Tuesday is July 4th, the day that Americans celebrate our nation’s birthday through pool parties, barbecues and spectacular fireworks shows. However, the true significance of the holiday and how it came to be enshrined in our culture often gets lost in the fanfare. To help remedy this, here are five things you need to know about the Fourth of July.
1. July 4, 1776 was the day that the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. A committee of of five people — Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston and Benjamin Franklin — was established on June 11 with the purpose of crafting a document explaining the colonies’ reasons for severing ties with Britain. The committee selected Jefferson to be the document’s chief author.
The Continental Congress officially adopted a resolution for independence on July 2 and then adopted Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence after a few revisions by the congress. Nine colonies agreed to adopt it, while South Carolina and Pennsylvania voted no and Delaware and New York abstained.
The Declaration of Independence was signed on August 2.
2. The first celebration of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence was on July 8, 1776; the next year, July 4 became the official day of celebration. July 8, 1776 was when the Declaration was publicly read for the first time in Philadelphia’s Independence Square as the Liberty Bell rang out. The first yearly celebration of the document’s adoption on July 4 took place on July 4, 1777 in Philadelphia. In 1778, George Washington allowed his troops to have twice as much rum as was normally allowed to celebrate the Fourth of July. Massachusetts became the first state to designate July 4 as a holiday in 1781, however, the custom didn’t truly spread until the conclusion of the War of 1812.
3. The Fourth of July became a national holiday in 1870. In 1938 it became a paid day off for federal employees.
4. It is believed that fireworks first became a Fourth of July custom as a “morale booster” for the colonists during the Revolutionary War. Via Time:
Because the first July 4 fireworks display happened in the middle of the Revolutionary War, some historians believe they were supposed to be a “morale booster.” The celebrations at the time would have also included the firing of cannons and guns, adding to the explosive nature of the festivities. With the war’s end and increasing concern for public safety, those firearms were eventually phased out of the celebrations and replaced almost entirely by the fireworks, which were often given the official stamp of approval in the hope of drawing citizens to public celebrations instead of more dangerous private firework shows.
5. The values espoused in the Declaration of Independence are eternal truths that are meant to stand the test of time. Take in the beauty of these words:
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 shewn, 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.
Though the document was written to address King George III’s abuses, it enshrines the universal truth that mankind is born with the unalienable rights of life, liberty and property granted to them by God — not government — and the government’s role is to protect those rights. A government that encroaches upon them is tyrannical.
These are not principles that change with the times; they are eternal — and without them, freedom is lost. Will America continue to uphold these principles going forward, or will the country eventually succumb to the tyranny of progressivism?