There are many popular misconceptions concerning the incidents
attending the birth of American Liberty and the Proclamation of
Independence. Erroneous traditions gained credence in the early days,
and romanticists and poets have perpetuated them through successive
generations. It is important, therefore, to note the facts as given by
historical scholars who have made a careful study of original records,
and whose evidence may, in consequence, be relied upon.
The Fourth of July is observed as the Birthday of Independence.
This is the date the Document bears. The events leading up to
the adoption of the Declaration are recounted in Monograph
Five in this number of The Mentor. Subsequent events were
as follows: On July fifth Congress authorized the official
promulgation of Independence, ordering that broadsides,
signed by John Hancock and Charles Thomson, the President and
Secretary of Congress, be sent to the several assemblies, the
army, and other colonial bodies, and “that it be proclaimed
in each of the United States.” On July sixth it was ordered
“that the Sheriff read or cause to be read and proclaimed
at the State House, Philadelphia, on Monday, the eighth of
July, instant at 12 o’clock noon, the Declaration of the
Representatives of the United States of America.” July 8,
1776, broke “a warm, sunshiny morning.” Officers, constables,
members of committees and the people at large assembled in the
State House Yard, and there amidst the waving of flags and the
fluttering of banners, the Declaration was read by John Nixon
“in a voice clear and distinct,” and greeted with loud cheers.
This was the first time the Declaration was read in public. The
stories of the bright-eyed boy, and immense crowds storming
the doors of Congress on July _fourth_, and of the Declaration
being read on that day from the steps are pronounced “pure
inventions” by historical authorities. We have the record,
also, that on the eighth of July, “near the hour of twelve,”
the bell was first rung for the Proclamation of the Declaration.
John Adams designated the second of July, on which day
the Resolution of Independence was confirmed by the
Representatives, as the anniversary that should, in future
years, be celebrated by bells, fireworks and cannon. On
July fourth the Declaration was adopted, and the document
was authenticated by the signatures of the President and
Secretary and all the members present, except Mr. Dickinson of
Pennsylvania. Several days later the Declaration was engrossed
on parchment and, on the second of August, the first signatures
were affixed; the other signatures followed later. This is
the Declaration that has been preserved as the original, the
first signed paper having probably been destroyed. “If,” as
one writer puts it, “the natal day of American Independence
is to be derived from the ceremony of the signing, and the
_real_ date of what has been preserved as the original of
the Declaration, then it would be the second of August. If
derived from the substantial, legal _act_ of separation from
the British Crown, it would be the second of July. But common
consent has determined the date of the great anniversary
from the apparently subordinate event of the passage of the
Declaration, and thus we celebrate the Fourth of July as the
birthday of the nation.”