Since it’s now July and we’re waiting on the porta-potty, I thought we might talk about what July might have been like in 1776. When the colonies convened a Continental Congress in Philadelphia during the summer of 1776, the conflict between the colonies and England was already a year old. During a June 7 session in the Pennsylvania State House (later named Independence Hall,) Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented a resolution with these famous words: “Resolved: 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.”
Lee’s words were the driving force for the drafting of a formal Declaration of Independence. On June 11, consideration of the resolution was postponed by a vote of seven colonies to five, with New York abstaining. But — a Committee of Five was appointed to draft a statement presenting to the world the colonies’ case for independence
Members of that committee included John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert Livingston of New York and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. The task of drafting the actual document fell on Jefferson.
Then, on this day in history (July 1, 1776) the Continental Congress reconvened. The following day, the Lee Resolution for independence was adopted by 12 of the 13 colonies — New York not voting.
Discussions of Jefferson’s “Declaration of Independence” resulted in some minor changes, but the spirit of the document was not changed. The process of revision continued all of July 3 and into the late afternoon of July 4, when the Declaration was officially adopted.
Of the 13 colonies, nine voted in favor of the Declaration, two — Pennsylvania and South Carolina — voted no, Delaware was undecided and New York abstained. John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence first… a famous story says that John Hancock signed his name “with a great flourish” so England’s King George could read it without his spectacles.
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