies among the nations of the earth which still slumbered in despotism.

Why should we attempt coolly to particularize the distinguishing features of a public character whose developments in the aggregate were so extraordinary and have given so powerful and lasting a direction to the current of human thought? Adopting a humble imitation of his delineation of General Washington, may it not be summarily represented as "in the mass perfect, in many points unrivaled, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent," save perhaps to add, "in most points unrivalled."

His heart was most fervent in its affections and as confiding as innocence itself, never harboring a suspicion of the depository of its trust and, what is more uncommon, as tenacious as it was ardent and confiding, holding on to its object without abatement under every vicissitude. His friendships were indissoluble, those contracted earliest continuing the same through life. His justice was severe, sacrificing the claims of the closest ties of affection to avoid the contamination of dishonor. His temper was proverbially even, serene, and buoyant, thrusting fear always aside and cherishing habitually the fond incitements of hope. Of domestic life he was at once the adorer and the idol, ever anxious to forego honors and emoluments for its enjoyment, and such was the influence of his affection upon those around him that he was almost worshiped by his family. He delighted in the society of children, with whom he was accustomed in his old age to practice feats of agility which few could imitate. Being take by surprise on one of these occasions by the entrance of a stranger, he grasped his hand and smiling said: "I will make no other apology than the good Henry the Fourth did, when he was caught by an ambassador playing horse and riding one of his children on his back, by asking, Are you a father? --if you are, no apology is necessary."

His powers of conversation were of the highest order and made him the soul and center of the social circle. Of the warmth of his social dispositions, the range of his private correspondence affords the most convincing proofs. Even in the angry period of 1798, so memorable for its dissocializing spirit, he wrote to a distinguished political opponent: "I feel extraordinary gratification in addressing this letter to you with whom shades of difference in political sentiment have not prevented the interchange of good opinion, nor cut off the friendly offices of society and good correspondence. This political tolerance is the more valued by me, who consider social harmony as the first of human felicities and the happiest moments those which are given to the effusions of the heart."

But the most interesting fragment of this nature is found in a letter of affection and friendship, written while in France, of which the following are extracts:
Owing in part, if not altogether, to a general pressure upon the landed interest in Virginia which had been felt for several preceding years, the affairs of Mr. Jefferson became embarrassed, and in February, 1826, an act passed the legislature of Virginia allowing him to dispose of his estates by means of a lottery. The scheme of the lottery embraced three great prizes, to wit, the Monticello estate, valued at 71,000 dollars; the Shadwell mills adjoining it, valued at 30,000; and the Albermarle estate, at 11,500. The Bedford tract was not included because, being derived from his wife, Mr. Jefferson had only a life estate in it with power only to convey it to their descendants in such portions as he chose. Otherwise this estate would have gone in with the rest.

Simultaneously with the proceedings in the Virginia legislature, and as soon as it became known that Mr. Jefferson was in a state of pecuniary distress, a spontaneous feeling of gratitude burst forth in every section of the union. The paltry expedient of a lottery was considered too cold and calculating a remedy for a case which addressed itself to all the nobler sympathies of the human heart. Public meetings were called in all the considerable cities of the union at which feeling and high-spirited resolutions were passed and subscriptions opened which were as suddenly filled with contributions to the relief of the suffering apostle of human liberty. The legislature of Louisiana, actuated by a peculiar sense of gratitude to the author of their admission into the republic, immediately passed an act appropriating ten thousand dollars to be placed at his disposal. The legislature of South Carolina, it is believed, did the same. Various schemes were proposed in different places in all of which the leading object appeared to be how to bestow their bounty so as to give least pain to the delicacy of his feelings.

