On July 3, 1776
The day after the Second Continental Congress voted on a resolution to declare independence from the 🇬🇧British, John Adams sent a letter to his wife, Abigail, back home in Massachusetts 😐📨. In the letter, the founding father prophesied a grand celebration of America’s independence.🤗🎉🎉🎉
“It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations 🏀⚾️🏐🏈 from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more,” he wrote expectantly.
And while Adams aptly predicted much about our Independence Day celebration, ✨🎆what he did not anticipate was the day it would all take place.
“The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epocha, in the history of America🇺🇸,” Adams wrote. “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival.”🇺🇸🏈⚾️🏀🇺🇸🥰🎆🎆
So, Americans, we should have been planning a “shew,” playing a game, ringing a bell, 🔔 lighting a bonfire🔥 and setting out sky-high illuminations Tuesday🎇🎆🎇🎆✨✨🎆. But what about our dearest Fourth? Why, for centuries, have Americans celebrated independence two days later?
On July 2, 1776, Congress, after succumbing to a demand by South Carolinian delegates to cut an anti-slavery passage out of the drafted Declaration of Independence, unanimously voted on Virginian Richard Lee’s resolution that, “These united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States;😀😀 that they are absolved😙 from all allegiance to the British👑 Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.”😀😀 // 👑👑
Over the next two days, final edits were made to the Declaration of Independence, the document that would announce Congress’ decision to the world. On July 4, the declaration was finally sent to the printing press. Hence the masthead at the top of the declaration, first printed by John Dunlap, “In Congress, July 4, 1776. A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America.”
“There’s no question there wouldn’t be a July 4, a printing of the document, if the resolution had not been passed on July 2,” University of Chicago historian Steven Pincus said.😉😉😉
“But July 4 transformed what was a political decision by a relatively small group of delegates sitting in Philadelphia into a public document that was not only known throughout North America but throughout the world.”
The public release of the Declaration of Independence, 📄 marked an early step by the United States toward a more transparent, democratic government.
“The idea (behind) the Declaration of Independence was a government by the people, for the people,” 👪👪👪👪Pincus said.
“The printing of the Declaration of Independence was very much a public statement to the American people about what their kind of government was going to be.”
The next year, on July 2, 1777, not a single member of Congress remembered the anniversary of the independence resolution until a day too late.
Celebrations were scheduled for a day later, on July 4, 1776. “They were really setting a haphazard, unintentional precedent,” Northwestern University historian Caitlin Fitz said.🎆🇺🇸✨🇺🇸🎇🇺🇸
While various preachers and individual towns hosted Fourth of July celebrations throughout the remainder of the 18th century, the holiday became more widespread after the U.S. stood its ground against the British during the War of 1812.🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸>>>>🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
“The declaration’s practical purposes were served,” Fitz said. “The United States’ independence had been declared and secured by 1815.”
This ushered in a new era for the declaration as anti-slavery activists began using the rhetoric of its second sentence, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” to advocate for true equality.
In a July 5, 1852, address commemorating the 76th anniversary of the declaration’s public release, Frederick Douglass reflected on the July 2 resolution, “Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and today you reap the fruits of their success.” He asked, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”
“Gradually,” Fitz said, the newer reading of the declaration as a document for equality “became the primary meaning that we remember today.”
The virtues of the declaration, the debated definitions and practices of freedom, prosperity and fair government, shared internationally on July 4, have taken on new life thanks to the independence declared July 2.
This was copied from an article: USA
The day after the Second Continental Congress voted on a resolution to declare independence from the 🇬🇧British, John Adams sent a letter to his wife, Abigail, back home in Massachusetts 😐📨. In the letter, the founding father prophesied a grand celebration of America’s independence.🤗🎉🎉🎉
“It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations 🏀⚾️🏐🏈 from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more,” he wrote expectantly.
And while Adams aptly predicted much about our Independence Day celebration, ✨🎆what he did not anticipate was the day it would all take place.
“The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epocha, in the history of America🇺🇸,” Adams wrote. “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival.”🇺🇸🏈⚾️🏀🇺🇸🥰🎆🎆
So, Americans, we should have been planning a “shew,” playing a game, ringing a bell, 🔔 lighting a bonfire🔥 and setting out sky-high illuminations Tuesday🎇🎆🎇🎆✨✨🎆. But what about our dearest Fourth? Why, for centuries, have Americans celebrated independence two days later?
On July 2, 1776, Congress, after succumbing to a demand by South Carolinian delegates to cut an anti-slavery passage out of the drafted Declaration of Independence, unanimously voted on Virginian Richard Lee’s resolution that, “These united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States;😀😀 that they are absolved😙 from all allegiance to the British👑 Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.”😀😀 // 👑👑
Over the next two days, final edits were made to the Declaration of Independence, the document that would announce Congress’ decision to the world. On July 4, the declaration was finally sent to the printing press. Hence the masthead at the top of the declaration, first printed by John Dunlap, “In Congress, July 4, 1776. A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America.”
“There’s no question there wouldn’t be a July 4, a printing of the document, if the resolution had not been passed on July 2,” University of Chicago historian Steven Pincus said.😉😉😉
“But July 4 transformed what was a political decision by a relatively small group of delegates sitting in Philadelphia into a public document that was not only known throughout North America but throughout the world.”
The public release of the Declaration of Independence, 📄 marked an early step by the United States toward a more transparent, democratic government.
“The idea (behind) the Declaration of Independence was a government by the people, for the people,” 👪👪👪👪Pincus said.
“The printing of the Declaration of Independence was very much a public statement to the American people about what their kind of government was going to be.”
The next year, on July 2, 1777, not a single member of Congress remembered the anniversary of the independence resolution until a day too late.
Celebrations were scheduled for a day later, on July 4, 1776. “They were really setting a haphazard, unintentional precedent,” Northwestern University historian Caitlin Fitz said.🎆🇺🇸✨🇺🇸🎇🇺🇸
While various preachers and individual towns hosted Fourth of July celebrations throughout the remainder of the 18th century, the holiday became more widespread after the U.S. stood its ground against the British during the War of 1812.🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸>>>>🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
“The declaration’s practical purposes were served,” Fitz said. “The United States’ independence had been declared and secured by 1815.”
This ushered in a new era for the declaration as anti-slavery activists began using the rhetoric of its second sentence, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” to advocate for true equality.
In a July 5, 1852, address commemorating the 76th anniversary of the declaration’s public release, Frederick Douglass reflected on the July 2 resolution, “Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and today you reap the fruits of their success.” He asked, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”
“Gradually,” Fitz said, the newer reading of the declaration as a document for equality “became the primary meaning that we remember today.”
The virtues of the declaration, the debated definitions and practices of freedom, prosperity and fair government, shared internationally on July 4, have taken on new life thanks to the independence declared July 2.
This was copied from an article: USA
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