RE: United States July 4, 1776: Beyond The Myths

[Guest guest]

Dear John,

 

Thanks for another important contribution

to help clarify things regarding the date adopted in US rectified chart.

 

Best wishes,

 

Jorge

 

 

 

 

John T W B

[jtwbjakarta]

sexta-feira, 4 de Março de

2005 17:31

samva

" United

States " July 4, 1776: Beyond The Myths

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROLOGUE

“It is a singular fact that the greatest event

in American history—the Declaration of Independence—has been the

subject of more incorrect popular belief, more bad memory on the part of

participants, and more false history than any other occurrence in our

national life”…..”The first mistaken popular belief is that

the Fourth of July is the anniversary of American Independence. The fact

is that Independence Day was properly the day on which Congress passed the

resolution which actually established our independence; and that day was July 2

and not July 4, 1776”…..”The second mistaken belief, long

popularly held, is that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July

4, 1776. Most Americans have seen either a facsimile or the original

document now in the Library of Congress, with the names signed at the end; and

most believe that it was signed on the day that the Congress on July

4, 1776 adopted it. This belief was generally held for over one

hundred years. The fact is, however, that it was NOT so signed; and

historians are now agreed on this point.”

 

                                                                        

Charles Warren, in the William & Mary Quarterly, 1945

 

 

                    

         

     THE ACT OF JULY 2nd ORDAINED THE ANNUNCIATION OF JULY

4th

 

Between 1855 and 1945 the best minds devoted to the matter of the

history of America’s Independence all agreed: The " United

States " was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Tuesday July 2, 1776 at

the moment that the Continental Congress' vote on the resolution for

" Independency " was counted and verified: 12 votes " Yes " ; 1

" abstention " . (f.y.i.: SAMVA rectified: 4:48

pm). Prior to that historic moment the “Continental

Congress” was acting on behalf of the " 13 United

Colonies " ; Yet from that same moment going forward the Continental

Congress became the “General Congress of the United States” acting

on behalf of 12 " States " and 1 late-to-join Province of New

York, all 13 still " United " , nonetheless, as they had been

since July 15, 1775 when Georgia elected to be the 13th colony

to join The Continental Association. (See further on, regarding July

9, 1776 and the 13th State).

 

In terms of established concepts of political (Constitutional) law, what

transformed these colonial provinces into States was the act of adoption of the

June 7th resolution on Independency, which declared the provinces to be

henceforth " sovereign " , " independent " and " free " ,

and therefore no longer subject to the dictates of Britain's Parliament,

because the American people no longer considered themselves to

be part of the State (Crown) of Great Britain. The Continental Congress

was acting on expressed wishes thru the formally delegated authority of

the people in each of these colonial provinces. The Congress had neither

constitutional nor governing authority to have declared so on its own,

 

The 13th State, New York, received expressed

approval for its statehood in its constitutional Convention on

the afternoon of July 9th; and it was soon after, on July 15th,

that its statehood was formally recognized to be so by the General

Congress of the United States (What had been, prior to Independence, the

" Continental Congress " for these at first 12 then 13 colonial

provinces between September 5, 1774 and July 2, 1776).

 

On September 9, 1776 the General Congress resolved that in

reference to the identity of these 13 sovereign states concerned, all official

documents shall use the stile: " United States " . Then, on March

1, 1781 the 13th and final State ratification gave

birth to the American nation's first constitution, the ARTICLES OF

CONFEDERATION, which framed the constitutional establishment of

the national government of the United States. With its ratifications

completed, the official stile of the sovereign States was thereby amended

as per Article #1 of the ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, to be: " The United

States Of America "    

 

 

 

 

THE " UNITED STATES " : ITS FIRST PUBLIC STEP

 

The first public action of the General Congress of the United

States took place 3 days into the life of the United States, with the July 5th

broadside publication of a declaration of “Independency”, entitled:

" A DECLARATION by the Representatives of the United States of America

in General Congress... " This was the aboriginal version of what was

to become the American nation’s first state document, only later in 1777

to be officially designated as it is now known, The Declaration of

Independence. A DECLARATION was published on Friday

July 5, 1776, although dated for the day the text of the declaration

was finally adopted by the General Congress on the previous day, July

4th.                                      

 

 

About a month later, on August

2, 1776 the text of A DECLARATION was re-titled " THE

UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA " , and

" 54 " delegates autographically signed (Most on August 2nd, a

few others on various dates in the months after) by the time

this " UNANIMOUS DECLARATION " was first published in Baltimore,

MD in January 1777. (Delegates Henry

Wisner and Thomas McKean signed even later than January 1777, making the

final official version that of " 56 " delegates as signatories).

[iN ORDER TO DISPUTE THE FACTS

SUMMARIZED ABOVE, one must necessarily dispute them by taking issue with the

considered judgments of the 7 leading scholar authorities on this historic

matter, the providers of the source material of this extended comment: (1)

Peter Force, THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1855); (2) George Bancroft, THE

AMERICAN REVOLUTION, Vol.II (1860); (3) Mellen Chamberlain, AUTHENTICATION OF

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1885); (4) Herbert Friedenwald, THE

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1904); (5) John Hazelton, THE DECLARATION OF

INDEPENDENCE (1906); (6) Carl Becker, THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1922);

(7) Charles Warren, FOURTH OF JULY MYTHS (1945). And as one can

plainly see, the relevant matters of historic

fact regarding Independency were seriously investigated and laid

bare by these and other experts in the scholar community quite a long time

before the advent of the internet.]

