On Tuesday, July 2, 1776, separation and independence from Great Britain was an accomplished fact – the twelve delegations that could vote unanimously approved the Lee resolution for independence. It was already reported in the newspapers!

But then Congress turned its attention to the DECLARATION of independence, the document that would publicize the matter in words of Congress’ choosing through a draft from an appointed committee, and ultimately worked out by Thomas Jefferson. But they didn’t get far before agreeing to resume on July 3 – after a fairly usual round of communications: issuing a directive to send troops Monmouth County, New Jersey, approving a circular letter to Pennsylvania counties for troops to form a flying camp, approving a contract for shipwrights to go to Lake Champlain, and giving permission for the Indian affairs commissioners to handle compensation.

And then the committee of the whole resumed its editing of the Declaration – in other words, with some 50 delegates on hand to lend their insight and thoughts.

We have zero idea how that editing process went, except to say that John Adams advocated on behalf of the committee for the document and that the more aloof Jefferson probably sat near the front – but maybe not. Certainly, secretary Charles Thomson would have carefully noted each change on a clean copy.  Some delegates surely came with some edits in mind already. Although it’s possible that president Benjamin Harrison just opened the floor for delegates to offer edits at random, it’s more likely that he asked Thomson to read the Declaration aloud, sentence by sentence or section by section in some way, from top to bottom.

I think the Sherman Edwards/Peter Stone musical 1776 – which is set in Independence Hall and is taken up in large part with the production and editing of the Declaration – gets this part half-right (and also half-wrong). Thomson, under Harrison’s (not Hancock’s) direction, would have been begun reading section by section, and then delegates would individually offer editing proposals to be agreed on by Congress. It’s unlikely that they would have called for a formal vote on each one, though; they would have used the unanimous consent procedure by which a suggestion was approved so long as no one objected.

But just how far they got each day, just how much time was spent, etc. – no idea. Thomson’s minimalist record simply is that “Harrison reported, that the committee, not having finished, desired leave to sit again.”

That, I think, is not the big news of July 3, though. The big news will take us to the correspondence, this time back to John and Abigail Adams, although it wouldn’t become news for another 20+ years – and then be seriously misreported.

Actually, John wrote Abigail twice on July 3, but let’s focus now on the first letter. John begins by responding to a June 17 letter from Abigail and other information. He was excited to hear of plans for a hospital, was unhappy to hear that friend James Warren had refused an appointment to the Massachusetts Supreme Court – and then Adams writes a celebratory, only slightly hyperbolic, paragraph:

Yesterday the greatest Question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater perhaps, never was among Men. A Resolution was passed without one dissenting Colony ‘that these united Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent States, and as such, they have, and of Right ought to have full Power to make War, conclude Peace, establish Commerce, and to do all the other Acts and Things, which other States may rightfully do.’ You will see in a few days a Declaration setting forth the Causes, which have impell’d Us to this mighty Revolution, and the reasons which will justify it, in the Sight of God and Man. A Plan of Confederation will be taken up in a few days.

John immediately connected this moment to James Otis’s argument against the Writs of Assistance in 1761. It was favorite theme of his that Otis’s speech commenced the movement to independence that culminated with the passage of the Lee resolution.

More importantly, John here quotes verbatim that Lee resolution for independence, introduced on June 7, tabled, and then finally agreed to on July 2 – but not included in the Declaration draft (yet). John’s citation serves as an important reminder of the significance of the Lee resolution.

It is John’s second letter that became somewhat newsworthy later, with the even more celebratory and also prophetic paragraph that really must be relished:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Ephoca, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the greatest anniversary Festival. It 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.

What a perfect description of Independence Day – of everything Americans do on – Wait! Wait! – July 2? July 2?

But you can read a digitization of John’s letter to Abigail, by way of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and it is clear as day at the bottom of page 2: “The Second Day of July 1776.”

But the story doesn’t quite end there. I’m indebted here to an excellent article by Charles Warren, “The Doctored Letters of John Adams,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3^rd ser. 68 (Oct. 1944-May 1947), 160-70.

To summarize all too briefly: somehow the letters found their way, excerpted, into The Universal Asylum, and Columbian Magazine for May, 1792 (with the date of July 3, 1776). BUT when it was reprinted on July 4, 1805, in the Boston Gazette, the dates were changed: the letter was now dated “July 5, 1776” and the date given was “The Fourth day of July 1776, will be a memorable epocha in the history of America” – clearly wrong! And also clearly edited, despite the editor knowing it was wrong – it would be one thing to mistake “3” for “5,” but not “Second” for “Fourth.”

And of course, the error stuck and was widely reprinted as such, even when people knew better – why? Charles Francis Adams in 1876 tracked the culprit down to a nephew of Abigail’s, one William Smith Shaw, a Harvard grad who had also served as John’s private secretary, and later served as clerk to the United States District Court. But worse, to Warren’s chagrin Shaw also was Librarian for the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1806-1808. Of all people! And why? In Charles Francis’s words, “thinking that a slight alteration would fit them for the taste of the day and gain for them a higher character for prophecy than if printed as they were.”

Hm. Double hm. No wonder we’re so confused?

The strange story of the doctored Adams letter, however, does serve us an important reminder that, although we tend to collapse the two, there IS a distinction between the formal accomplishment of independence, which happened when Congress unanimously approved the Lee resolution on July 2, and its verbal encapsulation and promulgation that came when the Declaration was approved on July 4. Of course, had the Continental Congress approved the Declaration’s wording on July 2 when the opportunity first arose …

And how would John Adams feel? After all, he more than accurately predicted exactly what kind of celebrations American expect on Independence Day each year – and yet almost no one remembers July 2 at all. And when his letters were deliberately falsified for publication, almost no one batted an eyelash!

Adams occasionally expressed disgruntlement over that and related matters. He once jealously (but privately) called Jefferson’s willing spotlight of himself as the Declaration’s author a “coup de theatre” – a matter of stage management to give himself the leading role. After all, Adams felt that he had long been an instigator toward independence, well ahead of the curve.

But in the end? In the end, I think Adams had occasional strokes of genuine humility when he appreciated the final, and difficult, outcome of American independence as overriding each particular streak of egotism. The changeableness of public reputation is simply an inevitable frustration.

In the meantime – during this July 3 lull, as delegates are collectively hammering out a document that will suitably match and announce the Lee resolution to the world – let’s prepare for “the great anniversary Festival … solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty” – “Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other”!!

Countdown to Semiquincentennial: Number 27, July 3
By Michael G. Ditmore