The Fourth of July

It is a human providence that scatters the holidays around so conveniently on the calendar. The American summer has three days to mark its phases – Memorial Day to signal its beginning, the Fourth of July to mark the start of high summer, and Labor Day to bring it to a gentle close.

Of these three, the first and third were invented and bestowed upon the year by government fiat, and even the Fourth is somewhat arbitrary.

The continental Congress actually declared that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be Free and Independent States" on July 2, 1776, and on the Fourth merely voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence, which was publicly read in the yard of the Pennsylvania statehouse in Philadelphia on July eighth.

It was not copied onto parchment and signed by the delegates in attendance until August second, and the last of the 56 signatories, Thomas McKean of Delaware, did not affix his name before 1777.

The first anniversary of the Fourth of July was celebrated that year in Philadelphia, with parades and oratory and fireworks and the ringing of bells, and the custom spread and has lasted.

This most American of holidays serves to remind us, if we care, that our founding fathers, wearing wigs and ... lace-trimmed frockcoats, met and debated in a fearful sweat, and delicately and artfully stitched together our national fabric amid the muggy, buggy heat of a Philadelphia summer before air-conditioning and pesticides.