Celebrating this weekend? You bet we are- with GREAT reason!
WOW! July 4th is here! Picnics and cookouts, parades, friends and fireworks! Sounds great! And indeed, it is. Most people in the United States celebrate the 4th of July, and yes, indeed, it's a fabulous time for special celebrations and get-togethers, but do you know exactly why the holiday is so important to our country? Parents, share this amazingly kid friendly overview of our country's most important piece of paper with your children. It's from kaboose.com's Kim Moon- our thanks- and will help kids and grown ups alike remember tomorrow as something way beyond the hot dogs and fireworks.
Imagine how you would feel if someone older than you kept telling you what to do all of the time and kept
taking more and more of your money. That is how the colonists felt
in the years leading up to 1776. Great Britain, under the rule of King George, kept trying to make the
colonists follow more rules and pay higher taxes. People started
getting mad and began making plans to be able to make their own rules.
They no longer wanted Great Britain to be able to tell them what to do,
so they decided to tell Great Britain that they were becoming an
independent country. (To be independent means to take care of yourself,
making your own rules and providing for your own needs.)
The Congress met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and they appointed a committee (a group of people working together to do a specific job) to write a formal document that would tell Great Britain that the Americans had decided to govern themselves. The committee asked Thomas Jefferson to write a draft (first try) of the document, so he worked for days, in absolute secret, until he had written a document that he thought said everything important that the committee had discussed. On June 28, 1776, the committee met to read Jefferson's "fair" copy (he put his best ideas together and wrote them neatly.) They revised (made some changes to) the document and declared their independence on July 2, 1776. They officially adopted it (made it theirs) on July 4, 1776. That is why we call it "Independence Day." Only two men actually signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776: John Hancock and Secretary of Congress Charles Thomson. Thomson provided the 'attesting signature' so the document would be legal. Congress then ordered that all members must sign the Declaration of Independence and they all began signing the "official" copy on August 2, 1776. In January of the next year, Congress sent signed copies to all of the states.
The Declaration of Independence is more than just a
piece of paper. It is a symbol of our country's independence and
commitment to certain ideas. A symbol is something that stands for
something else. Most people can look at a certain little "swoosh" and
know that it stands for "Nike." Well, the signers of the Declaration of
Independence wanted the citizens of the United States to have a
document that spelled out what was important to our leaders and
citizens. They wanted us to be able to look at the Declaration of
Independence and immediately think of the goals we should always be
working for, and about the people who have fought so hard to make these
ideas possible. The people who signed the Declaration risked being
hanged for treason by the leaders in Great Britain. They had to be very
brave to sign something that would be considered a crime! So every time
we look at the Declaration of Independence...every 4th of July holiday that means great fireworks are at hand, we should think about all
of the effort and ideas that went into the document, and about the
courage it took for these people to stand up for what they knew was
right- independence!
Now- test your knowledge of (and maybe amaze your friends with, too?) the Declaration of Independence with this quiz:
1. Who was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence?
a) John Hancock
b) Thomas Jefferson
c) George Washington
2. When did the Continental Congress actually pass a resolution of Independence?
a) July 1
b) July 2
c) July 3
3. In what year did Congress declare July 4th a federal holiday?
a) 1783
b) 1841
c) 1941
4. Which of the following was something Congress cut out of Thomas Jefferson's draft of the declaration?
a) They removed all references to slavery.
b) They removed all references to women.
c) They removed a paragraph written in Latin.
5. Which 2 important players in our nation's birth died on the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration?
a) Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock
b) Thomas Jefferson and John Adams
c) Benjamin Franklin and John Adams
The answers:
1. C. On July 2nd, the Lee-Adams resolution of independence was declared, and many thought that would be the date celebrated as America’s birthday. The resolution was officially adopted on July 4th.
2. C. July 4th has been celebrated to honor our country's Independence since 1776, but wasn't declared a federal holiday by Congress until 1941.
3. A. John Hancock, representative to Congress from Massachusetts, was the first member of Congress to sign the Declaration of Independence.
4. A. Congress made many revisions to Jefferson's draft, most notably, the removal of all references to slavery, called “the execrable commerce” by Jefferson who, while a slaveholder himself, had blamed on King George.
5. B. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died July 4, 1826- within hours of each other.
I hope your celebration of the birth of our incredible nation is filled with laughter, fun, and amazement at how great courage, visionary wisdom, and strong morals united a group of individuals 233 years ago, and what it still means to us today.
Happy Independence Day. Enjoy your fireworks!
John
Email John: johnsblog@teshmedia.com
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