Jul

4

A new Cato Institute/Morning Consult survey finds that 46 percent of Americans don't know what Saturday commemorates.

Idea 1: Lead a family event where the Declaration of Independence is read in its entirety.

For the fuller, messier version of the origin story, see "The 'Two Ships' Theory of American History" in the August Atlantic — James Traub's review of historian David Reynolds's Two Ships, on why Americans have never agreed on where their country began.

Full disclosure: the author is a confirmed descendant of both Mayflower passengers and Jamestown settlers — and a relation of Oliver Cromwell besides. If Reynolds is right that America was separated at birth, the divide runs straight through my DNA.

Then read the Mayflower Compact, written 156 years before the Declaration. Notice that the principle Jefferson would make famous — government by "consent of the governed" — is already at work in it: the signers "covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic," binding themselves to laws of their own making.

Idea 2: Look for local mattress sales.

Stefan Jovanovich writes:

Six men who were delegates to Congress on July 1 and 2, 1776 declined to vote for the resolutions that authorized the Declaration of Independence. Four were from Pennsylvania: John Dickinson, Charles Humphreys, Robert Morris and Thomas Willing. John Alsop was from New York and George Read from Delaware. Two of the men would actually sign the Declaration when the document was presented to Congress on August 2nd; Robert Morris, who had abstained, and George Read who had voted no. John Dickinson would leave Philadelphia in July; Charles Humphreys and Thomas Willing would be removed from the Pennsylvania delegation before the document signing date.

Of the four men who said “no” and meant it, Thomas Willing would become the most important; President Washington would nominate him to become the first President of the Bank of the United States. and join the Pennsylvania militia; he would return in 1779. John Alsop would formally resign from Congress on July 16th. The other two delegates from Pennsylvania – Willing and Humphreys – would be removed from their delegation before the Declaration’s formal signing on August 2nd. Robert Morris and George Read would sign the physical declaration when it was presented to Congress.

Thomas Willing would stay in Philadelphia and work with his former business partner Robert Morris to fund the Continental Army. Morris, like the other members of Congress, would skedaddle to York when General William Howe and his British army arrived on September 26, 1777. The Loyalists would celebrate their arrival with parties and celebrations; Willing and his family, who were the richest people in the Philadelphia, would refuse to attend. When Willing was sent the formal oath of allegiance to King George III that Howe’s command was requiring of all prominent residents of the city, Willing refused to sign. Howe let Willing stay because there was at least some hope that Britain and the Americans could end their war. At the end of October, the rumor reached Philadelphia that a motion had been presented to Congress to rescind the vote for independence and it has lost by only one vote. On November 2, 1777 Howe would meet with Willing and his colleague John Brown. (Willing and Brown would be among the founders of the Bank of North America.) At the meeting Howe would express his desire to see a cease fire and peace settlement based on having the status of affairs in the thirteen colonies return to what they had been in 1763 and the Declaration being withdrawn. The Americans agreed to pass on the message. Henry Laurens, President of Congress, would report the proposals to George Washington. In his response, Washington would write: “it has been the unvaried custom of the enemy, from the commencement of the present contest, to try every artifice and device to delude the people. The message sent through John Brown was calculated for this end. I am surprised Thomas Willing should suffer himself to be imposed on by such flimsy measures. He knows that there is a plain, obvious way for General and Lord Howe to communicate … to Congress, without the intervention of a second or third hand. But this would not suit their views.”

A decade and a half later Washington would appoint Willing to be President of the Bank of the United States. When asked why he had voted no on the Declaration of Independence, Willing wrote: :“I voted against this declaration in Congress not only because I thought America at that time unequal to such a conflict as must ensue—having neither arms, ammunition, or military experience—but chiefly because the delegates of Pennsylvania were not then authorized by their instructions from the assembly as the voice of the people at large, to join in such a vote.”


Comments

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind

Archives

Resources & Links

Search