PHILADELPHIA—On a hot, muggy day, July 2 to be precise, around 60 men sitting inside Independence Hall in Philadelphia voted unanimously to declare independence from the British Empire. The official Declaration of Independence, dated July 4, would eventually be signed by the 56 representatives of the newly formed United States, spurring an independence ripple effect around the world that would continue to our day. 

This Declaration was something that was extremely well thought out and was met with great elation and consternation by those at home and abroad, but the men and women involved in the process were people of outstanding conviction. The Declaration itself is a work of supreme eloquence, but in the years that followed the Founding Fathers and Mothers of the American Revolution would stand behind those words to the last. 

Many are already familiar with what John Adams, the second president of the United States, and one of the driving forces behind independence, said about fireworks, and the celebration of Independence Day. However, Adams had more to say in that letter to his wife:

“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 (sic.) in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”

Abigail, John Adam’s wife, and another ardent patriot was no less enthusiastic in her support of the great undertaking. She was, as well, a very early suffragist, and pleaded with her husband, whom she called her “Dearest Friend,” to not forget women in early documentation of the country:

“I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

While Martha Washington, this nation’s first First Lady, didn’t have many recorded words on independence, or the revolution, her words of encouragement, which must have resounded in the mind of an embattled George Washington, speak volumes to her optimism and determination to see things through:

“I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.”

Finally, George Washington himself, a veteran of many wars, and the first president of the United States of America, in his farewell address in 1796 said, among other things, “You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.”

It seems clear that those involved with the Revolution wanted future generations to understand that this wasn’t a whim, it didn’t happen overnight, and it certainly wasn’t easy. It was a herculean task, it was a massive undertaking, and it wasn’t, and isn’t guaranteed. Benjamin Franklin was famously quoted as saying that the Constitution had granted the American people “A republic…if you can keep it,” and it behooves the American people to do just that: to keep it.