Military Veterans and Patriots

Tag: Declaration of Independence

  • Independence Day

    Independence Day

    On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, announcing the colonies’ separation from Great Britain. The Constitution provides the legal and governmental framework for the United States. However, the Declaration, with its eloquent assertion “all Men are created equal,” is equally beloved by the American people.

    July 4th fireworks, Washington, D.C. Carol M Highsmith, photographer, July 4, 2008. Highsmith (Carol M.) Archive. Prints & Photographs Division

    Philadelphians marked the first anniversary of American independence with a spontaneous celebration, which is described in a letter by John Adams to his daughter, Abigail. However, observing Independence Day only became commonplace after the War of 1812. Soon, events such as groundbreaking ceremonies for the Erie Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad were scheduled to coincide with July 4th festivities.

    Unanimous Declaration of Independence, Passed in the United States Congress… 1823. Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera. Rare Book & Special Collections Division

    In 1859, the Banneker Institute of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, urged African Americans to celebrate Independence Day while bearing witness to the inconsistencies between the ideals espoused in the Declaration of Independence and the practice of slavery. Chairman of the meeting, Mr. Jacob C. White Jr., also promised his audience a brighter future:

    We have learned by experience and by the comparison of ourselves with people similarly situated, to hope that, at some day not very far in futurity, our grievances will be redressed, that our long lost rights will be restored to us, and that, in the full stature of men, we will stand up, and with our once cruel opponents and oppressors rejoice in the Declaration of our common country, and hail with them the approach of the glorious natal day of the Great Republic.

    Mr. Jacob C. White Jr., Introductory Remarks. In The Celebration of the Eighty-Third Anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence by the Banneker Institute…July 4, 1859. Philadelphia: W.S. Young, 1859. p.8 African American Perspectives: Materials Selected from the Rare Book Collection. Rare Book & Special Collections Division

    The Flag That Has Waved One Hundred Years–a Scene on the Morning of the Fourth Day of July, 1876…. Dominque C. Fabronius, artist. c1876. Popular Graphic Arts. Prints & Photographs Division

    By the 1870s, the Fourth of July was the most important secular holiday on the calendar. Congress passed a law making Independence Day a federal holiday on June 28, 1870. Even far-flung communities on the western frontier managed to congregate on Independence Day.

    In an American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1940 interview, Miss Nettie Spencer remembered the Fourth as the “big event of the year. Everyone in the countryside got together on that day for the only time in the year.” She continued:

    There would be floats in the morning and the one that got the [girls?] eye was the Goddess of Liberty. She was supposed to be the most wholesome and prettiest girl in the countryside — if she wasn’t she had friends who thought she was. But the rest of us weren’t always in agreement on that…Following the float would be the Oregon Agricultural College cadets, and some kind of a band. Sometimes there would be political effigies.

    Just before lunch – and we’d always hold lunch up for an hour – some Senator or lawyer would speak. These speeches always had one pattern. First the speaker would challenge England to a fight and berate the King and say that he was a skunk. This was known as twisting the lion’s tail. Then the next theme was that any one could find freedom and liberty on our shores. The speaker would invite those who were heavy laden in other lands to come to us and find peace. The speeches were pretty fiery and by that time the men who drank got into fights and called each other Englishmen. In the afternoon we had what we called the ‘plug uglies’ — funny floats and clowns who took off on the political subjects of the day…The Fourth was the day of the year that really counted then. Christmas wasn’t much; a Church tree or something, but no one twisted the lion’s tail.

    “Rural Life in the 1870s”. Miss Nettie Spencer, interviewee; Walker Winslow, interviewer; Portland, Oregon, December 15, 1938. American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1940. Manuscript Division

    July 4th Parade. [Nome, Alaska], July 4, 1915. Carpenter Collection. Prints & Photographs Division.
    Boy on Float in Fourth of July Parade. Vale, Oregon. Russell Lee, photographer, July 1941. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black and White Negatives. Prints & Photographs Division
    French Ward for Bone Cases in American Red Cross Hospital at Evreux…picture shows decorations in honor of the 4th of July. August 1918. American National Red Cross Photograph Collection. Prints & Photographs Division

    Down South the celebration was much the same. Ninety-six-year-old Dr. Samuel B. Lathan recalled the Independence Day celebrations of his South Carolina childhood:

    The Fourth of July was observed at Caldwell Cross Roads. The military companies of infantry would assembly here from the surrounding counties making up a brigade. A drill and inspection were had, and a dress parade followed. There was an old cannon mounted on the field. The honor of firing it was assigned to Hugh Reed, who had been in the artillery of Napoleon’s army at Waterloo and afterward emigrated to South Carolina. A great barbecue and picnic dinner would be served; candidates for military, state, and national offices would speak; hard liquor would flow; and each section would present its ‘bully of the woods’ in a contest for champion in a fist and skull fight. Butting, biting, eye gouging, kicking, and blows below the belt were barred. It was primitive prize fighting.

