The Fourth of July is the most prominent all-American holiday — the birthday of our country — even though celebrating the Fourth didn’t become common until after 1815, and Independence Day wasn’t m…
The Fourth of July is the most prominent all-American holiday — the birthday of our country — even though celebrating the Fourth didn’t become common until after 1815, and Independence Day wasn’t made a federal holiday until 1870.That national outpouring of jubilation commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But if you have an image in your mind of a room full of patriots lined up to sign that document on the fourth, think again. That’s not how it happened.
It was in the Declaration of Independence that the term The United States of America first appeared. All Americans probably know the clarion words of the preamble: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
After some revisions, the Continental Congress on July 2 voted to accept the declaration of our national sovereignty. As reported in the Pennsylvania Evening Post, “This day the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies Free and Independent States.” On July 8, Hancock read the text to a large and boisterous crowd in Philadelphia. Their joyful response was the first celebration of American independence. On July 19, Congress ordered that the Declaration of Independence be engrossed on parchment. That completed, the engrosser returned it to John Hancock to be signed. Forty-nine delegates signed it on Aug. 2, almost a month after its adoption. Five signed it later, and two never signed.
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