Dan's Papers - July 6, 2007

Not many people are aware of this, but The Declaration of Independence didn't exactly all happen on July 4. A lot happened beforehand and some of it happened afterwards.

Here's a chronology of events that occurred during June and July of 1776.

On June 8, five men were appointed by the Continental Congress to write a Declaration of Independence as soon as possible. They decided to spend every day together, hashing it out until they came up with something they thought would do the job.

These five were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston. Over the next fifteen days, they wrote it up and down and back and forth, trying different versions and different ideas until they came up with a final draft on the morning of Friday, June 28.

The Congress, referring to it as the "fair copy," had it read aloud to them in Philadelphia that afternoon and then -- between Monday, July 1 and Wednesday, July 3 -- debated various provisions of it, finally agreeing to it late in the day on July 3rd. Meeting again on the morning of Thursday, July 4th, they all signed it, the first of whom, as you know, was John Hancock, from Massachusetts who was at that time serving a term as President of the Continental Congress at the time.

Later that afternoon, the signed document with its ink dried was turned over to printer John Dunlop, who set it in type and printed out what are believed to have been about 200 copies. Actually we are not quite sure of this, but what we do know is that 24 copies remain today. And we do know that one of these copies was dispatched to General George Washington for him to keep as his own personal copy while he fought the war, which was already underway.

Beginning on Friday morning, July 5, thirteen copies of the Declaration were taken by horseback to the various State Legislatures, one to each legislature, an event that was expected to take as much as ten days, for Maine and South Carolina, anyway. In any case, by that afternoon, the first of these copies were brought to the legislatures of Delaware and New Jersey, where they were read aloud and approved by voice vote.

On the morning of Saturday, July 6, the text of the Declaration of Independence was printed in its entirety in the Philadelphia Evening Post. A few days later, as the war began to go badly for the rebels, the members of the Continental Congress began to discuss the wisdom of moving their meetings to the State House in Baltimore, Maryland.

They were still discussing this on Monday morning of July 8, when, for the first time, a copy of the Declaration was read aloud in a public square in Philadelphia.

This year, July 4th falls on a Wednesday. Here in the Hamptons, Montauk and the North Fork, where all of us eagerly want to celebrate July 4 (the holiday), there has been a debate about whether July 4 (the holiday) should be celebrated on Saturday, June 30 or Saturday, July 7.

The reason for this has nothing to do with all the different events that took place involving the writing of the Declaration of Independence, but because all the local people, summer people, tourists and vacationers congregate in these parts on the weekends and so, to get the biggest bang for the buck -- in every sense of the word -- we have to settle on either June 30 or July 7 as the date for champagne, flag waving and fireworks. On Fridays, people are still coming out. By Sunday, they are busy going back.

Well, if the Thirteen colonies could agree that the date for all this would be July 4 in 1776, those here on the East End couldn't agree on anything. Indeed, there are two places, Montauk and Greenport, which will set off the fireworks displays for July 4th (the holiday) on Wednesday, July 4. As for the rest, there have been some towns that have opted for June 30, which has already passed, and some towns that have opted for Saturday, July 7. Beginning at the bottom of page 29, are some of the events going on for July 7, which was the Sunday in 1776 that everybody went to sleep early so they could be well rested to go into Independence Square early the next morning to hear the first official public reading of the document.

They didn't have TV then, or the Internet, or even radio, so this surely was a very big deal -- in Philadelphia, anyway -- on that day.

As for Sunday, June 30, 1776, that was the day that all of the members of the Continental Congress went to bed early because, beginning the next morning, they were to begin the debate about modifications and revisions of the document.

For example, there was the part about "imposing taxes on us without our consent," which some Congressmen claimed should be "imposing taxes on us without our consent except in certain cases," since there were certain cases where certain colonials did feel there ought to be taxes. But that proposed amendment got shot down. Too wishy-washy.

Well, anyway, they hammered it all out. And here is how it turned out.

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 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.

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 of 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 harass 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 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 complete 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 endeavored 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 attention to our British 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.