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On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail of how “[t]he Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. … It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” It seems the founding father felt pretty strongly that July 2 would be recognized as the landmark date of this young nation’s founding. So why do Americans celebrate independence two days later?
Oops, incorrect!
It's a factLivingston was in New York when the signing happened, and never got the chance to add his signature to the document.
Let’s back up to June of 1776, when the Second Continental Congress selected a Committee of Five — Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson — to draft a statement of independence that severed the colonies from British rule. When the Jefferson-penned draft was presented to Congress, only nine of the 13 colonies favored independence. However, the delegates largely fell into line from that point, and on July 2, Congress formally approved the resolution that proclaimed the United States of America as an independent country. Following additional edits, the Declaration of Independence was completed, adopted, and sent for printing on July 4, and on August 2, the rank-and-file delegates began adding their signatures to an engrossed version of the document.
According to historian Pauline Maier, the idea of commemorating the anniversary of independence didn’t gain any traction in 1777 until it was too late to recognize the date of July 2. However, a pair of notable celebrations popped up on July 4 — fireworks in Boston, a military demonstration and more pyrotechnics in Philadelphia — setting forth an annual tradition that, as Adams otherwise correctly predicted, came to mark “the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.”
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The final delegate to sign the Declaration of Independence is believed to have been ______.
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The final delegate to sign the Declaration of Independence is believed to have been Thomas McKean.
Thomas Jefferson drew from similar sources to draft the Declaration of Independence.
Faced with a limited time frame to pen the first draft of the Declaration of Independence in June 1776, Jefferson culled ideas from the nearly 100 such documents that had recently been issued throughout the colonies. Among them was the Virginia Declaration of Rights by George Mason, which featured language strikingly similar to the Jeffersonian assertion that “all men are created equal” and possessed the right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Unhappy with the subsequent congressional edits to his writing, which included the excision of a passage that blamed King George III for the proliferation of slavery in the colonies, Jefferson nevertheless took pride in his hastily crafted yet resonant words at a tipping point of American history. As he later wrote in a letter: “This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject; in terms so plain and firm, as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.”
Tim Ott has written for sites including Biography.com, History.com, and MLB.com, and is known to delude himself into thinking he can craft a marketable screenplay.
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