    “Dr. Samuel B. Lathan”. W. W. Dixon, interviewer; Winnboro, South Carolina, June 28, 1938. American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1940. Manuscript Division

    4th of July Celebration, St. Helena Island, S.C.. Marion Post Wolcott, photographer, July 1939. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs. Prints & Photographs Division
    Fourth of July, or American Independence Day, Fireworks Light Up the Sky Over Denver, Colorado’s Downtown Civic Center. Carol M. Highsmith, photographer, July 3, 2016. Highsmith (Carol M.) Archive. Prints & Photographs Division

    Use the online resources of the Library of Congress to learn more about Independence Day and the Declaration of Independence.

    Learn More

    Source: https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/july-04/

  • Happy Independence Day!

    Happy Independence Day!

    Starting in May of 1775 the 56 members of the 2nd Continental Congress discussed and debated the idea of declaring independence from Great Britain. On July 2nd, in a sweltering Independence Hall on Chestnut street in Philadelphia, the Lee Resolution, also known as the Resolution for Independence, was approved and with it the text of the Declaration of Independence. The initial draft of the document had been written by Thomas Jefferson and some edits had been made by the Continental Congress.

    John Adams rote to his wife Abigail, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America”. Although Independence Day is actually celebrated on July 4, the date that the wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved is the 2nd. The first of the 56 signatures were affixed and the Document published on the 4th.

    Speaking of the 56 signatories, the last sentence of the declaration, And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor, wasn’t a throw-away line. They meant it. Signing the declaration made them traitors in the eyes of the British, subject to imprisonment, torture and death if caught. Every man who signed that fateful document came out of the war poorer than they started, some had their homes and goods burned, stolen and expropriated by the British. Yet, none of them wavered.

    Time for a bit of trivia, do you know where the phrase to put your John Hancock on a document came from? I’m betting you do.

    But, do you know why his signature is front and center and so large? Or do you know why the signatures are in the order they are? There are reasons for both. For Hancock, he was the President of the 2nd Continental Congress, and as such he signed first. The order of the signatures went from southernmost colony to northernmost.

    In Congress, July 4, 1776

    The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 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.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

    He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

    He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

    He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

    He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

    He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

    He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

    He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

    He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

    He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

    He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

    He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

    He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

    For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

    For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

    For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

    For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

    For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

    For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

    For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

    For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

    For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

    He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

    He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

    He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

    He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

    He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

    In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

    Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

    We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, 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; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

    Georgia

    Button Gwinnett

    Lyman Hall

    George Walton

    North Carolina

    William Hooper

    Joseph Hewes

    John Penn

    South Carolina

    Edward Rutledge

    Thomas Heyward, Jr.

    Thomas Lynch, Jr.

    Arthur Middleton

    Massachusetts

    John Hancock

    Maryland

    Samuel Chase

    William Paca

    Thomas Stone

    Charles Carroll of Carrollton

    Virginia

    George Wythe

    Richard Henry Lee

    Thomas Jefferson

    Benjamin Harrison

    Thomas Nelson, Jr.

    Francis Lightfoot Lee

    Carter Braxton

    Pennsylvania

    Robert Morris

    Benjamin Rush

    Benjamin Franklin

    John Morton

    George Clymer

    James Smith

    George Taylor

    James Wilson

    George Ross

    Delaware

    Caesar Rodney

    George Read

    Thomas McKean

    New York

    William Floyd

    Philip Livingston

    Francis Lewis

    Lewis Morris

    New Jersey

    Richard Stockton

    John Witherspoon

    Francis Hopkinson

    John Hart

    Abraham Clark

    New Hampshire

    Josiah Bartlett

    William Whipple

    Massachusetts

    Samuel Adams

    John Adams

    Robert Treat Paine

    Elbridge Gerry

    Rhode Island

    Stephen Hopkins

    William Ellery

    Connecticut

    Roger Sherman

    Samuel Huntington

    William Williams

    Oliver Wolcott

    New Hampshire

    Matthew Thornton

  • The Declaration of Independence

    The Declaration of Independence

    Today, 4 July, is the day we celebrate our Independence from Britain. The Declaration of Independence was drafted in Philidelphia during late June by Thomas Jefferson. It was presented to the Continental Congress, who edited the document slightly, and formally approved on the 4th of July 1776.

    In Congress, July 4, 1776

    The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

    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.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

    Those words, from Jefferson’s preamble, have influenced many and formed the basis for several similar documents. They still ring true today, 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. Think on them for a few minutes today. But not for too long, today is a day to celebrate the founding of the greatest nation to ever grace the face of this planet.