 

Not unlikely, and notwithstanding what has been maintained here

already, many readers may be inclined to some skepticism, in particular to the

events pertaining specifically to July 4th. Afterall, just perform a random

search in the internet for websites featuring the history of the birth of

the USA. Note

the virtually innumerable citations contradicting what Charles Warren

maintained to be so in 1945: in particular that the Declaration

wasn't signed by the members of the General Congress on July 4th and that

the Declaration’s adoption was not unanimous until August

2, 1776. 

 

[A notable exception to the extensive evidence of myth and

misinformation in numerous Early America websites, (which exception

contradicts nothing that is here maintained to be so, based largely on the

7 authorities cited above), is the website of the National Archives.]

 

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS OF JULY 4th, 1776

 

First, as regards the absence of voting members’ signatures,

autographical or printed, on the July 5th Dunlap Broadside, the

Dunlap Broadside wasn't " signed " by anyone at all as this action

is commonly understood. There was but one official printed

(non-autographical) " signature " , that of the President of the

General Congress of the United States,

John Hancock. Just refer to a copy of the Dunlap Broadside, the first printing

of The Declaration of Independence on July 5th, entitled simply:

" A DECLARATION " . There it is in plain letter-press print, towards the

bottom immediately following the text: to wit, " Signed by Order and

in Behalf of Congress, JOHN HANCOCK, President. "   What one sees

is exactly what it purports to be: a non-autographical authenticating

signature by the presiding officer of the General Congress, thereby making

official each and every true letter-press copy of this document that was

distributed to the public in July 1776. John Hancock didn't take pen (or quill)

to paper to render this signature. The adopted draft that went out

the door of Independence Hall to the printer, John Dunlap, on the evening of

July 4th, didn't have either the finished copy's top line, which reads:

" In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. " or the three names and titles found

towards the bottom, which are: " John Hancock, President " , " Charles

Thomson, Secretary " , " John Dunlap, Printer " , thus making up

the concluding lines of the document. These additions to the top and bottom of

the adopted draft came after it had gone to the printer, added

by John Dunlap in accordance with the instructions of Congress to

the Committee of Five: to " superintend and correct the press " and in

the process to have the resulting printer’s proof-copy, the master copy,

" authenticated " . The archived evidence of record of this

authentication of the document is the Dunlap Broadside itself, wherein the

non-autographical signature of John Hancock is simply printed, not

autographically

signed.

 

 

 

Not the least amazingly, on the

evening of July 4th there was no authenticated final adopted draft, with

autographical signature, to be archived; yet this hasn’t deterred a

minor academic industry from believing that somehow the autographical signature

copy has been lost to history. To the contrary, one may only discover by dint

of investigation, evidences of the incomprehension of those historians,

and the public they confuse, who fail to work through to the standard

requirements of the parliamentary practice of official authentication:

and so too, the difference between an " autographical signature " ,

which such original signature is necessarily inscribed by hand, and an

" authenticating signature " , which may be either autographical or

simply printed (as Law dictionaries do confirm this basic distinction). In

keeping with this parliamentary rationale Charles Thomson, unlike John Hancock,

did not in any sense whatsoever " sign " the document on this same

occasion; Charles Thomson, the Congressional Secretary, merely

" attested " the official, sole signature in authentication of John

Hancock. Attestation is required of the authenticating process; and so Charles

Thomson " attested " ; though he did not " sign " .

Second, the first scholar to point out that John Hancock was sole

signatory that historic day, to point it out in a publication then 79 years

after the fact, was Peter Force in 1855. (Ref: The DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE,

Or Notes On Lord Mahon's History Of The American Declaration Of Independence).

By the date of his monograph not even a scholar of Peter Force's pre-eminent

status, as founder of the Library of Congress, could stop the flow of publications

sustaining the mythologies regarding this historic event, such as the

various works of Benson J. Lossing: for example, Mythology such

as " On July 4th The Declaration was finally adopted and signed by

every member present at the time, except Dickinson " . Peter Force,

correcting the record, wrote: " The Declaration was adopted on July 4th by

the vote of 12 States, the same that 2 days before had as Colonies passed

the act of Independence....It was the universal diffusion of the Declaration

that made the 4th of July the great festival day of the nation, instead of

the 2nd day of July, the real birthday of American Freedom " ... And,

further-on ... " It should be remembered that on the 4th of July 1776 the

document was entitled " A DECLARATION... and it could not then be

called THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN STATES, not until

New York's constitutional action on July 9th could make it so later ... until

when on August 2nd the Declaration of Independence, being engrossed and

compared at the table, was to be signed by every member, by order of

Congress.. "

 

A CODA

 

As Mellen Chamberlain summed it up nicely in his neglected

masterpiece, AUTHENTICATION OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1885),

wherein he concluded that: " Independence

was announced to the world July 4, 1776.

That is glory enough for the most insatiate of days. It needs not the honors of

July 2, nor those of August 2 " ..... " What was done on July 2nd

realized the ardent wishes of the patriotic party in the thirteen colonies. Its

consummated act was a notable achievement of advocacy; and the great patriot,

John Adams, fondly hoped that it would be celebrated to the remotest times. But

it is otherwise. The glory of the act is overshadowed by the glory of its

annunciation. "

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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