I Declare Texas Keeps America Beautiful and How the 4th of July Happened
- Kathryn van der Pol
- Jul 6
- 16 min read
On July 4, we participated in the best small-town parade in America—Chappell Hill’s 48th Annual Independence Day parade. Our middle daughter, her husband, the grandkids, and even their dog “Honey” participated. Our float theme was “Texas Keeps America Beautiful.”
What a day! John Adams, our second President, would be proud. After the parade, we enjoyed a great meal finishing with homemade vanilla ice cream (see Sybren’s recipe at the end of this essay [1]), and homemade blueberry pie with 50 stars cut out from the pastry created by my awesome daughter.
We prayed. We read and discussed the Declaration of Independence. My grandsons read part of it out loud.
Sybren showed us new videos on the www.WhiteHouse.gov website. These feature each of the 56 Signers of the Declaration and are 1.5 minutes long on average. You can watch them for yourself here. https://www.whitehouse.gov/videos/?query-inherit-playlist_term=the-founders-museum. We finished the evening shooting fireworks over the pond.
So, how did John Adams expect we would celebrate independence?
Adams wrote, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable…in the History of America…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 Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time Forward forever more.”
Wait a minute! The Second Day of July 1776? John Adams has the wrong day. We celebrate July 4th, not July 2nd? Did he make a typo?
No, actually that was what he believed.
How the “4th of July” happened is the subject of today’s essay.
This story should be part of the knowledge of all Americans.
I want to make a special point here. Do you know that the Jews have celebrated Passover for 3000 years? You read that correctly—3000 years! That’s older than the Bible. They remember their history and because of them, we know about God’s deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt. They teach that history to their young each year at a sacred family meal.
We, too, have something special to celebrate. Next year it will be our 250th birthday. Why don’t we have an American “Passover?” That is, a special sacred dinner celebration that honors our heritage and provides an opportunity to retelling key moments of our own history so we and our children never forget? If a tradition that God ordained can endure 3,000 years, can’t we see that heritage and traditions matter?
Back to my main point.
The story of the Declaration is best told through two key players: Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson.
Both men were from Virginia.
Richard Henry Lee was inspired when he heard while sitting in church the unforgettable words of Patrick Henry, “Give me Liberty or give me death!” He concluded that Virginia should lead the colonies in the quest for independence. Lee was fully aware that the British had destroyed the city of Norfolk six months earlier. He knew Boston was already under martial law and blockaded. In other words, the colonists were already at war with Great Britain.
Lee was a learned man, a prominent planter, but he had suffered a horrific accident a few years earlier when his rifle exploded while hunting. It blew off four fingers on his left hand. Despite this tragedy, Lee recovered. He had a custom black glove made for his hand to hide the cauterized stubs. He often used the appearance of his injured hand to dramatic effect during speeches, drawing attention by gesturing with the black silk-covered hand.
In case you were wondering, Lee’s grandnephew would become the general of the Confederacy, Robert E. Lee.
Thomas Jefferson was a tall redheaded young planter who had inherited his 5000 acres when his father died at the age of 14. He studied law at the College of William and Mary taught by fellow signer George Wythe. Jefferson made a name for himself when in 1774 he published A Summary View of the Rights of British America, a pamphlet asserting the colonies’ right to self-governance. When he was 33, he was elected as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in 1775. A year later he would be asked to write the Declaration of Independence, a task he completed in 17 days without the benefit of his vast library. Jefferson once wrote John Adams, “I cannot live without books.” When Jefferson died, he left instructions for his tombstone to read:
Here was buried
Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of American Independence &
of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom &
Father of the University of Virginia
He did not want to be remembered as our third president.
What happened on June 7, 1776?
Virginia’s delegate, Richard Henry Lee, made a proposal called a resolution. It came at a moment when the Congress was debating gun powder shortages. You might say no one was talking about the obvious, and Richard Henry Lee could not restrain himself anymore. He stood up and said words that would change the entire world.
“Resolved: that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be totally dissolved.”
Never before had a people separated from a king and declared they would be self-governing. A few times in history, people had separated from one king and sworn allegiance to another king, but no people had ever said, that they would be “free and independent states.”