But Mr. Jefferson lived to derive very little benefit from these voluntary offerings of a grateful people, and none from the legislative provision of his native State. His health had been impaired by a too free use of the hot spring bath in 1818. From that time, his indisposition steadily increased until the spring of 1826, when it attained a troublesome and alarming violence, giving certain indications of a gradual approach of dissolution. Of the issue, he seemed perfectly aware. On the 5th of June, he observed to a friend that "he doubted his weathering the present summer." On the 24th of June, his disorder and weakness having reached a distressing point, he yielded to the entreaties of his family and saw his physician, Dr. Dunglison of the university. On this occasion he warned a friend who came to see him on private business that "there was no time to be lost," and expressed with regret his only apprehension that "he could not hold out to see the blessed Fourth of July," that he had called in a physician and to gratify his family would follow his prescriptions, but that it would prove unavailing: the machine had worn out and would go on no longer. On the same day, he addressed that most remarkable letter to the mayor of Washington, copies of which, elegantly printed and framed, adorned the mantelpieces of many of the private dwellings in that city and the walls of its public edifices. This was the last letter he ever wrote, and surely none was better fitted to be the last.
On the 28th of June, a friend from a distance visited him on private business and has left an affecting account of his interview. "As I approached the house," said he, "the anxiety and distress visible in the countenance of the servants increased the gloom of my own forebodings, and I entered it under no little agitation. After the object of my call was made known to Mrs. Randolph, she told me that although her father had been expecting to see me, he was then too unwell to receive anyone. It was but too evident that the fears of his daughter over-balanced her hopes; and while sympathizing in her distress, I could not help sighing to think that, although separated from him only by a thin wall, I was never more to behold the venerable man who had entered all the walks of politics and philosophy, and in all was foremost -- and to whom the past, present, and all future ages are and will be so much indebted. However, Mrs. Randolph, having left me to attend to her father, soon returned and observed that she had taken it for granted that he could not see me; but upon her casually mentioning my arrival, he had desired I should be invited into his chamber. My emotions at approaching Jefferson's dying bed I cannot describe. You remember the alcove in which he slept. There he was extended -- feeble, prostrate -- but the fine and clear expression of his countenance not at all obscured. At the first glance he recognized me, and his hand and voice at once saluted me. The energy of his grasp and the spirit of his conversation were such as to make me hope he would yet rally, and that the superiority of mind over matter in his composition would preserve him yet longer. He regretted that I should find him so helpless, talked of the freshet then prevailing in James River, and said he had never known a more destructive one. He soon, however, passed to the university, expatiated on its future utility, commended the professors, and expressed satisfaction at the progress of the students. A sword was suspended at the foot of his bed, which he told me was presented to him by an Arabian chief, and that the blade was a true Damascus. At this time he became so cheerful as to smile, even to laughing, at a remark I made. He alluded to the probability of his death as a man would to the prospect of being caught in a shower, as an event not to be desired but not to be feared. Upon proposing to withdraw, I observed that I would call to see him again. He said, 'Well do, but you will dine here today.' To this I replied that I proposed deferring that pleasure until he got better. He waved his hand and shook his head with some impatience saying emphatically, "You must dine here; my sickness makes no difference." I consented, left him, and never saw him more."

