Why August 2nd?

From DAVID ZAVAGNO AND SARA SIEGLER

Every Fourth of July, Americans gather around grills and fireworks to celebrate the birthday of the United States. And rightly so. July 4th, 1776, was the day the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence – the day the idea of America was proclaimed to the world.

But another date deserves to stand alongside July 4 – perhaps even just ahead of it in our national memory: Aug. 2nd, 1776. It, too, deserves the patriotic pageantry, fun, and remembrance we enjoy each Fourth of July.

And for its 250th anniversary, we’re inviting all comers to join in the historic Lake Erie harbor town of Put-in-Bay for the two-day Heritage 250 Celebration on August 1st and 2nd. The weekend event’s Independence Day trappings will ring familiar: a parade, marching bands, family fun, and a grand fireworks show. Only the date in focus will be different.

After all, it was on August 2nd, 1776, that 56 delegates of the Continental Congress picked up quill pens and signed their names to the Declaration. In affixing their names to the now-familiar parchment, they ratified the most consequential document in the history of self-governance – and provided the Crown self-incriminating evidence of their high treason.

Their vote for independence a month earlier was, of course, monumental. Yet it was a collective action, with little documented accountability for the individuals present.

Physically signing the defiant document was a different thing altogether. The patriots understood the price. Delegate Benjamin Rush would later describe the signing as affixing their names to “our own death warrants.” Each signature was more than a historic record. It was a face, a name, an address, a family. It was a man standing before the world and saying, “I did this. Come find me.”

In England, conviction for high treason was the ultimate capital offense, with the ultimate punishment. A disloyal man was turned into a terrifying example for other would-be seditionists – by being hanged, then drawn and quartered, in public fashion.

And the British did come for the signers. A dozen had their homes ransacked or burned. Francis Lewis of New York watched his Long Island estate destroyed; his wife was captured and later died from the ordeal. John Hart of New Jersey fled through forests and caves as soldiers swept his farm and shattered his household. Richard Stockton of New Jersey was captured and imprisoned; his health never fully recovered. These were concrete costs.

The incendiary document they signed was itself a work of craft. Timothy Matlack, a Philadelphia brewer and patriotic firebrand, hand-copied onto parchment the printed Declaration. His elegant copperplate script turned revolutionary philosophy and an itemized list of royal offenses into an enduring national artifact.

The Declaration’s closing words are not often quoted in full, but they should be. “With a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,” the ratifiers pledged to each other “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Their bold signatures formalized a new covenant among citizens, across time, with the idea of America itself.

July 4th is the birthday of that idea. August 2nd is the day those men bled the idea into history with their own names and when defied and dared the full weight of the British empire.

Neither date can be forgotten. Both deserve celebration. Together they tell us who we were meant to be – and what it still costs, in every generation, to live up to that.

Zavagno and Siegler are principals with The Lake Erie Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit presenting the Heritage 250 Celebration Aug. 1st and 2nd.