Saturday, July 4, is American Independence Day, on which we celebrate the 233rd anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Here are some things you may not know about Independence Day:
• Although war had been waging between the American Colonies and Great Britain since 1775, not all the Continental Congress delegates were immediately in favor of declaring independence from their mother country. In fact, delegations from many of the “middle colonies,” including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware resisted for months, hoping to make peace with England.
• Congress actually declared independence on July 2 just as the British Fleet was pulling into New York Harbor. But they didn’t formally ratify the Declaration itself until July 4.
• Britain’s support of the slave trade was originally one of the “grievances” against King George III listed as justification for rebellion. Thomas Jefferson, himself a slave owner, included in this original draft, “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither." The delegations from slave-holding states of George and South Carolina objected, and the offending passage was removed. Slavery remained legal in parts of the United States until President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.
• Although the Declaration was adopted on July 4, the famous printed version wasn’t actually signed until August 2nd…and even then it took several weeks for all the signers to affix their signatures.
• In all, 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence. The oldest signatory was Benjamin Franklin, age 70. The youngest was Edward Rutledge, age 26, a delegate from South Carolina.
• There was no “United States of America” at the time the Declaration was signed. The country as we know it today did not formally exist until the Constitution was ratified in 1788.
• Twenty-four original copies of the Declaration are known to exist. Two are in the Library of Congress. George Washington was given one as a souvenir. The others are either destroyed or are being held in private collections.
• John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both original signers as well as former Presidents, lived to see the United States of America celebrate its 50th Independence Day. Ironically, both died on the evening of July 4th, 1826, unaware of the other’s passing.
