On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the approval and signing of the Declaration of Independence, the document's author was an 83-year-old former governor, vice president and president. Yet, what Thomas Jefferson was most known for in 1826 was his role in crafting the founding vision of the United States.

This was the recognition that Jefferson welcomed. Indeed, when he died on that 50th anniversary, he was buried on the grounds of his Monticello estate beneath a stone that made no mention of the political offices he had held. Rather, it read:

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 has little faith in presidents and their Cabinets. He was no great fan of the Congress.

What he believed in were the ideals of the America experiment. He was proud to have shaped the documents that defined those ideals. And he wanted his legacy to be that not of a holder of office, but of a champion of the revolutionary promise of liberation from the tyranny of warrior kings and their oppressions.

Today, there are those who attempt to remake Jefferson and the other founders as religious zealots, as essentially conservative men who happened to have a slight squabble with King George III, or, worst of all, as imperialists who would want the United States to dominate the affairs of other lands.

The founders were imperfect men, to be sure. Few were so radical, or so far ahead of their times, as Tom Paine, the wisest of their number. But they were, proudly and unquestionably, revolutionaries against the old order of inherited monarchy, state churches, empires and the authority of the few over the fate of the many.

We know this to be true of Jefferson because, as July 4, 1826, approached, he was invited to appear in Washington for a celebration of the Declaration of Independence. Age and infirmity prevented Jefferson from attending the event, but he sent a message – his last political statement – which read:

May (July 4) 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. That form (of government) 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 light 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 booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

On this Fourth of July, we Americans would do well to embrace Jefferson's last words and the American ideals that, though battered by the current tyranny, will outlast the King George of the moment.

John Nichols, The Nation's Washington correspondent, has covered progressive politics and activism in the United States and abroad for more than a decade. He is currently the editor of the editorial page of Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times. Nichols is the author of two books: It's the Media, Stupid and Jews for Buchanan.  

© 2006 The Nation

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