Toil, Blood, and Treasure: Revisiting the Meaning of Independence Day
History is complicated; the celebration of great historical moments is much simpler. This year when we picnic, attend parades, and watch fireworks to mark the Fourth of July, we can also take a moment to consider the context of nearly a quarter millennium ago.
Actually, July 2, 1776 is when the delegates attending the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia made the decision that the Colonies should break free from England’s control. On that day the delegates approved the Lee Resolution, the proposal of Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, to chart a course for independence. Two days later the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, based on the decision to approve the Lee Resolution.
John Adams, one of the five members who served on the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence, thought the Second of July would “be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.” As he wrote in a letter to his wife, Abigail, shortly after the Continental Congress adopted the Lee Resolution: the Second of July “ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
Feeling he might seem ridiculous, John Adams soberly added to his letter: “You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this [Lee] Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”
Though off by two days, Adams’ prediction did come true with respect to fireworks illuminating across the continent. The Declaration of Independence, which his friend—and later frenemy and still later restored friend—Thomas Jefferson drafted for the committee’s editing, became emblematic of Independence Day. Its approval on the Fourth of July, though not signed by all the delegates until Aug. 2, became regarded as the birth of the United States of America.
The Declaration is an interesting document. Most people think it was written for the king when it was written for the actual purpose of persuading the colonists to cast their lot with the revolution. The grievances, a total of 27, are listed from minor (such as inconvenient meeting places for colonial governing) to major (such as foreign mercenaries hired by the king to attack the colonists).
You can imagine the colonists hearing the document being read in public, and nodding their heads, fuming and fuming with greater intensity as each succeeding king’s infraction is called out. The famous Preamble, with its assertion of the right of the people to “abolish” or “alter” their government, was utterly shocking for 1776 and is still worthy of a sobering conversation when someone is grilling your Fourth of July hot dog.
Dr. Roger Chapman, who joined Palm Beach Atlantic University in 2007, teaches U.S. history, Russian history, the Cold War, history of modern terrorism, history of the American presidents, and modern humanities. He is the faculty advisor of the campus chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society. Dr. Chapman is the editor of the two-volume Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices (2010), editor of Social Scientists Explain the Tea Party Movement (2012), and co-editor of the three-volume Culture Wars in America: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices (2014). He has published in academic journals, namely the Journal of Cold War Studies, Film & History, the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, and the Florida Historical Quarterly.
