Happy TRUE Independence Day!
That’s right, today is the day. Two hundred and thirty-two years ago on July 2, 1776, in a sweltering meeting room in Philadelphia’s town hall, the First Continental Congress took a huge risk and ratified (voted on and passed) the Declaration of Independence. It took a couple of days for Thomas Jefferson to draft a clean copy, which he dated July 4th, and the Congress then accepted that draft.
John Adams wrote his wife Abigail on July 3rd, the day after independence was declared, and predicted that from then on “the Second of July, 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.”
Close, Johnny, but no cigar.
The big celebration in Philadelphia that year marked the event on July 8th.
The Declaration’s signing date? Most delegates signed the document a month later, on August 2.
King George III first heard about it on August 30th.
Okay, okay. Who really cares about the DATE? It’s the RISK I want to consider here for a moment.
Those guys decided, rather than submit to the Crown and a Parliament that no longer represented their interests, to take up the sword against the most powerful ARMY and mighty NAVY the world had ever seen. With the odds of success stacked ridiculously against them, they went ahead and made their move ANYWAY.
Why?
Fifty years later, a week before his death, Jefferson himself distilled the decision down to a stark but simple choice between “submission and the sword.” Prevented by failing health from attending the 50th Anniversary celebrations in Washington City, Jefferson wrote in that final letter of his life,
“I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country.”
Further, he added, hopefully, that the Declaration and its subsequent success spread the thought that “the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”
One week later, on July 4th, 1826, Thomas Jefferson AND John Adams, the two men most responsible for that Declaration, died within hours of each other. No doubt about THAT date.
As all of us assemble with our families and our friends in a couple of days, let’s be REMINDED of the risks they took for “posterity”–that means US.
And with an undiminished devotion to the ideals of freedom and liberty, let’s celebrate their courage. May we prove worthy of it.
Blessings to all of you. “Happy 4th!!”
BUILT TO LEAD 