AMERICA’S BIRTHDAY – Facts And Fallacies About The Fourth Of July

Merry Gordon / Education.com – July 4, 2009

“I am apt to believe,” wrote John Adams in 1776, regarding what would eventually become America’s Independence Day, “it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.” And he was right—for the most part. Adams got it all except the date: “the Second of July, 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.” So has America spent over two centuries celebrating the wrong date? Not exactly . . . but you’d better dust off that history book just the same and get ready to reconsider some popular Fourth of July misconceptions.

Myth #1:  July 4th was. . . .

So many myths abound about the actual date of Independence Day that it’s worth debunking exactly what July 4th doesn’t mark:

. . . the date the 13 colonies declared their independence from Great Britain.

Nope. The Continental Congress did that on July 2nd, actually. July 4th is just the date that the document we now know as the Declaration of Independence was adopted. And if you want to get technical, several such declarations of independence were made at the town, county or colony level prior to the history-making July 2nd declaration.

. . . the date Congress signed the Declaration of Independence.

Guess again! It took until August 2nd before most signers put their John Hancocks to parchment; some, however, didn’t sign until even after that, and the New Year had already rolled around by the time the signers’ names were made public.

. . . the date the new nation celebrated its independence.

History might have been different had Jefferson used Twitter to convey the glad tidings of his fledgling nation’s independence, but communication being what it was in the 18th century, it took a while for word to get out.  Philadelphia celebrated on July 8th and Washington read the declaration aloud to an animated crowd on July 9th in New York City, but poor England didn’t get the memo until August.

Myth #2: The Liberty Bell was rung in celebration on July 4th, 1776.

Not only was it not even called the “Liberty Bell” until the 1830’s, the famously cracked national icon was allegedly only one of several bells that rang out our newfound freedom . . . on July 8th, when the declaration was read in Philadelphia. So where did we get the story about the Liberty Bell’s momentous and solitary peal? Try author George Lippard, who invented the yarn for his 1847 account of the first fabulous 4th and thus created an American symbol.

Myth #3:  The colonies celebrated the first 4th of July with fireworks.

As amusing as it is to picture George Washington twirling a sparkler on the lawn of the White House (which he couldn’t have, by the way, as the White House hadn’t been built, nor was Washington, D.C., even the seat of the new government in 1776), it didn’t happen. In fact, when word got around in New York about the upstart colonies finally proclaiming their liberty, a statue of George III was destroyed to commemorate the event. Fireworks didn’t become customary until 1777, which is when big cities like Philadelphia, Boston and Charleston let loose with cherry wheels, rockets and shells. Not surprisingly, several decrees banning patriotic pyrotechnics due to fire danger followed hot on the heels of this first explosive display.

Myth #4: The new United States declared the 4th of July a federal holiday following the Declaration of Independence.

Technically, this one isn’t a myth. The United States did declare Independence Day a national holiday following the Declaration of Independence—nearly one hundred years later in 1870, when it was made an unpaid holiday for federal employees. Party-loving patriots would have to wait another sixty years later until 1931 before it became a paid federal holiday.

As with most holidays, fact and myth blend together to form tradition. “The United States is the only country with a known birthday,” politician James G. Blaine claimed in the 19th century. Maybe America the Beautiful is fudging her age by a day or two, but knowing that doesn’t decrease our fun in celebrating all 233 glorious years of her. Happy Independence Day!

Link to entire article below…

http://www.education.com/magazine/article/america-birthday-facts-fallacies/

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Declaration Of Independence

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds 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 to 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 shown 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.

The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: I hope you all take just a moment to actually contemplate the implications and the declarations in the opening statements of this incredible document… – Tonka