During the four or five days remaining to him, his decay was gradual but visible. Of this, no one was more conscious than himself; yet he retained to the last moment of his existence the same serene, decisive, and cheerful temper that had marked his eventful history. He often recurred with spirit and animation to the university and expressed his hope that "the State would not now abandon it." He spoke of the changes which he feared would be made in it, of his probable successor as Rector, of the services he had rendered to his native State, and counseled and advised as to his private affairs. Upon being unusually ill for a short time, he observed very cheerfully, "Well, Doctor, a few hours more and the struggle will be over." He called in his family and conversed calmly and separately with each of them. To his daughter he presented a small morocco case which he requested her to open immediately after his decease. On opening the case it was found to contain an elegant and affectionate strain of poetry "on the virtues of his dutiful and incomparable daughter." When the 3rd of July arrived, upon enquiring with some solicitude the day of the month, he expressed a fervent desire to live till the next day, "that he might breathe the air of the Fiftieth Anniversary, when he would joyfully sing with old Simeon, Nunc dimittis, Domine." In the few short intervals of delirium which occurred, his mind relapsed to the age of the Revolution with all the enthusiasm of that period. He talked in broken sentences of the committees of safety and the rest of that great machinery which he imagined to be still in motion. One of his exclamations was, "Warn the committee to be on their guard," and he instantly rose in his bed with the help of his attendants and went through the act of writing a hurried note. But his reason was almost constantly in her seat when the great topics on which he dwelt were the happiness of his only and beloved child, or the University of Virginia, or the advent of the approaching anniversary of Independence.
When the morning of that day came, he appeared to be thoroughly impressed that he should not live through it and only expressed a desire that he might survive until mid-day. He seemed perfectly at ease and ready to die. When the Doctor entered his room, he said, "Well Doctor, you see I am here yet." His disorder being checked a friend expressed a hope of his amendment. His reply was, that the powers of nature were too much exhausted to be rallied. To a member of his family who remarked that he was better and that the Doctor thought so, he listened with evident impatience and said, "Do not imagine for a moment that I feel the smallest solicitude as to the result." He then calmly gave directions for his funeral, forbidding all pomp and parade. Being answered by a hope that it would be long ere the occasion would require their observance, he asked with a smile, "Do you think I fear to die?" A few moments after, he called his family and friends around his bedside and uttered distinctly the following sentence: "I have done for my country and for all mankind all that I could do, and I now resign my soul without fear to my God, my daughter to my country." These were the last words he articulated -- his last solemn declaration to the world -- his dying will and testament, bequeathing his most precious possessions to his God and his country. All that was heard from him afterwards was a hurried repetition in indistinct and scarcely audible accents of his favorite ejaculation, Nunc Dimittis, Domine -- Nunc Dimittis, Domine. He sunk away imperceptibly and breathed his last without a struggle or a murmur at ten minutes before one o'clock on the great Jubilee of American liberty -- the day, and hour too, on which the Declaration of Independence received its final reading, and the day and hour on which he prayed to Heaven that he might be permitted to depart.

Was not the hand of God most affectingly displayed in this event as if to add another to the multiplied proofs of His special superintendence over this happy country? On the anniversary of a day the most distinguished in the annals of mankind -- on its Fiftieth Anniversary; and in merciful fulfilment of his last earthly prayer, he closed his eyes. Few of the miracles recorded in the sacred writings are more conspicuous or imposing. Mark again the extraordinary protraction of physical existence manifested in the last moments of Mr. Jefferson, as if to render the coincidence more strikingly and beautifully complete. At eight o'clock P.M. on the 3rd of July, his physician pronounced that he might be expected to die in any quarter of an hour from that time. Yet he lived seventeen hours longer without any evident pain or suffering or restlessness, but with sensibility, consciousness, and intelligence for much more than twelve hours of the time; and at last he gradually subsided into inanimation like a lamp which had shone throughout a long dark night, spreading far and wide its beneficent rays, yet still lingering to usher in the broad daylight upon mankind.
Tever was this nation more profoundly impressed than by the occurrence of this event. Instead of being viewed in the light of a calamity, there was not a heart which did not feel a mournful pleasure at the miraculous beauty of such a death. All business was suspended as the intelligence spread through the country; the minute guns were fired, the bells sounded a funeral note, the flags of the shipping fell half mast, and every demonstration of profound feeling was displayed. But five hours afterward on the same day died John Adams, in the same mighty spirit, also, with the last words "Independence forever," and "Thomas Jefferson still survives."

The extraordinary coincidence in the death of these great men is without a parallel in the records of history. Were any doubt harbored of their sincere devotion to their country while living, they must surely be dissipated forever by the time and manner of their death. One, the author of the Declaration of Independence, the other its great champion and defender on the floor of Congress, and both the only two survivors of the committee appointed to prepare that instrument -- another and powerful confirmation was thus added that "heaven itself mingled visibly in the Jubilee Celebration of American Liberty, hallowing anew the day by a double apotheosis." They were great and glorious in their lives; in death they were not divided. It was indeed a fit occasion for the deepest public feeling. Happening singly, each of these events was felt as supernatural; happening together, the astonishment which they occasioned was general and almost overwhelming.

In a private memorandum found among some other obituary papers of Mr. Jefferson was the suggestion that in case any memorial of him should ever be thought of, a small granite obelisk should be erected with the following inscription:

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.
Volumes of panegyric could never convey so adequate an idea of unpretending greatness as is contained in this brief and modest epitome of all the splendid achievements of a long, an arduous, and incessantly useful life.
THE END.

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© 1997 by Eyler Robert Coates, Sr.