Everything You Should Know About INDEPENDENCE DAY in the United States
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Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis.

Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. We're doing something special today. I thought it would be fun to do an Independence Day special. So we'll talk about how Independence Day came to be, what the holiday signifies, some 4th of July traditions, fun facts.

all the things just because of my travel schedule and just the way the holiday kind of lined up with the episode. I figured why not do this? We'll have fun with it, but it'll still be educational. So let's get into it. Starting with a little bit of history. So Independence Day, also known as the 4th of July, is the day that the founding fathers officially declared through the ratification of the Declaration of Independence that the 13 colonies were no longer subject to the King of Britain. Now,

A couple of things to note here, important things. Number one, it was actually July 2nd that Congress declared the United States independent from England. And we'll talk about why we don't celebrate on July 2nd and instead celebrate on July 4th, but that's worth noting. The second thing is that the United States wasn't actually formally recognized as an independent nation until seven years after the ratification of the Declaration of Independence. So we have a lot to talk about in this episode.

We're going to start off in the 1700s when Britain was the world's superpower, right? Its empire stretched across continents, including here in the United States, but it wasn't the United States at the time. It was just 13 British colonies that stretched along the eastern seaboard of North America.

And the 13 original colonies included New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. So although these colonies were in North America, they were actually governed by British colonial officials and, you know, subject to the authority of the king and parliament.

This setup, it worked while it did. But then the French and Indian Wars happened. And when they ended in 1763, things started to change. Britain's national debt had basically doubled because of the wars. And Parliament decided that it was a good idea to tax the American colonies to help pay for the cost of their defense, right? Right.

Now, Parliament first passed taxes like the Stamp Act of 1765, which taxed printed materials and required colonists to buy a government stamp for every single piece of paper they used, whether that was newspapers, legal documents, playing cards, anything. Now, colonists were frustrated by this because they had no one representing their interests in Parliament, and that is where the phrase, "'No taxation without representation' came from."

Parliament eventually repealed the Stamp Act, but it passed other taxes like the Townshend Acts, which placed taxes on things like glass, lead, and tea. And this, of course, only led to more boycotts and protests. And eventually, tensions reached a breaking point in March 1770. During a protest, British soldiers fired on a crowd in Boston and five colonists died. If you've ever heard of the Boston Massacre, that's what that was.

Three years later, Parliament passes the Tea Act. Now, this was a law designed to bail out the struggling British East India Company, which had huge debts and also a warehouse full of unsold tea. So the law let the company sell directly to the American colonies at lower prices. And technically, under the law, the tea itself was cheaper for buyers in the colonies, but it carried the old tax under the Townshend Act.

To the colonists, this seemed like kind of a sneaky move because Parliament was basically saying, hey, here's some cheap tea. You just have to pay the small tax, right? But to colonists, it actually wasn't so much about the price. It was about the principle. If colonists bought the cheaper tea, they'd be accepting Parliament's right to tax them. And that's the very thing that they had been protesting for years, being taxed without having a say.

So in December 1773, a group of colonists dressed up as Mohawk Indians boarded ships in the Boston Harbor and dumped more than 90,000 pounds, 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. And this, of course, became known as the Boston Tea Party. And the whole purpose was to ensure that no one bought the tea, right?

In response to the Boston Tea Party, and of course, aside from no one buying the tea, it was meant to send a message. So in response to the Boston Tea Party, Britain cracked down even harder with the coercive acts or what the colonists called the intolerable acts.

In these acts, they closed the Boston Harbor until the tea was paid for. They restricted local government in the colonies. They said that if a British soldier or official was accused of committing a crime in the colonies while enforcing British law, they could actually be sent back to Britain to stand trial instead of facing trial locally. And the British government did this because, according to them, local juries were too biased.

Interestingly enough, just a few years before that, during the Boston Massacre, the British soldiers that fired into the crowd and killed five colonists, they were put on trial in Boston, and most were actually acquitted. John Adams was the one that defended them. Little fun fact for you. So although Britain was saying the local juries were too biased, and maybe they were, obviously between the time of the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party and the coercive acts or the intolerable acts,

You know, tensions only continue to grow. So that could have been true. Who knows? But regardless, these new laws only fueled resentment because to colonists, it basically meant that British officials could break the law and get away with it because they would just be sent back to Britain. Right. So in 1774, colonists formed what was the First Continental Congress. And this brought together representatives from the colonies to coordinate some sort of response to what was going on.

