Volume 16 , Issue 23

Independence Day (July 4th, 1776)

We think of the 4th of July 1776, as a day that reprints the Declaration of Independence, the birth of the United States of America as an independent nation. But that date was not the day that the Continental Congress decided to declare independence. The actual day was on 2 July 1776.

It also was not the day Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. That date was in June, 1776. It was not the date in which the Declaration was delivered to Great Britain either. That did not happen until November, 1776. It was not the date it was signed either. That date was 2 August 1776.

Actually, the Continental Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence on 4th of July 1776. This date became the date that was included on the Declaration of Independence, and the fancy handwritten copy was signed in August, 1776. July 4, 1776 was the date that was printed on the Dunlap Broadsides, the original printed copies of the Declaration that were circulated throughout the new nation.

We celebrate constitution Day on September 17th of each year, the anniversary of the date the Constitution was signed, not the anniversary of the date it was approved.

It was the first 15 or 20 years afterwards the Declaration was written, people didn't celebrate it much on any date. It was probably too new and too much else was going on in the young nation. It was in the 1790's, a time of bitter partisan convicts, the Declaration had become controversial. One party, the Democratic-Republicans, admired Jefferson and the Declaration. But the other party, the Federalists, thought the Declaration was too French and too anti-British, which went against their policies back then.

By 1817, John Adams complained in a letter that America seemed uninterested in its past. After the War of 1812, the Federalist party began to come apart and the new parties of the 1820s and 1830s all considered themselves inheritors of Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans. This was about the time copies of the Declaration began to circulate again, all with the date July 4, 1776, listed at the top. The deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4, 826, may even have helped to promote the idea of July 4 as an important date to be celebrated.

Afterwards, celebrations of the Fourth of July became more common as the years went on and in 1870 Congress first declared July 4th to be a national holiday as part of a bill to officially recognize several holidays, including Christmas. Further legislation about national holidays, including July 4, was passed in 1939 and 1941.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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