Independence Day: Why is it July 4th?

The Second Continental Congress votes on Independence. Robert Edge Pine (unfinished at his 1788 death), completed by Edward Savage - Historical Society of Pennsylvania, via the US Library of Congress. — The Second Continental Congress votes on Independence. Robert Edge Pine (unfinished at his 1788 death), completed by Edward Savage – Historical Society of Pennsylvania, via the US Library of Congress.

We celebrate July 4th, 1776 as the day our nation was born. But what really happened that day? The surprising answer: not much. At most, some bureaucratic tweaking of the semantics of independence.

In contrast, the idea of independence was already firmly rooted in the American populace. This is evidenced by the 1760s slogan “No taxation without representation,” the Boston Tea Party of 1773, the famous March 1775 rallying cry “Give me liberty, or give me death!” at the Virginia Convention and the initial Revolutionary War fighting between British and Colonial troops at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.

Independence Personified, But When Exactly?

The mundane particulars are that on June 11, 1776, a committee of the Second Continental Congress was tasked with drafting a document that would formally sever ties with the British. Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of our nations founding document: The Declaration of Independence. He then sought the editing help of John Adams and Benjamin Franklin.

A copy of the original Dunlap Broadside. Twenty-five copies are known to exist. Image courtesy of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

July 2, 1776 was the day the Continental Congress approved the resolution to declare independence. On the evening of the July 3rd John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail Adams and declared:

“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.”

It’s unclear why the written Declaration of Independence is dated July 4th and not July 2nd. Most scholars don’t think the delegates of the Continental Congress signed the document on July 4th. Instead it’s the date the editorial changes were finalized (apparently at least 86 changes were made from Jeffersons original draft).

The "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence, one of the great milestones in American history, shows the evolution of the text from the initial "fair copy" draft by Thomas Jefferson to the final text adopted by Congress on the morning of July 4, 1776. Image modified from the Library of Congress. — A portion of the “original Rough draught” of the Declaration of Independence. Image modified from the Library of Congress.

The first printed versions of the Declaration were produced by John Dunlap, the official printer to the Continental Congress, in his Philadelphia shop the night of July 4, 1776. It was likely the distribution of what came to be known as The Dunlap Broadside to various committees and assemblies on July 5th, followed by the document’s widespread distribution in the The Pennsylvania Evening Post on July 6th, that clinched that date within the still being defined American psyche.

To add to the date drama the Declaration of Independence wasn’t actually signed until August 2, 1776.