I’ve always thought about the days leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I imagined John Hancock, Sam Adams, Tommy Jefferson, and Benji Franklin drinking at a pub the night before thinking two things: “we’re about to make history tomorrow” and “WTF are we doing?”
But of course, history is never how you imagined it. They may have been too distracted with details the night before to really take a step back and think about what they were doing. See, July 3rd was spent arguing all day about the verbiage of the Declaration itself. Just as Congress today will spend hours upon hours debating something, the 2nd Continetal Congress did the same thing. In the end, they actually deleted almost 25% of the Declaration; I’d guess they did that to fit everything on one page single spaced with one inch margins. But it was actually to remove some key parts, such as a condemnation of slavery. My how history could have been different if that was in there!
Being a history buff, and this being the weekend of July 4th, I thought it would be fun to look at what happened just before and after July 4th. Here are some interesting factoids I came across:
It was on July 2nd that Congress voted for independence and is the official day we became independent.
The whole process involved a lot of debate, disagreement, and voting. And that was just to agree on whether or not they’d declare independence and form their own country. The final vote was 3-2, so it barely even happened.
John Adams wrote a letter to his wife saying he knew this day would be an important day in the history of this country. Though he was off by two days because he thought it would be July 2nd.
So what is it that happened on July 4th? After a couple of days debating over what should be in the Declaration, they finally decided on a final draft. This is why the Declaration is dated July 4, and that date explains why we celebrate independence then. It’s not the day we decided to be independent, just the day we made it official.
The signing of the Declaration is very much a debated topic. Benjamin Franklin and others are known to say that the Declaration was signed on July 4th. But there are official documents of the day that said it wasn’t signed until later. Furthermore, some of the people that signed it were not present on July 4th, and still others weren’t even members of the Congress then. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say some people signed it on the 4th and some people signed it later.
And what about this John Hancock guy, what’s he famous for? He was very much a patriot, but other than having the biggest signature on the Declaration we don’t know him very well. Well, he was smart enough to get to be the president of the Congress for that session, which probably explains why his signature shows up first and is biggest. I’ll let you search more about him if you want.
Interestly, 8 people never signed the Declaration. Either it was because they opposed it or weren’t member of Congress when the opportunity presented itself. I’ll bet they regret that decision now.
You know that famous picture of everyone signing the Declaration? That’s not what it’s a picture of. It’s just a picture of the committee presenting their work to the full Congress.
Some of these things will be lost in history, but that’s OK. The spirit lives on today, and it’s why we celebrate the 4th of July. Even though we might should celebrate the 2nd.
 By The Weakonomist |
The Weakonomist is the founder of Weakonomics. Clicking the picture of the puppy will tell you more about him. If you like what you're reading consider subscribing to the blog, following him on Twitter, and checking out the related posts below. Please consider a donation if you really enjoy Weakonomics. Also keep in mind that nothing I say can be construed as financial advice. |
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