INDEPENDENCE DAY
History of Independence Day
The Continental Congress had voted in favor of independence from Great Britain on July 2 but did not actually complete the process of revising the Declaration of Independence—originally drafted by Thomas Jefferson in consultation with fellow committee members John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston—until two days later. The celebration of the declaration’s completion was initially modeled on that of the British king’s birthday, which had been marked annually by bell ringing, bonfires, solemn processions, and oratory. Such festivals had long played a significant role in the Anglo-American political tradition. Especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, when dynastic and religious controversies racked the British Empire (and much of the rest of Europe), the choice of which anniversaries of historic events were celebrated and which were lamented had clear political meanings. The ritual of toasting the king and other patriot-heroes—or of criticizing them—became an informal kind of political speech. This was formalized in the mid-18th century, when the toasts given at taverns and banquets began to be printed in newspapers.
In the early stages of the revolutionary movement in the colonies, during the 1760s and early ’70s, patriots used such celebrations to proclaim their resistance to the British Parliament’s legislation while lauding King George III as the real defender of British liberties. However, in many American towns the marking of the first days of independence during the summer of 1776 took the form of a mock funeral for the king, whose “death” symbolized the end of monarchy and tyranny and the rebirth of liberty.
During the early years of the republic, Independence Day was commemorated with parades, oratory, and toasting in ceremonies that celebrated the existence of the new country. These rites played an equally important role in the evolving federal political system. With the rise of informal political parties, they provided venues for leaders and constituents to tie local and national contests to independence and the issues facing the national polity. By the mid-1790s the two nascent political parties were holding separate partisan Independence Day festivals in most larger towns. Perhaps for this reason, Independence Day became the model for a series of (often short-lived) celebrations that sometimes contained more-explicit political resonance, such as George Washington’s birthday (February 22 but celebrated on the third Monday in February, or Presidents’ Day) and the anniversary of Jefferson’s inauguration as U.S. president (1801–09).