The most inadvertently prophetic words that Adams ever uttered were his last: Thomas Jefferson survives.
For it was the Jeffersonian image that broke free of the aggregated anonymity, the founders
or the fathers,
and eventually ascended into heaven with Washington. During the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Jeffersonian legacy became the most adaptable and all-purpose political touchstone in American political history.
James Madison
Watercolor on ivory. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Madison at age 32.
Oil on canvas; framed: 36 1/8 × 31 3/4 × 3 5/8 in. (91.8 × 80.6 × 9.2 cm). Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK.
Pastel on paper. Independence National Historical Park, Portrait Collection (Second Bank of the United States), Philadelphia, PA.
Oil on canvas; 29.5 in. x 24.63 in. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Colonial Williamsburg, VA.
Oil on canvas; height: height: 123.19 cm (48.5 in), width: 100.97 cm (39.75 in). Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME.
Oil on wood; 65.3 x 54.3 cm (25 11/16 x 21 3/8 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Oil on canvas. The White House Collection, Washington, DC.
Oil on canvas. On display at Montpelier, Orange, VA; courtesy of Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA.
Oil on canvas; 24 1/4 x 20 1/4 in. ( 61.6 x 51.4 cm). New-York Historical Society, New York, NY.
Watercolor on wove paper. The Montpelier Foundation, Orange, VA.
Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (1993)