John Adams got it wrong

On June 7, 1776, a Virginia planter named Richard Henry Lee rose in the Continental Congress and read three sentences.

"Resolved, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

John Adams seconded the motion.

This is the motion you do not learn about in school. It does not have its own holiday. There are no fireworks tied to it. But this, not the Declaration of Independence, is the moment the colonies actually voted to become a country.

The debate was bitter. New York wasn't ready. Pennsylvania wasn't ready. The Middle Colonies, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, hadn't given their delegates permission to vote for independence. The Carolinas were lukewarm. Only Virginia and New England were unequivocal.

So Congress did what Congress does. It tabled it.

The vote on Lee's resolution was postponed until July 1, to give the holdout colonies three weeks to instruct their delegations. Meanwhile, on June 11, a five-man committee was appointed to draft a written justification of independence, in case the vote went the right way. The committee was Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert Livingston of New York. Jefferson did the writing. The others edited.

On July 2, the Lee Resolution passed. Twelve colonies voted yes. New York abstained, then voted yes two weeks later.

That was the day.

John Adams sat down that night to write his wife. "The second day of July, 1776," he told Abigail, "will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America… It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

He was right about everything except the date.

The Declaration of Independence, Jefferson's drafted justification, was adopted two days later, on July 4. Newspapers printed it. Riders carried it. The text became the famous one. The Lee Resolution, the motion that did the actual work, got moved into a footnote.

The two-day gap is a strange piece of American memory. The decision and the announcement of the decision were not the same act. We celebrate the announcement.

That is a useful lesson about how history actually works. The moment of choice and the moment we remember are rarely the same moment.

Rising Sons is set eleven years before this, in 1765, when none of the men who would later sign the Declaration had yet had to choose.

Richard Henry Lee was thirty-three that year, already a Virginia burgess, writing pamphlets against the Stamp Act. John Adams was thirty, practicing law in Boston, five years from defending the British soldiers at the Massacre. Samuel Adams was running town meetings. None of them yet knew which way they would go.

The book is about that earlier moment, when the men who would later have to choose had not yet had to.

It launches in four weeks. July 7.

One small thing this week. I built a quiz. Two minutes, eight scenarios, four possible answers about who you would have been in 1765 Boston. It's at joewearmouth.com/quiz. Take it if you want. Let me know where you fell!

More soon.

- Joe