Part One: The setting – Summer in Philadelphia, 1776
Independence Hall on Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
National Park Service / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Independence_National_Historical_Park_INDE0002.jpg
The original thirteen colonies of our founding nation proclaimed themselves “the thirteen United States of America” by a public declaration on July 4th, 1776, signed that day by their appointed delegates in the Second Continental Congress, then convened in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, its capital and great center of industry and commerce. The building where they met would, of course, later come to be remembered as Independence Hall. It is an impressive, stately building, much admired even then, and nowadays seen and interpreted in countless images — an iconic building, the shrine of American democracy.
One imagines that in the course of everyday life, most Americans do not give the building or the occasion very much thought. Some may recollect from a book or a movie the image of a rather quaint meeting room and several serious-looking men in the dress of their day — powdered hair or wig, knee-length coat, waistcoat and breeches — uttering lofty pronouncements. To the modern mind, in moments of honesty, it seems so remote: the reflection of an age of pompous and contrived manners.
Should we remember them more generously? One man of those times was not particularly kind in his opinion. Here is John Adams observing his fellow delegates in session at the First Continental Congress two years earlier, in 1774:
“The … Congress is tedious beyond expression. The assembly is like no other that ever existed. Every man is a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman; and therefore, every man upon every question must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities.
“The consequence of this,” Adams concluded wearily, “is that business is drawn and spun out to an immeasurable length.”
— John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, 1774
Assembly Room, Independence Hall, Philadelphia.
Photo: xiquinhosilva / Wikimedia Commons.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Assembly_Room,_Independence_Hall,_Philadelphia.jpg
Despite John Adams’ scorn, progress was made, and without a doubt the temper of the times helped it. The delegates did their work largely in the Assembly Room, clustered closely together in that forty-by-forty-foot chamber in the midst of a famously hot, muggy Philadelphia summer. They had begun arriving in Philadelphia that April, as the roads cleared and dried and permitted travel, and as the skies darkened, so to speak, and the urgency of a united political position from the Congress became apparent. During their days, the delegates attended to a great deal of mundane business in their rolled-up linen shirtsleeves in that stuffy room, acting as a quasi-government trying to lead a revolution — and still trying to keep it from spinning out of control and into anarchy. Moreover, they commenced to debate passionately the pros and cons of independence and shuddered at times over the contemplation of a permanent rupture with Great Britain.
So, as they worked, events began to drive them to a quickening, a focusing of energies. On June 7th, Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution to the Congress officially proposing that the colonies declare independence from Great Britain. On June 15th, the lower counties of Pennsylvania declared themselves the independent State of Delaware; Virginia would follow, declaring independence just two weeks later, on the 29th. Then there was the fighting: as Britain moved quickly to restore control, on June 28th American patriots successfully repelled a British assault on Charleston and held it for the emerging American people.
Thus, we set the stage and arrange our key players for the next great moves, which we will chronicle in next week’s issue.
Photo Credits
Independence Hall on Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. National Park Service. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Independence_National_Historical_Park_INDE0002.jpg
Declaration of Independence, broadside printed by John Dunlap, Philadelphia, July 4, 1776. Thomas Jefferson, author. Library of Congress. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Declaration_of_Independence,_Broadside,_printed_by_John_Dunlap_in_Philadelphia.jpg
Assembly Room, Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Photo: xiquinhosilva / Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Assembly_Room,_Independence_Hall,_Philadelphia.jpg
Sources
Mires, Charlene. Independence Hall in American Memory. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.
Adams, John. Letter to Abigail Adams, October 9, 1774. Adams Family Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society. https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/
Domenic Clementi
Military & Veterans Editor, The Woodbridge Gazette.
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