From INDEPENDENCE, by John Ferling:
The broadside containing the Declaration of Independence, which Congress ordered on July 4, hit the streets of Philadelphia the next day...On July 6 the Declaration appeared in a newspaper, the Philadelphia Evening Post.
Congress set Monday, July 8, for the official celebration of independence in Philadelphia. The festivities, attended by "a great Crowd of People" in the State House yard, kicked off at eleven a.m., when nine Pennsylvania soldiers ripped the royal crest from above the entrance to the State House and committed it to a roaring bonfire. Next, a member of Pennsylvania's Committee of Safety read the Declaration of Independence. One resident noted in his diary that the Declaration was "received with general applause and heart-felt satisfaction"...throughout that day and into the night, bells at the State House and in every church steeple across the city rang out joyously. As night descended, bonfires were set and many Philadelphians celebrated by putting a lighted candle in every window in their homes.
By the day of Philadelphia's celebration, printed copies of the Declaration of Independence had already reached towns as far as seventy-five miles from the city. Thereafter, slowly but inexorably, the text appeared in handbills and newspapers in great towns and small. More than a month after July 4, word of the Declaration of Independence at last reached Savannah and its environs, among the last places in America where the citizenry learned that they were living in a new nation free of all links to Great Britain.
Public ceremonies were held in many villages and cities, always at a central location—the commons, the courthouse, a city square, or around the Liberty Pole...in most places, church bells pealed during the festivities, militia companies paraded, occasionally a few rounds of artillery were fired, clergy prayed and sometimes sermonized, dignitaries spoke, and a man of strong voice—in rural areas it was frequently the sheriff—read the Declaration of Independence...
Independence was well received everywhere. New Jersey's authorities reported that whereas the citizenry had been confused about fighting the king's army while professing loyalty to the Crown, the break with Great Britain had given "a great turn to the minds of our people...Heart and hand shall [now] move together." George Washington expressed similar sentiments, adding that he thought it might make his soldiers act with greater "Fidelity and Courage," as they knew that henceforth they would be fighting for their own country. Congress learned from state authorities in New Hampshire that the Declaration of Independence had transformed the thinking of many who only months before had been "greatly averse to anything that looked like independence." A soldier at Fort Ticonderoga said that independence had been "well relished in this part of the world." Abigail Adams noted that "every face appeared joyfull" in the crowd that heard the document read in Boston.
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From THE RADICALISM OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, by Gordon Wood:
The American Revolution was very different from other revolutions. But it was no less radical and no less social for being different. In fact it was one of the greatest revolutions the world has known, a momentous upheaval that not only fundamentally altered the character of American society but decisively affected the course of subsequent history.
In destroying monarchy and establishing republics [American revolutionaries] were changing their society as well as their government, and they knew it. Only they did not know—they could scarcely have imagined—how much of their society they would change.
These changes were radical, and they were extensive. To focus, as we are today apt to do, on what the Revolution did not accomplish—highlighting and lamenting its failure to abolish slavery and change fundamentally the lot of women—is to miss the great significance of what it did accomplish; indeed, the Revolution made possible the anti-slavery and women's rights movements of the nineteenth century and in fact all our current egalitarian thinking. The Revolution not only radically changed the personal and social relationships of people, including the position of women, but it destroyed aristocracy as it had been understood in the Western world for at least two millennia. The Revolution brought respectability and even dominance to ordinary people long held in contempt and gave dignity to their menial labor in a manner unprecedented in history and to a degree not equaled elsewhere in the world. The Revolution did not just eliminate monarchy and create republics; it actually reconstituted what Americans meant by public or state power and brought about an entirely new kind of popular politics a new kind of democratic officeholder. The Revolution not only changed the culture of Americans—making over their art, architecture, and iconography—but even altered their understanding of history, knowledge, and truth. Most important, it made the interests and prosperity of ordinary people—their pursuit of happiness—the goal of society and government. The Revolution did not merely create a political and legal environment conducive to economic expansion; it also released powerful popular entrepreneurial energies that few realized existed and transformed the economic landscape of the country.
In short, the Revolution was the most radical and far-reaching event in American history.
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