July 2nd should have been Independence Day. July 2nd (today) is actually the anniversary of the vote by the Continental Congress to declare independence. The actual Declaration of Independence was dated July 4th and written over the course of the summer. Oh but for a minor clerical error, we would be celebrating today instead of Friday.
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Happy Independence!
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The actual wording of the document was in fact approved by Congress on July 4th.
it is like, which of these is more important, the fact that at one time while grading papers, Professor Tolkien wrote, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” or the fact that the book was published on September 21, 1937. I would rather celibrate the inspiration and creation of the idea! But maybe that is just me.
… and perhaps this is a minor quibble, but I’ve always held the notion that the vote on July 2 was the vote to become independent. The ratification of the Declaration on July 4 was the actual doing of it, complete with rationales and apologia.
Sort of like the POTUS getting elected on Nov 4 and taking office on Jan 20… yeah, January 20th couldn’t happen without Nov 4, but up until January 19 the president-elect has no power. There’s a permission and then an action.
All of this is to point out that, however messy and inconsistent the process might be, it’s not one or the other of the two dates simply due to a ‘clerical error’.
That the actual signing ceremony didn’t happen until August 2nd, and then not everyone was present to sign it then, so the signing happened over the course of the Fall of 1776 into supposedly the last person signing in January of 1777. So August 2nd could also be a date worth remembering.
…. Let’s start the party on the second of July and carry it on into the 2 of August. Who’s with me?
The ayes have it…
I would note September 21st as the official anniversary of publication in that example.
Richard Henry Lee’s resolution on independence was actually proposed 5/15/76 and voted 7/2. The Declaration was approved 7/4, engrossed 7/19, and signed 8/2. I suspect it was the scriptural status the document attained even in the lifetimes of the signers that led to July 4th being the celebrated date. Besides, Adams and Jefferson both dying on the 50th anniversary makes it that much better.
The true independence was not acknowledged informally by Britain until Gen. Cornwallis surrendered to Gen. Washington at Yorktown-surely that merits a holiday or some recognition (it is my birthday after all 😉 )
…not really officially until the Treaty of Paris a couple years later. Of course it took the War of 1812 to finally show them we really did mean it!