The Fourth of July, officially “Independence Day,” is a paid federal holiday since 1938. Today, we know a great deal about the writing and publication of the Declaration of Independence. Less known are the circumstances and conditions surrounding it.
Once printed and distributed, as quickly as slow communications permitted, the Declaration became the political instrument in Colonial America. It added fuel and fire to the Revolution, underway since 1775, but still stalled and struggling.
The 56 politicians who signed the Declaration — from Georgia Button Gwinnett, George Walton and Lyman Hall — placed their lives and fortunes at grave risk. “If you strike at the King,” wrote Machiavelli, “you better kill him.” The Colonists and their revolutionary leaders had, indeed, struck at cordially hated King George III and his British Redcoat Army—the world’s best trained and best equipped.
The outcome was anything but certain. With no flag, no anthem, no capitol city and no president, the Colonists mounted a bloody insurrection aimed at overthrowing Britain’s deeply entrenched rules and laws.
Dangerous in the extreme, armed revolutions are not everyday occurrences. They demand of their perpetrators unique qualities of character and temperament, to wit: a total belief in their cause; unimpeachable integrity; unwavering courage and a capacity to cope with risks and privations. And it also requires political skills, a talent for creating and spreading propaganda and a willingness to employ force, armed or otherwise.
All are unmistakably present in the lives and times of history’s successful revolutionaries. Very few could qualify.
The astonishing fact is that tiny, rustic Colonial America produced a formidable contingent. They included superb public speakers, writers, organizers and men of action. In the main, they were educated and well read. Many were steeped in the writings of the period’s most influential political thinkers: John Locke of England and Montesquieu of France—author of The Spirit of the Laws.
Irrespective of the risks, however, and against all odds and obstacles the American Revolution triumphed. General George Washington, himself, later described the rag tag Continental Army’s victory over the British as “nothing short of a standing miracle.”
Two and a half centuries later the Declaration’s influence continues—here and around the world.
For who could forget a scene from Warsaw, during Poland’s uprising against Soviet Russia. An obscure mechanic stood on the roof of a car, surrounded by an enormous crowd. He was holding and reading from a paper that fluttered in a cold wind. It was the American Declaration of Independence.
• Retired attorney Jim Thomas lives in Atlanta. Email jmtlawyerspeak@ yahoo. com