If you recognize the words in Richard Henry Lee’s resolution, you probably remember these are the identical words that Jefferson would later write in the Declaration of Independence.
As a result of Richard Henry Lee’s resolution, the Congress decided not to vote but instead decided to create committees. They created three.
Committee 1: draft the Declaration of Independence
Committee 2: draft an agreement for a unified government among the colonies. This would become known as the Articles of Confederation.
Committee 3: create a standard treaty to be used for alliances and trade agreements with foreign countries.
Such a critical issue as independence would take time to consult and debate. Most delegates had to follow the instructions from the government of their home colony, so there was a good reason to delay. They would have to leave or send messengers, explain the resolution, ask for instructions on how to vote and then return. So, the vote was scheduled for the beginning of July 1776.
HIGH Treason
Dissolving allegiance to Great Britain’s King was a treasonous act that every colonist in the Continental Congress was fully aware of, most especially Richard Henry Lee.
Sir William Blackstone, the great British jurist and author of Blackstone’s Law Dictionary describes treason as follows:
"THE punishment of high treason in general is very solemn and terrible. 1. That the offender be drawn to the gallows and not be carried or walk; though usually a sledge or hurdle is allowed, to preserve the offender from the extreme torment of being dragged on the ground or pavement. 2. That he be hanged by the neck and then cut down alive. 3. That his entrails be taken out, and burned, while he is yet alive. 4. That his head be cut off. 5. That his body be divided into four parts. 6. That his head and quarters be at the king’s disposal.”
The Committee of Five
Two days after the resolution was presented, the Second Continental Congress decided on June 11 to have a declaration prepared if and when the resolution was approved. So, the Congress appointed five men to draft the declaration:
· John Adams from Massachusetts
· Thomas Jefferson from Virginia
· Benjamin Franklin from Pennsylvania
· Roger Sherman from Connecticut
· Robert Livingston from New York
Soon after Richard Henry Lee made his resolution, he became ill and had to return home, so he did not end up voting for independence, although he did sign the Declaration.
Jefferson is assigned the task
Thomas Jefferson was one of the youngest men at the second Continental Congress and one of the newer delegates. He was not known for public speaking, but he had quite a reputation as a writer, especially the pamphlet on British colonials’ rights mentioned above.
Since John Adams chaired the committee, he assigned the draft-writing business to Jefferson. There is a famous story that when this happened, Adams flattered Jefferson into doing it. Adams had just been appointed to chair the Ordnance and War Committee and felt enormous pressure to delegate some responsibilities.
When the two met, he said, “Thomas, there are many reasons that the drafter should be you and not me. Here are the best five:
1. “You are a Virginian, and I’m from Massachusetts.
2. You are a southern man, and I am a northerner.
3. The obnoxious nature of my zeal in promoting independence would cause any draft of mine to undergo great scrutiny and criticism from Congress that a draft from you would not receive.
4. Though I have yet to hear you utter three sentences in a single instance during sessions in congress, I have a great opinion of the elegance of your pen and little of the elegance of my own pen.
5. Finally and most importantly, you can write ten times better than I can.”
Jefferson replied with a bit of understatement, “Well, if you are decided I will do as well as I can.”
There are accounts that Thomas Jefferson was not thrilled with the assignment. In fact, he wished he were back in Virginia because he learned they were drafting a Constitution, and he wanted to be part of that. He did not think writing the declaration was as important as being a participant in writing Virginia’s first state constitution. As time and subsequent events would reveal to him and us, he realized that writing the Declaration of Independence secured his place in history.
The 55 Original Crucial Words
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
Most of us believe these were the original 55 Crucial Words from the Declaration of Independence, but they were not.
“We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” was Jefferson’s original language. Given where we are as a society today, I wonder if these words should have been allowed to stand. The Judeo-Christian faith was the air that everyone breathed. Like a fish doesn’t know what water is, people could not imagine an un-Christian society. So, Franklin changed “sacred and undeniable” to “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” But are these truths self-evident to all Americans today?
Another important change
Instead of “Pursuit of Happiness” Jefferson originally wrote “Property.” However, this change makes sense given that in those days, slaves were deemed a form of property. Since eleven out of the thirteen colonies were in favor of abolishing the slave trade and slavery, they did not want “property,” given that some might interpret that slavery would be perpetuated in the soon-to-be independent states. Unfortunately, it was, but that was not the prevailing sentiment at the convention, a truth most often ignored.
