07/03/2024
Independence Day is always on the 4th of July, and is sometimes called simply “The Fourth of July.” Independence Day commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
Until that time, the 13 American Colonies – which are today the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia – had been a part of the British Empire. They were governed by a series of charters under the authority of the King of England (George III at that time). Great Britain and the Colonies were separated by the Atlantic Ocean and a six-week journey aboard wooden sailing ships.
Due to this distance and a more than 150-year history of partial self-governance, in the 1760’s the Colonists began to resent British rule. Many Colonists resented the Crown’s taxation of the Colonies and refusal to allow a voice in the governance of the region. Tensions grew and caused hostile and sometimes violent confrontations, such as the Boston Massacre (1770), Boston Tea Party (1773), Intolerable Acts (1774), Massachusetts Government Act (1774), establishment of the First Continental Congress (1774), and the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill (1775) and other pivotal events.
On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress secretly voted for the Colonies to declare their independence from Great Britain. Two days later, on July 4, the official wording for the Declaration of Independence was finalized, and the document was published. Delegates from all 13 Colonies began signing it a month later. Knowing this would be considered an act of treason against Great Britain, the signatories included the words at the end of the document: “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
The Declaration was primarily written by Thomas Jefferson, who would later become the third President of the United States. In an oft-cited historical irony, both Jefferson and John Adams, the second President of the United States, died on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the Declaration was published.
The Declaration of Independence stated that the Colonies considered themselves a sovereign collection of states (not yet a nation as we know it today) and that each state was fully independent and free from any allegiance to Great Britain.
Achieving that independence took seven more years.
The American Revolutionary War, or the American War for Independence, had already been underway for a year, and would not conclude until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. This treaty officially ended the war and recognized American independence. Want to know more about never changing American experience? Go to your local library and check out some books on our founding fathers and mothers (just a sample)
