We pause on this Thursday, July 4th, 2013 to thank God for this country that we are privileged to call home. I do hope that sometime during your day a prayer will go up to our great God for His sovereign providence that brought this grand experience into being. As the song says, "I'm glad to be an American." Regarding the Declaration of Independence itself, I wanted to use my space today to share some facts about it, courtesy of the History Channel webpage:
1. The Declaration of Independence wasn’t signed on July 4, 1776.
On July 1, 1776, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia,
and on the following day 12 of the 13 colonies voted in favor of Richard
Henry Lee’s motion for independence. The delegates then spent the next
two days debating and revising the language of a statement drafted by
Thomas Jefferson. On July 4, Congress officially adopted the Declaration
of Independence, and as a result the date is celebrated as Independence
Day. Nearly a month would go by, however, before the actual signing of
the document took place. First, New York’s delegates didn’t officially
give their support until July 9 because their home assembly hadn’t yet
authorized them to vote in favor of independence. Next, it took two
weeks for the Declaration to be “engrossed”—written on parchment in a
clear hand. Most of the delegates signed on August 2, but
several—Elbridge Gerry, Oliver Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean and
Matthew Thornton—signed on a later date. (Two others, John Dickinson and
Robert R. Livingston, never signed at all.) The signed parchment copy
now resides at the National Archives in the Rotunda for the Charters of
Freedom, alongside the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
2. More than one copy exists.
After the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the “Committee of
Five”—Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman
and Robert R. Livingston—was charged with overseeing the reproduction of
the approved text. This was completed at the shop of Philadelphia
printer John Dunlap. On July 5, Dunlap’s copies were dispatched across
the 13 colonies to newspapers, local officials and the commanders of the
Continental troops. These rare documents, known as “Dunlap broadsides,”
predate the engrossed version signed by the delegates. Of the hundreds
thought to have been printed on the night of July 4, only 26 copies
survive. Most are held in museum and library collections, but three are
privately owned.
3. When news of the Declaration of Independence reached New York City, it started a riot.
By July 9, 1776, a copy of the Declaration of Independence had reached
New York City. With hundreds of British naval ships occupying New York
Harbor, revolutionary spirit and military tensions were running high.
George Washington, commander of the Continental forces in New York, read
the document aloud in front of City Hall. A raucous crowd cheered the
inspiring words, and later that day tore down a nearby statue of George
III. The statue was subsequently melted down and shaped into more than
42,000 musket balls for the fledgling American army.
4. Eight of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were born in Britain.
While the majority of the members of the Second Continental Congress
were native-born Americans, eight of the men voting for independence
from Britain were born there. Gwinnett Button and Robert Morris were
born in England, Francis Lewis was born in Wales, James Wilson and John
Witherspoon were born in Scotland, George Taylor and Matthew Thornton
were born in Ireland and James Smith hailed from Northern Ireland.
5. One signer later recanted.
Richard Stockton, a lawyer from Princeton, New Jersey, became the only
signer of the Declaration of Independence to recant his support of the
revolution. On November 30, 1776, the hapless delegate was captured by
the British and thrown in jail. After months of harsh treatment and
meager rations, Stockton repudiated his signature on the Declaration of
Independence and swore his allegiance to King George III. A broken man
when he regained his freedom, he took a new oath of loyalty to the state
of New Jersey in December 1777.
6. There was a 44-year age difference between the youngest and oldest signers.
The oldest signer was Benjamin Franklin, 70 years old when he scrawled
his name on the parchment. The youngest was Edward Rutledge, a lawyer
from South Carolina who was only 26 at the time. Rutledge narrowly beat
out fellow South Carolinian Thomas Lynch Jr., just four months his
senior, for the title.
7. Two additional copies have been found in the last 25 years.
In 1989, a Philadelphia man found an original Dunlap Broadside hidden in
the back of a picture frame he bought at a flea market for $4. One of
the few surviving copies from the official first printing of the
Declaration, it was in excellent condition and sold for $8.1 million in
2000. A 26th known Dunlap broadside emerged at the British National
Archives in 2009, hidden for centuries in a box of papers captured from
American colonists during the Revolutionary War. One of three Dunlap
broadsides at the National Archives, the copy remains there to this day.
8. The Declaration of Independence spent World War II in Fort Knox.
On December 23, 1941, just over two weeks after the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor, the signed Declaration, together with the Constitution,
was removed from public display and prepared for evacuation out of
Washington, D.C. Under the supervision of armed guards, the founding
document was packed in a specially designed container, latched with
padlocks, sealed with lead and placed in a larger box. All told, 150
pounds of protective gear surrounded the parchment. On December 26 and
27, accompanied by Secret Service agents, it traveled by train to
Louisville, Kentucky, where a cavalry troop of the 13th Armored Division
escorted it to Fort Knox. The Declaration was returned to Washington,
D.C., in 1944.
9. There is something written on the back of the Declaration of Independence.
In the movie “National Treasure,” Nicholas Cage’s character claims that
the back of the Declaration contains a treasure map with encrypted
instructions from the founding fathers, written in invisible ink.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. There is, however, a simpler
message, written upside-down across the bottom of the signed document:
“Original Declaration of Independence dated 4th July 1776.” No one knows
who exactly wrote this or when, but during the Revolutionary War years
the parchment was frequently rolled up for transport. It’s thought that
the text was added as a label.
Enjoy the day and be reminded that we've made it this far with God's help and with the literal blood and sweat of our fellow citizens. Take care and may God bless each one, and may He bless our great land. Amen. ....More later.
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