The formal
resolution declaring political independence from Great
Britain had been submitted to the Continental Congress on
June 7th by Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia. It read: “Resolved, 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, totally dissolved.”
On Monday, July 1, 1776, Lee’s resolution was debated by Congress. Throughout that day
and into the evening the bold supporters of American independence, led by the
eloquence of John Adams, a delegate from Massachusetts,
argued for severing the colonies’ ties with their mother country, England.
The opposition was led by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania,
and was supported primarily by delegates from New York
and South Carolina. Adams
carried the day, and on Tuesday, July 2nd the solemn vote was taken
in the affirmative. Acknowledging that
the delegates were in fact committing treason against the King of England,
Benjamin Franklin remarked: “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”[1]
On the day the
Declaration was actually signed by all of the delegates (August 2, 1776), they pondered
the gravity of their act. Thirty five years later, Benjamin Rush recounted this
fact to John Adams: “… scarcely a word was said of the solicitude and labors
and fears and sorrows and sleepless nights of the men who projected, proposed,
defended, and subscribed the Declaration of Independence. … Do you recollect
the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up,
one after another, to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe what
was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants? . . ."[2] What
had finally moved these men to pass this dangerous accord? In the same letter, Benjamin Rush also asked Adams. “Do you recollect your memorable speech upon the
day on which the vote was taken?”
According to Daniel Webster, on the day of the great debate before the
vote was taken in Congress, John Adams (who was not known as a great orator),
stood and eloquently declared:
Sink or swim,
live or die, survive or perish, I give my heart and hand to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we
aimed not at independence. But there's a
Divinity which shapes our ends. . . . Why then should we defer the Declaration?
. . . You and I, indeed, may rue it. We
may not live to the time when this Declaration may be made good. We may die; die colonists, die slaves; die it
may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold.
Be it so, be it so. If it be the
pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life,
the victim shall be ready. . . . But while I do live, let me have a country, or
at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.
But whatever may be our fate, be assured . . . that
this Declaration will stand. It may cost
treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand, and it will richly
compensate for both. Through the thick
and gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in
heaven. We shall make this a glorious,
an immortal day. When we are in our
graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving,
with festivity, with bonfires and illuminations. On its annual return they will shed tears,
copious, gushing tears, not of subjection or of slavery, not of agony and
distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the hour is
come. My judgment approves this measure,
and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I
hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I
begun, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the
blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, Independence,
now, and Independence
for ever!”[3]
The delegates passed the
resolution. Late that same night, Adams wrote to his wife Abigail with respect to the
events of that day: “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 Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells,
Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from
this Time forward forever more.”[4] On the morning of July 5th, copies of the
Declaration were dispatched by members of Congress to various assemblies,
conventions, and committees of safety as well as to the commanders of
Continental troops.
On
Monday, July 8, 1776, the first public reading of the newly printed Declaration
(one of two hundred John Dunlap broadsides) was celebrated and church bells
were rung throughout Philadelphia.
At that time, the Liberty Bell hung in
the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House.
It was commissioned from the London
firm of Lester & Pack in 1752, and was cast with an inscription from
Leviticus 25:10: “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto the habitants
thereof.” While there is no contemporary
account of the Liberty Bell ringing, most historians believe it was one of the
bells rung that day. On July 9th,
General George Washington, who was then stationed in Brooklyn Heights
with the Continental Army in preparation for the Battle of New York, had
several brigades drawn up at 6:00 p.m. in the evening to hear it read aloud.[5] Its enduring words still ring familiar and
true in our day.
The Declaration of
Independence stands as a timeless statement of human liberty, rights and
equality. The signers of the Declaration pledged to it
their “lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.” Jefferson said, “The Declaration of Independence... [is the] declaratory charter
of our rights, and of the rights of man.”[6] The Declaration is America's first and foremost
founding document. It sets forth our
understanding of human rights based upon the principles of natural law, and the
legitimate authority and purpose of government. It is, as Abraham Lincoln wrote, the "apple of gold in the frame of silver..." (Proverbs 25:11).
[1] Ben
Franklin Laughing, P. M. Zall, ed., (University of California Press,1980), p.
154.
[2] Letter
of Benjamin Rush to John Adams, July 20, 1811 (reflecting on the July 4th
celebration that year).
[3] The
Works of Daniel Webster, 4th ed. (Boston,
1851), 1:133–36.
[4] John Adams to Abigail Adams, The Book of Abigail and
John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family,
1762-1784, (Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 142.
[5] Malone,
et. al. The Story of the Declaration of Independence, p. 82.
[6] Jefferson to Samuel Adams Wells, 1819, ME 15:200.
A beautiful reflection of the deep and abiding meaning of the Declaration in the American soul. After the signing on August 2, Benjamin Rush wrote of the gravity the delegates' actions: "The pensive and awful silence, which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants." I just finished reading historian John Ferling's fine book called "Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free," in which he finishes the book by writing: "Jefferson succeeded in penning a timeless message, an affirmation of human liberty and dignity that has captured the hopes of succeeding generations." The Declaration is, as Ferling writes, "A statement that embodied the national credo and gave an enduring meaning to the American Revolution." Happy Fourth of July everyone!
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