I can’t believe the state of education these days. It seems that schools are more interested in teaching kids that men can have babies and kids have the right to choose their gender. They need to focus on more important things. I just found out that it is estimated that about 40 percent of Americans do not know that July 4 is actually the day this country declared independence from the United Kingdom.
I do want to clarify something that confuses many people. I asked an actual Englishman this question. What is the difference between being British and being English? He told me that Great Britain is the name of the island, not of any particular country. If you were born in England, Scotland, or Wales, you are British, but to call yourself English, you have to have been born in England. He also told me the flag we associate with Great Britain, the Union Jack is the flag of Great Britain. Each of the three countries – including England – has their own separate flag.
Anyway, our schools need to be teaching our kids important things, and not the nonsense they are passing off as education these days. For example, about 15 percent of our school kids don’t know that during the American Revolution, the legal separation of the thirteen colonies from Great Britain in 1776 actually occurred on July 2, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain’s rule. After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by the Committee of Five, which asked Thomas Jefferson to author its first draft.
While Jefferson consulted extensively with the other four members of the Committee of Five, he largely wrote the Declaration of Independence in isolation over 17 days between June 11, 1776, and June 28, 1776, from the second floor he was renting in a three-story private home at 700 Market Street in Philadelphia, now known as the Declaration House, and within walking distance of Independence Hall.
Congress debated and revised the wording of the Declaration, removing Jefferson’s vigorous denunciation of King George III for importing the slave trade, finally approving it two days later on July 4.
A day earlier, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail:
The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch 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 shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.
Adams’s prediction was off by two days. From the outset, Americans celebrated independence on July 4, the date shown on the much-publicized Declaration of Independence, rather than on July 2, the date the resolution of independence was approved in a closed session of Congress.
Historians have long disputed whether members of Congress signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, even though Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all later wrote that they had signed it on that day. Most historians have concluded that the Declaration was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is commonly believed.
By a remarkable coincidence, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the only two signatories of the Declaration of Independence later to serve as presidents of the United States, both died on the same day: July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. Although not a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, James Monroe, another Founding Father who was elected president, also died on July 4, 1831, making him the third President who died on the anniversary of independence. The only U.S. president to have been born on Independence Day was Calvin Coolidge, who was born on July 4, 1872.
Well, that’s about all for this report. Stay safe and hail victory!
Dan Schneider
Deputy Chairman
American Nazi Party