Independence (60 page)

E
PILOGUE

THE BROADSIDE CONTAINING
the Declaration of Independence, which Congress ordered on July 4, hit the streets of Philadelphia the next day. The only congressman whose name appeared on the Declaration was Hancock. (Congress did not publish a copy of the document containing the names of all the signatories until year's end, when the Continental army scored its first victory following independence.)
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On July 6 the Declaration appeared in a newspaper, the
Philadelphia Evening Post
.

Congress set Monday, July 8, for the official celebration of independence in Philadelphia. The festivities, attended by “a great Crowd of People” in the State House yard, kicked off at eleven A.M., when nine Pennsylvania soldiers ripped the royal crest from above the entrance to the State House and committed it to a roaring bonfire. Next, a member of Pennsylvania's Committee of Safety read the Declaration of Independence. One resident noted in his diary that the Declaration was “received with general applause and heart-felt satisfaction,” including three loud cheers of “God bless the Free States of North America!” When the reading was complete, Philadelphia's militia battalions, one of which was commanded by Colonel John Dickinson, paraded smartly and, according to John Adams, who could hardly have missed the irony of the occasion, “gave us the Feu de Joy, notwithstanding the Scarcity of Powder.” Throughout that day and into the night, bells at the State House and in every church steeple across the city rang out joyously. As night descended, bonfires were set and many Philadelphians celebrated by putting a lighted candle in every window in their homes.
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By the day of Philadelphia's celebration, printed copies of the Declaration of Independence had already reached towns as far as seventy-five miles from the city. Thereafter, slowly but inexorably, the text appeared in handbills and newspapers in great towns and small. More than a month after July 4, word of the Declaration of Independence at last reached Savannah and its environs, among the last places in America where the citizenry learned that they were living in a new nation free of all links to Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence was printed in London newspapers at almost the same moment that Georgians first read the document, though in England it was reported to have provoked laughter.
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George Washington, in a print by Jenn-Baptiste Le Paon, ca. 1781, shown holding the Declaration of Independence. Washington served in the First and Second Continental Congress, but left to command the Continental army in June 1775. He ordered that the Declaration of Independence be read to his assembled soldiers in July 1776. (Brown University Library)