And they petitioned King George III for relief. Tension only got worse because King George basically just ignored them.

and in april 1775 british troops then tried to take colonial weapons what does that do obviously it increases the tension even more and this led to armed conflict in lexington massachusetts as well as in concord massachusetts these battles later became known as the battles of lexington and concord they were the first military engagements of what became the american revolutionary war which lasted just over eight years

The month after the battles of Lexington and Concord in May of 1775, while the American Revolution was just getting started, the Second Continental Congress got together in Philadelphia at Independence Hall. At that meeting, they debated whether complete independence was even the right move. Some wanted reconciliation. In fact, when the Revolutionary War first broke out,

colonists did not want complete independence from Great Britain. Those who did want complete independence were actually seen as radicals. So

So a little bit of time passes, and by the middle of 1776, a lot of colonists had changed their mind. And this was in part because of the growing hostility between, you know, the colonies and Britain, but also because of Thomas Paine's famous pamphlet, Common Sense, which advocated for independence in language that everyday people could understand.

Common Sense actually sold more than 100,000 copies in the first few months, which were obviously huge numbers for that time. So at this point, more and more people were coming around to the idea of independence. And the Second Continental Congress had been debating the issue of complete independence for more than a year. So on June 7th, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution calling for the colony's independence.

And Congress actually postponed the vote on Lee's resolution, but they did appoint a five-member committee to draft a formal declaration justifying their independence from Britain. And Thomas Jefferson, who was only 33 years old at the time, he wrote most of it within two weeks. But people like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and the other two members of this five-person committee helped to edit the declarations.

The committee presented the declaration to Congress on June 28th, 1776. And on July 2nd, Congress voted in favor of the Declaration of Independence. And a little fun fact for you, that congressional vote was almost unanimous. So the New York delegation abstained from the vote, but later voted affirmatively. But when that vote actually took place, it wasn't unanimous simply because of the New York delegation abstaining.

Notably, after the vote in favor of the Declaration of Independence, Congress proceeded to make a few edits to it. And it wasn't until two days later on July 4th that it formally adopted the Declaration of Independence and signed the Declaration of Independence. With that adoption, the United States were now the United States. They were no longer 13 British colonies and they were no longer subject to the control of the king.

I think this is a really good time to take a quick break. When we come back, we will talk about the declaration itself, the first 4th of July celebrations, and more. Whenever we shop online, it sometimes feels like our packages just magically show up on our doorstep, right? Sometimes we even forget that we ordered something and then all of a sudden it's just there. But if you run an e-commerce business, you know shipping is not magic. In fact, you know it's far from magic.

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Welcome back. So before we took a break, the Second Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776. Now keep in mind, back then, they didn't have access to instantaneous news, right? So after Congress approved the Declaration, the first official printed copies were made by a Philadelphia printer named John Dunlap. There were about 200 copies made, which today are known as the Dunlap broadsides. And these broadsides were

were when they were printed, they were distributed to the 13 states, they were printed in local newspapers, and they were read aloud in town squares. Copies also went to George Washington, who read it to the army to boost morale during the Revolutionary War, because the Revolutionary War was still very much going on. As the document was read in town squares, bells rang, cannons fired, and the rest, as they say, is history.

So now that we have that historical context, I want to talk about the actual declaration. The Declaration of Independence has four parts. The introduction, which is also known as the preamble, the statement of rights and principles of government, a long list of things that they did not like about the king and how he had violated the colonist rights, and then finally the resolution of independence.

The whole declaration is not that long. It's only about 1,300 words. So starting with the preamble, it's really just a short opening statement. It essentially says that when a group of people decide to break away from their own country, they should explain their reasons to the rest of the world. So that's the preamble, the introduction.

Part two, the statement of rights and the purpose of the government, is where the most famous line of the whole declaration can be found. And that line is, quote,

End quote. So that line basically rejected the idea that kings automatically get their power from God. Instead, as it reads, power should come from the people. And Jefferson was saying that governments exist to protect people's basic rights, rights like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And he argued that people aren't free just because the king says they are. They're free by nature. That freedom is a basic human right. And if a government does not protect those basic rights, people have the right to change the government or get rid of the government altogether.

