When is Independence Day?
Well, it’s July 4th, but you could say that it’s really July 2nd. That’s the day when the Continental Congress actually voted to become independent. (Actually, they voted that they already were “Free and Independent States”.) John Adams, who had been working for quite a while to get Congress to declare independence, wrote:
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.
So why don’t we celebrate July 2nd? Because of the Declaration of Independence. The things said in the Declaration are a whole lot more inspiring and famous than simply a vote saying that the colonies were independent of Great Britain. And the Declaration was finished (though not signed) on July 4th.
So which day is the real Independence Day? Take your pick; it doesn’t really matter. After all, it’s really the independence that should be celebrated, not just the day.
Source: “John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed April 11, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0016. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 2, June 1776 – March 1778, ed. L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 29–33.]
Note: “Epocha” means “a memorable event or date”.