by
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
As
the memory of fireworks fade the day after the 4th
of July, remember the date for declaring Independence from England
was actually July 2nd..
A final version of the Declaration took two more days. It was the
2nd
which John Adams believed would become,
“the most memorable epocha in the history of America.” He
was wrong.
July
4th
was the date Congress approved the finalized text of the Declaration
produced by the five man committee assigned to give final form and
substance to the ideas and causes which had compelled the Continental
Congress to action. But not all agreed. One of the committee
members, Robert Livingston, believed was a far too drastic step at
that time and refused to sign.
Thomas
Jefferson, who we remember as the Father of the Declaration, watched
his final draft undergo 86 changes, shortening the overall length by
more than a fourth. Many of these changes, including his inclusion
of anti-slavery language, were made over his strong objections.
Jefferson
had drawn on two primary sources for his own draft. The first a
preamble to the Virginia Constitution and George Mason’s draft of
Virginia’s Declaration of Rights. Jefferson's document is a
restatement of John Locke’s contract theory of government, stating
that governments derived “their
just Powers from the consent of the people.”
On
July 5th
around 200 copies of the Declaration were typeset and printed in John
Dunlap’s Philadelphia print shop. Copies were dispatched to
various committees, assemblies, military commanders and foreign
nations.
On
July 6th
the Pennsylvania Evening Post became the first newspaper to reprint
the whole Declaration.
The
first public reading of the Declaration occurred on July 8, 1776 in
Philadelphia.
Getting
the news out to the world, especially to King George and the rest of
the colonies, proceeded as rapidly as possible. News of the
Declaration reached London the second week of August via the Mercury
packet ship.
The
official ceremony of signing took place a month later, on August 2.
But the text of the Declaration had already been published and
republished in newspapers in a minimum of twenty-nine American
newspapers and one magazine.
Jefferson later said he
did not intend to say things that "had
never been said before."
But this is exactly what had transpired and because of these events
the world changed.
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