Soldiers posted here and there were assembled to listen as the Declaration of Independence was read. Sometimes the military commander made the reading part of a worship service. That was not the case with the principal contingent of the Continental army in and around New York City. On July 9 those soldiers marched to hear the document read “with an audible voice,” or so General Washington had ordered. When the reading was complete, the Declaration “was received by three Huzzas from the Troops,” according to one officer. Washington thought his men had given “their most hearty assent” both to American independence and the Declaration of Independence, an assessment confirmed by one of his colonels, who thought the document was “highly approved by the Army.”
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Public ceremonies were held in many villages and cities, always at a central location—the commons, the courthouse, a city square, or around the Liberty Pole. Abigail Adams heard it read from the balcony of the Massachusetts statehouse. As soon as the reading was completed, vessels in Boston Harbor fired salutes to American independence.
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In most places church bells pealed during the festivities, militia companies paraded, occasionally a few rounds of artillery were fired, clergy prayed and sometimes sermonized, dignitaries spoke, and a man of strong voice—in rural areas it was frequently the sheriff—read the Declaration of Independence. Listeners sometimes discovered a magical quality to the Declaration that was not always readily apparent to readers. Jefferson, who was a talented musician, possessed a genius for the cadence of composition, for what one scholar described as the “rhythmical pauses … comparable to musical bars.”
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Public readings were also in a sense theatrical events, and the audiences, as if attending a play, sometimes felt the pain, disappointment, reproach, and anger that had captivatingly flowed from Jefferson's pen.
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In some locales effigies of the king or other royal officials were hung. In one town on Long Island the monarch's effigy featured a black face to remind onlookers of Dunmore's proclamation. Savannah staged a mock funeral for George III. Massachusetts directed all clergymen to read the Declaration of Independence to their congregations following the next worship service. One of the stranger ceremonies occurred in Watertown, Massachusetts, where the Declaration of Independence was interpreted to assembled Indian sachems. The translation went as follows: “You and we … have now nothing to do with Great Britain; we are wholly separated from her.”
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In some places the popular enmity toward Great Britain turned destructive. The king's picture was often burned, crowds tore symbols of royal authority from the walls of public buildings and Anglican churches, and signs were ripped down at taverns, inns, and coffeehouses whose names were tainted with royal trappings. After the proprietor of the Kings' Arms tavern in Worcester, Massachusetts, was made to remove his sign, the crowd helped itself to his liquor and drank twenty-four toasts, the last being: “May the Freedom and Independency of America endure until the Sun grows dim with age, and this Earth returns to Chaos.” A great statue of George III—one witness called it “the IMAGE of the BEAST”—was pulled down in New York City, after which it was sent to Litchfield, Connecticut, where it was recast into 42,088 cartridges for muskets. (One rebel was moved to write to Horatio Gates, a Continental army general, that the redcoats would have “melted Majesty fired at them.”)
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Independence was well received everywhere. New Jersey's authorities reported that whereas the citizenry had been confused about fighting the king's army while professing loyalty to the Crown, the break with Great Britain had given a “great turn to the minds of our people.… Heart and hand shall [now] move together.” General Washington expressed similar sentiments, adding that he thought it might make his soldiers act with greater “Fidelity and Courage,” as they knew that henceforth they would be fighting for their own country. Congress learned from state authorities in New Hampshire that the Declaration of Independence had transformed the thinking of many who only months before had been “greatly averse to anything that looked like independence.” A soldier at Fort Ticonderoga said that independence had been “well relished in this part of the world.” Abigail Adams noted that “every face appeard joyfull” in the crowd that heard the document read in Boston.
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Perhaps the most important approval for independence came from the New York Provincial Convention, which was meeting in White Plains. On July 9, the same day that Washington's army heard the Declaration read, the Provincial Convention unanimously resolved that Congress's action was “cogent and conclusive,” and it published the document, though it “lament[ed] the cruel necessity which has rendered that measure unavoidable.” On hearing of New York's affirmation, one of the Yankee delegates in Congress exalted that “the Declaration of Independency … now has the sanction of the thirteen United States.”
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Once it learned that every state was in line, Congress on July 19 ordered “that the Declaration passed on July 4 be fairly engrossed on parchment” and “when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress.”
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The printing was completed on August 2, and on that day the delegates who were present signed the Declaration of Independence. John Hancock probably led off. With a bold flourish, he signed in large, easily distinguishable letters, as if to shout his approval of the break with the mother country. Thereafter, he must have summoned each delegation to the dais one at a time. It was a solemn and anxious moment, captured by Benjamin Rush, a new delegate from Pennsylvania, who later remembered “the pensive and awful silence, which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants.”
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Those who were absent that day subsequently affixed their signatures. Elbridge Gerry, for instance, “worn out of Health, by the Fatigues of this station,” had left Philadelphia in mid-July for rest and recuperation at home. He so badly wanted his name on the Declaration of Independence that he proposed it be added by proxy. That was not necessary. Congress wanted everyone who had voted for independence to sign the Declaration, and it even gave leave to sign to those who had been delegates during the spring debates on independence but had not been present for any of the votes between July 1 and July 4. It even permitted those who had voted against independence but subsequently changed their minds to sign. It also welcomed the signatures of those who entered Congress between July 5 and mid-autumn.
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Every congressman who voted for independence on July 2 ultimately signed the Declaration of Independence, including Gerry, who scribbled his signature sometime after he returned to Philadelphia on September 2. Several who signed the document had not voted for independence. North Carolina's William Hooper signed, though he had been absent from late March until mid-July. Richard Henry Lee, Samuel Chase, George Wythe, and Oliver Wolcott had gone home on the eve of the vote on independence and had come back to Philadelphia at varying times—it was October before Wolcott returned—and each signed shortly after resuming his seat.
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Congress permitted Connecticut's William Williams, who had been elected in October 1775 but had not come to Philadelphia until four weeks after independence was declared, to sign the Declaration. Maryland's Charles Carroll of Carrollton signed, though he did not become a member of Congress until July 17. Given the political upheaval in Pennsylvania, five new faces were added to that state's delegation and took their seats between July 22 and September 6; each—Rush, George Clymer, George Ross, George Taylor, and James Smith—signed the Declaration. Four New York delegates, who were not authorized to vote for independence until July 9, eventually signed the document. That contingent did not include Robert R. Livingston, who left Congress on July 5 and never returned. New Hampshire's Matthew Thornton was probably the last man to sign the Declaration of Independence. Elected in September, he could not have signed it until after he took his seat on November 4.
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Two congressmen who had voted against independence on July 2 ultimately signed: George Read and Robert Morris.

Before all the signatures were affixed to the Declaration of Independence, one final stab at reconciliation had to be played out. The Howe brothers, the long-awaited peace commissioners, had arrived in New York in July. At the time they had sailed, both William and Richard Howe still thought it possible that war might be avoided by a last-minute peace accord. However, just as each soldier-commissioner disembarked on Staten Island, American independence had been declared and was being celebrated with gusto. The Howe brothers immediately sent Germain a copy of the Declaration of Independence, to which they appended their belief that there was “no prospect of a disposition in those who now hold the supreme authority over the colonies to make any advances towards a reconciliation.”
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Even so, the Howes launched their mission by contacting both General Washington and Benjamin Franklin, hoping that the former might agree to talks and that the latter would serve as a conduit for opening discussions with Congress. They got nowhere with either man. Washington accepted their invitation to meet with one of General William Howe's officers, but it was an unproductive get-together. The American commander was willing to discuss the release of the American prisoners of war held in Canada, but when he made clear that he had no authority to engage in peace negotiations, the talks abruptly ended.
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With the authorization of Congress, Franklin answered Lord Richard Howe's missive on July 20. His response was not heartening. As it appeared that the peace commissioners were to be unable to do more than extend “Offers of Pardon upon Submission,” Franklin wrote curtly, “Reconciliation … [is] impossible on any Terms given you to propose.”
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