What a declaration, what a day

By: JOHN VAN DOORN --- Staff Writer | Wednesday, July 4, 2007 11:18 AM PDT ∞

Our Declaration of Independence remains as remarkable today as when it was written; what other nation came into being by declaring itself a nation independent of colonial rule?

When independence was actually "declared," that is to say, on July 2, 3 or 4 ---- or on some other date ---- has remained in scholarly dispute among historians these 230 years.

Observer offers today a sampling of what some well-known Americans thought of the Declaration and of the Fourth of July itself as a holiday.

First up is John Adams of Massachusetts, who, with Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston and Benjamin Franklin, was a member of the committee appointed by Congress to write the Declaration. Adams wrote this letter, since become famous, on July 3, 1776, to his wife, Abigail.

"The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. 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. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not."

("The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784," Harvard University Press, 1975, 142).

Adams of course eventually became president, as did his great rival, Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson later wrote many times about the document, its origins, its meaning and its importance in a voice so eloquent that none has equaled it.

One of the most poignant letters he wrote on the subject was his last. He had been invited to participate in a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He wrote to Roger Weightman in Washington, D.C., that he could not attend ---- he was gravely ill and died soon thereafter ---- but in that letter he said of the document:

"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be ... the signal of arousing men to burst the chains ... 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. ... For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."

At the time of the writing, it had generally been expected that Franklin would be the author because of his national, even international, reputation as, among other things, a gifted writer. Jefferson later was reported to have said that had Franklin been given the task, the document would have been too full of jokes.

Indeed, once it was signed, Franklin was quoted this way: "We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately."

There are ten thousand times ten thousand memorable utterances about the Declaration, some more memorable and rewarding to read than others.

Most are quite serious. For that reason alone, we close this small presentation with an observation by the late humorist Erma Bombeck, who, had she thrived in a just monarchy would surely have been Queen for Life:

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism."

Contact columnist John Van Doorn at (760) 739-6647 or jvandoorn@nctimes.com.