God is identified Four times
Jefferson has often been described as one of our “least religious” founding fathers, yet there is absolutely no question that he believed in the Christian God who was active in the affairs of mankind. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson references God four times.
1. In the Preamble, Jefferson writes, “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”
2. In the second paragraph, he writes, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”
3. In the concluding paragraph, he writes, “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions…”
4. In the last sentence, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on divine Providence…”
The Declaration changed the world
For the first time in human history, a government was formed around shared ideas not the exercise of raw force, power, and coercion. No government had ever been created by a committee that utilized reason and an understanding of human nature.
It was the first time that the purpose of government was to protect and secure individual rights, rights that were God-given. A government’s duty would be to create laws designed to protect God-given rights.
Individuals were considered the children of God who possessed natural rights, such as life, liberty, and property. The is the “self-evident” truth that grows out of “the Law of Nature and Nature’s God.”
The Declaration shaped our Constitution and together these two documents created the longest operating system of government and the most successful country in history.
More Edits
On June 28,1776, the Committee sent the draft to Congress.
Congress deleted about 25% of the content. Jefferson described Congress’s work as “the emasculation and mutilation of my Declaration of Independence.”
Most changes had to do with the list of Grievances against King George.
Jefferson had included a section blaming King George for forcing the colonies to engage in the slave trade.[2] That section was stricken in its entirety. But no further changes were made to the 55 crucial words.
America vs. Great Britain
The Declaration of Independence is written as a legal document, almost like our country was taking Great Britain to the highest court of the universe.
1. The Declaration begins with a statement of purpose. “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them…”
2. Next is a statement of law that provides the basis of the proposed action. Those are the 55 Crucial Words.
3. The main body is the list of 28 grievances against King George III.
4. A statement explaining the Colonists’ prior steps to resolve and to respond to the king’s numerous unjust acts.
5. The actual Declaration: Independence is the only proper remedy to unresolved and persistent grievances.
July 2, 1776
Congress adopted Lee’s original resolution for independence.
John Adams believed and wrote, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable… in the History of America…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 Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time Forward forever more.”
He thought the day that they voted would be the day that was celebrated. Instead, it turned out that the day that the Declaration of Independence was printed would mark the day of celebration instead.
July 4, 1776
The final editing of Jefferson’s work was completed on July 4, 1776. It was then sent to the Philadelphia printer John Dunlap who quickly cranked out 200 copies of the Declaration of Independence. The printed copies are called the Dunlap Declaration and are exceedingly rare and valuable. Only 26 copies are known to survive. The most recent one was discovered in England’s National Archives in 2009.
Some were sent to George Washington’s army; others to each of the 13 colonies, and of course one was sent special delivery to King George III. One was read to the people in Philadelphia just outside Independence Hall.
July 9, 1776
On July 4, only 12 of the 13 colonies cast a vote. The missing colony was New York.
They abstained on July 4 because they were waiting for instructions from their colonial government.
The New York delegation finally received instructions to vote for independence on July 9.
After New York voted “Yea!”, the Continental Congress ordered an “engrossed” official copy of the Declaration of Independence.
August 2, 1776
There were 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence
The official “engrossed” handwritten Declaration of Independence was penned by Thomas Matlack, a Pennsylvania Friend better known as a Quaker and member of the “fighting” Friends.
The Quakers had accepted as a testimony of faith to oppose war, but a few Quakers believed that the cause of the American revolution was so just and godly that they were willing to ignore this testimony and take up arms.
Fellow Quakers shunned and nicknamed them “Fighting Friends” or “Fighting Quakers.” Among these fighting Quakers, you might recognize the names of Betsy Ross, General Nathaniel Greene, and Thomas Paine.
Friend Thomas Matlack began his calligraphy work on July 19, 1776. It took him two weeks to complete the task. This should give us pause when we reflect that for almost 1500 years until the invention of the printing press in 1440, every copy of scripture was handwritten. Writing beautifully and accurately was painstaking work.
