Why July 4th is not the original date of American Independence

July 2nd, NOT July 4th, is America's "historically accurate" day of independence day.

Massachusetts Historical Society

In a July 3, 1776 letter to his wife Abigail, John Adams wrote the following (page 3 of the letter, see right):

 

"The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. 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. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States."

 

Why, then, was Adams so assured that July 2nd would become "the most memorable Epocha" and America's "great anniversary Festival?" On July 2, the Continental Congress unanimously affirmed independence from Great Britain. The vote had been anticipated for quite some time once Virginia's House of Burgess instructed its delegates in May 1776, led by Richard Henry Lee, to propose independence. Once Lee formally moved a resolution on June 7, a committee headed up by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, began drafting a document setting out the case for independence. Though the document was unfinished, the July 2 vote was the moment a handful of America's Founding Fathers crossed the Rubicon. According to the July 2nd Philadelphia Evening Post, "This day the Continental Congress declared the United States Free and Independent States." The deed was done. The die cast. Independence was a monumental action that had only then recently gained favor with the majority of Americans, thanks, in large part, to the work of Thomas Paine (a British citizen) and his pamphlet "Common Sense."

 

John Trumbull's Signing of the Declaration (Library of Congress)

But what about July 4th and Thomas Jefferson's ultimate breakup letter to Great Britain, the Declaration of Independence? The final draft of the Declaration of Independence, the very document that has "July 4" literally stamped at the top of the document and is believed to have been singularly authored by Thomas Jefferson, was, in fact, finally approved by Congress on July 4. However, the document's first clean copy was not produced until August 2, the date in which the first members of Congress signed their names--i.e. John Hancock becoming the first as he wrote his name so large that King George III would not need his spectacles to read the signature. Several other members did not sign until 1777. The Declaration of Independence itself, was largely ignored following the American Revolution because its "work" was accomplished.

Declaration of Independence (Library of Congress)

So, why do we celebrate July the 4th, not July the 2nd, the day in which Congress actually declared American independence? Because the document has since become a living, rather than a dead document. Though largely ignored for decades after it was completed and signed, the Declaration of Independence--the work of many, not one single man (Thomas Jefferson)--gradually emerged as a living force in American society in the nineteenth century. It was Abraham Lincoln, who in essence, dusted off the Declaration of Independence and began to invoke the Founding Father's "ideas" and language when he reentered the political realm in the 1850s. Lincoln's reinterpretation of the Declaration of Independence is stated briefly and eloquently in his 1863 Gettysburg Address in which he declared that the founding fathers had committed the nation in 1776 (you know, "four score and seven years ago") to "the proposition that all men are created equal." Lincoln challenged those who remained loyal to the United States to complete the "unfinished work" of the Union dead, who "gave the last full measure of devotion" to bring to "this nation, under God, a new birth of freedom." According to Lincoln, the Declaration of Independence, the national charter of our liberties, was what the American people chose to make of it. Binding the founders' generation with his and subsequent generations of Americans, Lincoln reinterpreted the Declaration of Independence as a living document in a continuing act of national self-definition.

Congress may have completed its work on July 2, 1776 when it declared independence from Great Britain; however, Americans of all stripes will continue to look to the document itself as they reinterpret that most sacred of American ideas--"that all men are created equal." Therefore, so long as the Declaration of Independence guides this nation and those fighting for human equality, I suspect July 4th is a fitting day to celebrate. In the meantime, for historical accuracy, let's push for recognition of July 2, 1776 as the date we officially severed our bonds with the "Mother Country" and, why not call for a 3-day national holiday to celebrate this great country. Huzzah!

"His Excellency" to the line! (Part 2)

"Impeachment & Base Ball"

In February 1868, Andrew Johnson became the first president to be impeached. The impeachment and subsequent trial in the U.S. Senate, in which Johnson was spared conviction and removal from office by a single vote, was the culmination of a bitter partisan struggle for power that pitted the Executive against Congress.

The English-born American sportswriter Henry Chadwick using "Old Chalk" as his "Brooklyn Morning Programme" pen name, used base ball to describe Johnson's impeachment to readers, a tactic often used as early as the late 1860s to explain Washington D.C. politics and society. In the following account, impeachment was a ball game between Johnson of the National Club and Thaddeus Stevens (Radical Republican leader in the U.S. House) of the Constitution Club:

Andy Johnson, who had a fight with Stevens, the pitcher of the nine, not long since and the quarrel has not been made up yet. Johnson, it appears, wanted to play certain points in the game . . . but Stevens wouldn’t pitch as Johnson wanted him to and as the rest of the nine joined Thad. Stevens against Johnson, who is the occupant of the first base in the National nine, of course the game had to be postponed. Finally Johnson tried to organize a new nine for the club, and then the row began. Johnson began by placing Larry Thomas in as catch in place of Ed. Stanton. . . . The rest of the nine then took part with Stevens, and putting Stanton in the nine again, said they had found a man to take Johnson’s place, and boldly announced that they were ready to “Wade” in and “fight it out on that line if it took all the summer.” . . . They charged him [Johnson] with selling the games of the club, and of putting men out purposely on his own side in match games. How the mess will end I can’t tell.

