Massachusetts Historical Society
From a letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776:
Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in Town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. -- This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.
But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.
Hey, how was he supposed to know we'd celebrate the day of the Declaration's adoption instead? He was pretty close on the celebration part too:
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.
And also the championing of belts of Mustard through gorging upon bread-wrapped slender tubes of salted processed Meat!
After the jump, the passage from the 1826 Thomas Jefferson letter that I know someone is going to share in the comments as soon as they read the "solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty" bit in the above quote:
From Thomas Jefferson's reply to being invited to the celebration in Washington of the 50th anniversary (1826) of the Declaration of Independence
May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.
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Cute - but the 4th is the day the final resolution was voted on and signed - on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain.[4][5]After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. Congress debated and revised the wording of the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4.
Submitted with all due respect to, and affection for, our Mr. Adams.
(The available clips with William Daniels had long bits leading up to the song.)
1776 one of my favorite movies. I have to break it out this weekend.
One of my favorite movies EVER! (Revealed: I am a total dork)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3TGbKfkwGA&feature=related
Really, really, really inaccurate, yet somehow captures and portrays some essential truths of the moment. For example, Rutledge sitting in silence until the last minute? Totally in accurate. The little git was harder to shut up than Adams. "Molasses to Rum?" More truth in that one song than in half a dozen Texas-approved history text books.
Yes, "Molasses to Rum" was a revelation to me, esp. in junior high when I first saw it. Years later, I saw that it was the guy from Northern Exposure singing it.
Historically, John Adams really overdid it in the God department. At the Massachusetts Ratification Convention he introduced a proposal to limit the voting electorate to Christians only. It was submitted and voted down by his fellow Massachusettsians overwhelmingly.
Mr. Adams was trumped by Convention Clerk Timothy Matlack who is given credit for preparing the manuscript. Mr. Matlack wrote the header IN REALLY LARGE SCRIPT and that script said July 4 the day the engrossed document approved July 2 was reviewed and ordered enrolled. When Mr. Adams wrote his letter on July 3 it is most probable he had not yet seen Mr. Matlock's rendering of the text or I doubt he would have said "July 2". So cuts Occams Razor.
Well now, as these quotes attest to, the founders were not atheists but they were smart enough to know that religion and Government should never mix.
This of course would befuddle those zealots who when they read quotes by Jefferson proclaiming a wall of separation should exist between the state and church. Zealots do not tolerate common sense.