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VOL. 5/ISSUE 34
THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2017
INDEPENDENCE DAY Founding Father had right idea, wrong date for holiday Patrick McCallister FOR VETERAN VOICE
pmccallister@veteranvoiceweekly.com
Nothing’s quite as patriotic as Independence Day. It’s got everything American, including picnics, banners, fireworks, and common fallacies. “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America,” Founding Father John Adams wrote his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776. “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. 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 Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
Date Gets Changed All of Adams’ predictions for Independence Day came true, albeit not on July 2. We’d end up celebrating July 4 as Independence Day. So, how come the mix-up? The Second Continental Congress passed the Resolution for Independence — the one Adams thought we’d celebrate — on July 2, 1776. The Declaration of Independence that passed on July 4,
See DATE page 9