On August 2, with the “engrossed” copy completed, 56 men who are known as the "signers" began to return to Philadelphia. By this time, they were under official threat of arrest, torture and execution, but they came anyway. Most made it on August 2, but a few straggled in later. One of the last to sign was Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire. He signed the Declaration of Independence on November 2, 1776.
So which day is most important? June 7, the day of Richard Henry Lee made his Resolution.
July 2, the day of the vote?
July 4, the day the Declaration was printed?
Or is it August 2 when the signers bravely returned and put their signature on the engrossed copy?
What kind of men were they?
All of the signers were Christians with the exception of Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin who believed in God but were untraditional Christians.
12 men studied theology in college.
2 were clergymen
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.
Eleven were merchants.
Nine were farmers or large plantation owners.
Some were men of means. Most were well educated, but not all were formally educated. Men like Ben Franklin dropped out of school after 3rd grade to become an indentured servant to his brother at age 12. He ended up running away to Philadelphia, and rest, you could say, is history.
Many of our founders were self-taught.
How they suffered
The British captured and tried five signers as traitors and tortured them before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the revolutionary war.
Even George Washington lost his adopted son at the Battle of Yorktown.
Here are seven specific examples.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships sunk by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts and died in rags.
Two of the signers from South Carolina fought in the war and were captured by the British. One of them, Thomas Hayward, Jr. was a planter and judge. He was in his 30s when in 1780 he was captured at the Battle of Charleston and taken prisoner to St. Augustine. He refused to bow even behind bars. After the war, he helped draft the first state constitution.
Thomas Lynch, Jr. signed the Declaration three days before his 27th birthday. He and his father had both been elected delegates, the only father-son team at the second Continental Congress. His father, however, was too ill to come back and sign on August 2. There was hope the senior Lynch would recover and so they left a space for him to add his signature. If you look above his Thomas Lynch Jr.’s name, you will see that space. Sadly, Thomas Lynch Senior never recovered. The younger Thomas also had the same illness. After the war, the doctor advised him to set out for Europe to heal. He and his wife boarded a ship but were never seen again. What a reminder that even the young and unwell can rise when their country calls.
Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he was constantly forced to relocate his family. He served in the Congress without pay. His home and possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr., saw that British General Cornwallis had taken his family home for his headquarters. Nelson quietly urged General George Washington to open fire on his house. The Patriots fired upon the home, and the Americans won the war. Nelson, however, died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and when she was released a few months later, she died in his arms.
John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she lay dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields were ruined and his gristmill burned. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children had vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.
The Promise: We pledge our lives, our fortunes and our Sacred Honor
The Declaration ends with these words. “For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
When the 56 men signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, that was not poetry. That was a promise. A promise made and kept. These men stood in a time of war. We are in a state of peace, tottering on war. Will we stand like our forefathers so that freedom endures?
Questions? Comments? Write Kathryn@TexasHeritage.net
ENDNOTES
[1] Sybren’s Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream (improved by Kathryn)
Makes 6 to 8 servings.
1 Cup Milk (room temp)
2 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream (Sam’s brand is better than HEB’s)
2/3 Cup Sugar
2 tsps. Vanilla
1 box of Rock Salt for the Ice cream churn
Directions: Let the whole milk sit out until about room temperature. Stir in sugar until it is dissolved. Warm for 30 seconds in the microwave, if necessary. Add heavy whipping cream and vanilla. Mix well. Refrigerate until it is very cold (about 2 hours).
Chill the cylinder that comes with your ice cream maker in the freezer. Chill the paddle, too.
When everything is good and cold, pour your vanilla cream mixture into the cylinder. Put on the lid and follow your instructions for your ice cream maker. Alternate layers of ice and rock salt in the bucket until the ice exceeds the level of vanilla cream mixture. What you are trying to achieve is a slushy freezing cold mixture of ice and salt. You may need to add some water, too. Usually, the ice cream maker is done in 20 to 30 minutes. When the motor stops, the ice cream is ready. Enjoy!
[2] Here is the original wording. The emphases are original. Note that the all-cap word of CHRISTIAN and MEN which were the only words Jefferson wrote in all caps in the entire Declaration.
“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”
I would like to acknowledge the work of David J. Shestokas, author of Creating the Declaration of Independence for inspiration and information.
