This coming Independence Day weekend will mark 240 years as a country. July 4th has in the past and will continue to be the date used to celebrate the day the United States gained independence, but why do we celebrate that day?

According to history.com: 

“July 2nd, the Continental Congress voted in favor of [Richard Henry] Lee’s resolution for independence in a near-unanimous vote (the New York delegation abstained, but later voted affirmatively). On that day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that July 2 “will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival” and that the celebration should include ‘Pomp and Parade…Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.’” 

Unfortunately, that date was not embraced, but Adams was correct about “pomp and parade.” 

As Americans we celebrate July 4th, because that was the day that our Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, even though the vote for actual independence took place on July 2nd. It was in 1870 that Congress made the 4th of July a federal holiday and in 1941 the holiday was approved as a paid-holiday to all federal employees. 

As you take this weekend to indulge with family, friends, and food—feel free. Pun intended there, I must admit, because as you celebrate in whichever way you can, celebrate because you can—in the true spirit of the Second and Fourth of July: “Pomp and Parade…Games, Sports…from one End of this Continent to the other.”