Henry Chadwick, an English-born American sportswriter, covered baseball from the 1860s to his death in 1908.

 

 

 

"His Excellency" to the Line! (Part 1)

"1860 Election & Baseball":

 

Library of Congress

For those of us who live in the 19th century, we are familiar with the first image, which depicts the four presidential candidates running in the 1860 election. It's a great image that I often put up on my PPT to cover the entire election--candidates, political parties, & issues--for my students. I recently came across the 2nd image, which depicts the four candidates and the election as if it were a baseball game, thus revealing how baseball had become ingrained in popular culture as early as 1860. It may be difficult to read, so I have transcribed the cartoon.

 

 

 

Library of Congress

 

From left to right: John Bell (Constitutional Union Party) His belt reads "Union Club" and his bat (willow) states "Fusion" which accurately captures the state of the Const. Union Party, the Border States who sought compromise to avoid war. Bell says, "It appears to me very singular that we should strike "foul" and "put out" while old Abe made such a "good lick."

Stephen Douglas (Northern Democratic Party) His belt reads "Little Giant" his nickname and his willow states "Non-Intervention." Douglas and the Northern Democrats were contempt to adhere to the idea of "popular sovereignty" to allow settlers moving west into the federal territories to decide for themselves whether their states should be free or not. Douglas says to Bell, "That's because he had that confounded rail, to strike with. I thought our fusion would be a "short stop" to his career.

John Breckinridge (Southern Democratic Party) His belt reads "Disunion Club" and his willow appropriately reads "Slavery Extension." Breckinridge, holding his nose and walking off, captures the Southern Democratic position in 1860. They were headed out of the Union, convinced that a Republican victory would spell doom to their way of life. He says, "I guess I'd better leave for Kentucky, for I smell something strong around here, and begin to think, that we are completely "skunk'd."

Abraham Lincoln (Republican Party) His belt reads "Wide Awake" and his willow "Equal Rights and Free Territory." Lincoln says, "Gentlemen, if any of you should ever take a hand in another match at this game, remember that you must have "a good bat" and strike a "fair ball" to make a "clean score" & a "home run."

A Confederate takes a stand against Confederates hiding what they really fought for

He was known as the "Gray Ghost," a capable Confederate officer whose 43rd Virginia Cavalry's lightning-quick raids behind Union lines in northern Virginia and Maryland during the Civil War frustrated Union forces. John Singleton Mosby was one of the Confederacy's most celebrated generals; however, this Southern war hero lost his luster when he decided to cast his lot with the Republican Party and forge a friendship with President and former Union general Ulysses S. Grant in the years after Appomattox. As Mosby entered the twilight years of his life, he was frustrated that many of his former brothers in gray were twisting history for their own purposes, hiding the true reason for what they had fought to preserve and the cause of secession.




Confederate General John S. Mosby

As the years passed and many of the former Confederates chose to record their war experiences, most chose to frame the war that they fought to sever the South's relationship with the federal government as a tragic family quarrel, a war of "brother against brother" in which both the Union and Confederacy had fought gallantly for noble causes--states' rights on the part of the South, preservation of the Union for the North. They chose to hide the real cause of the war--slavery. This tragic, yet romantic Lost Cause version of the Civil War was reinforced in the writings of Confederate soldiers and officers alike, in reunion speeches, and dedication of monuments in public spaces throughout the South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.




John S. Mosby to Sam Chapman, June 4, 1907 (Page 1)

As a United States Assistant Attorney in 1907, Mosby wrote Sam Chapman a letter on Department of Justice stationary in which he complained that George Christian, one of many former Confederates who were rewriting the cause of the Civil War, minimizing the primary role of slavery, to make it appear as a noble war. Mosby gives a brief account of the Southern defense of slavery prior to the war, criticizing John C. Calhoun's bitter attack on Thomas Jefferson, who had prohibited slavery's expansion into the Old Northwest (Northwest Ordinance of 1787). The "Gray Ghost" confessed that he did not approve of slavery; rather, it was inherited in his family as an institution: "Now while I think as badly of slavery as Horace Greeley did, I am not ashamed that my family were slaveholders. It was our inheritance. Neither am I ashamed that my ancestors were pirates & cattle thieves. People must be judged by the standard of their own age. If it was right to own slaves as property, it was right to fight for it. The South went to war on account of slavery. South Carolina went to war--as she said in her Secession proclamation--because slavery would not be secure under Lincoln. South Carolina ought to know what was the cause for her seceding.... Ask Sam Yost to give Christian a skinning. I am not ashamed of having fought on the side of slavery--a soldier fights for his country--right or wrong--he is not responsible for the political merits of the course he fights in. The South was my country.”


*Note: In the above excerpt, I have made slight edits (punctuations & removed strikeouts) to make Mosby's letter easier to read. If you would like to view the original letter and transcript, please visit Gilder Lehrman.

This post was inspired by Adam H. Domby's article "Defenders of Confederate Monuments Keep Trying to Erase History" which referenced Mosby's letter.