Part three of the declaration is that list of grievances. This also happens to be the longest part of the declaration. So this tells you how much they hated the king. There are 27 grievances in total, but here are some examples. The king got rid of colonial legislatures when they disagreed with him. The king kept a standing army in the colonies during times of peace, which made people feel occupied and threatened. He

He imposed taxes without the colony's consent. He cut off trade and blocked new laws that colonies tried to pass. And he ignored their pleas for fair treatment. And then finally, the last part of the declaration ends by stating that the colonies were free and independent.

Jefferson wrote in part, quote,

End quote. So,

Those were the lines that officially separated the colonies from the king. Jefferson effectively broke up with the king in writing that. Now, how did the 4th of July become the 4th of July that we know today with all of the celebrations and hot dogs and fireworks and all the things?

The first Independence Day celebration took place on July 4th, 1777 in Philadelphia, which is one year from the official adoption of the Declaration and in the city in which the Declaration was signed. The city was decorated with candles and banners. People rang church bells. Ships in the harbor were decorated with red, white, and blue bunting. The ships fired a 13-gun salute in honor of the 13 colonies. There was a public dinner for members of

Congress and other important citizens. There was music, you know, bonfires, speeches, and even fireworks. So, you know, that really kicked off the July 4th celebration, but these celebrations continued annually. In fact, the very next year in 1778, George Washington issued double rations of rum to all of his soldiers to celebrate because, again, they were still in the midst of that Revolutionary War.

And in 1781, Massachusetts became the first state to recognize July 4th as a state holiday. Then once the Revolutionary War officially ended two years later in 1783, Independence Day became a more important patriotic tradition nationwide. And then during the War of 1812, when the U.S. fought Britain again,

July 4th kind of took on this extra significance as a symbol of national unity. So it just became more and more important in those first 30 years or so.

In 1870, almost 100 years after the declaration was signed, Congress made Independence Day an official federal holiday. And eventually in 1938, it became a paid holiday for federal employees. And today, July 4th, is the most widely celebrated non-religious holiday in the United States.

Let's finish this episode with some fun facts, which is always my favorite part. Starting with the first one, three U.S. presidents have died on July 4th. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe. But it gets even crazier because Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the only two signers of the Declaration of Independence who later went on to become presidents...

both died on the same day, July 4th, 1826, which is also exactly 50 years after the Declaration was signed. Speaking of John Adams, John Adams actually thought July 2nd would be celebrated as Independence Day because that's the day the Declaration was actually voted on. So he wrote to his wife in a letter. He wrote, quote, "'The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epic in the history of America.'"

End quote.

Next one, historians have long disputed whether members of Congress actually signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th. Even though Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin did all later write that they did sign it on that day, most historians think that the Declaration was actually signed a month after its adoption on August 2nd, 1776, and not on July 4th, as commonly believed.

Benjamin Franklin was the oldest delegate to sign the Declaration at 70 years old. The youngest delegate was Edward Rutledge at 26 years old. While it is believed that there were 200 original copies of the Declaration of Independence printed by that American printer John Dunlap, today there are only 26 known copies floating around.

Did you know that we have a flag code here in the United States? It sets the guidance for how the flag is to be designed, treated, displayed, used in advertising, and much more. As an example, section 8 of the flag code discusses respect for the flag. It says the flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.

It says the flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, or water. And it says the flag should never be used as a covering for a ceiling or be worn as an article of clothing, used as bedding, or drapery. Now listen, the flag code is not binding, so you won't be punished if you don't abide by it. But if you're interested in reading it, it is an interesting read. I do have it linked for you in the sources section of this episode.

The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia is famously associated with Independence Day, but there is no evidence that it was actually rung on July 4th, 1776. That story became popular in the 1800s, but no one knows for sure.

The largest fireworks display in the United States is usually the Macy's 4th of July fireworks in New York City. They use more than 75,000 shells and it lasts about 25 minutes. The oldest 4th of July parade is held in Bristol, Rhode Island. That parade started in 1785.

And now let's finish with some numbers. So Americans buy about 150 million hot dogs every 4th of July. They spend about $9 billion on food, more than $4 billion on beer and wine, and close to $3 billion on fireworks. And that is the end of the Independence Day special. Thank you so much for being here for another episode of Unbiased Politics. Have a fantastic holiday weekend, and I will talk to you soon.

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