There are two things I try to do every 4th of July: read the Declaration of Independence and watch the musical “1776”. 

The former is easily accomplished thanks to The New York Times, which helpfully publishes the full text every year (yes, I still get the hard copy delivered to my door).

In the text are the grievances that formed the impetus for so many of the protections later found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights: the tyrant King has quartered troops; deprived us “in many instances” of trial by jury; “made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries”; and so many others. It always gives me a shiver to read through the document.

I don’t always accomplish my second goal, but I’ve watched “1776” often enough that it’s running through my head anyway. A movie about the writing of and debate concerning the Declaration of Independence can sound boring: dozens of men in colonial dress standing around declaiming grand themes, leading inexorably to the predetermined outcome of a united declaration. Yet the musical manages to make that outcome feel as precarious as it truly was.

Teacher and Musician

Sherman Edwards, the composer and lyricist, was the man who came up with the idea. He had been a history teacher as well as a musician. His inspired notion was (1) to humanize the Founding Fathers, and show them to be the patriotic yet flawed, egotistical, ideologically fragmented individuals that they undoubtedly were, and (2) to make clear that the adoption of the Declaration of Independence was anything but a foregone conclusion. 

The tone is set in the first song. John Adams rises to move that the issue of independence be granted open debate. His colleagues respond, “Sit Down, John!” No one wants to listen to the “obnoxious and disliked” rabble-rouser from Massachusetts. Instead, they debate whether to open the windows to deal with the heat in Philadelphia, or to keep them closed to shut out the “too many flies.” Once Franklin persuades Adams to let Virginia and its well-liked delegate, Richard Henry Lee, propose independence, the process gets underway. 

But the process did not initially call for a declaration. Instead, there was simply to be a vote on the resolution for independence. That resolution is found at the end of the Declaration: “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; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”

Unanimity

Before there could be such a vote, however, the movie shows that a motion was made that the vote had to be unanimous. John Hancock broke the tie on the vote, siding with those who wanted unanimity. Although he was from Massachusetts and personally supported independence, as President of Congress, he saw that without unanimity, our country would be born at war with itself. The musical portrays the requirement of a Declaration to explain the resolution as a ploy to forestall the vote on the resolution, which at that point would have gone down to defeat. 

After Adams gets Jefferson to write the draft of the Declaration via the song “But Mr. Adams,” Jefferson is shown struggling to complete the document. When a week later Adams sees discarded drafts strewn about Jefferson’s floor, he exclaims, “Do you mean to tell me it is not yet finished?” Jefferson responds, “No, sir. I mean to say that it is not yet begun.” The incredulous Adams cries, “Good God! A whole week! The entire earth was created in a week!” to which Jefferson dryly replies, “Someday, you must tell me how you did it.”

The draft completed, the “report of the Declaration committee” is read to the Continental Congress. The original Broadway poster by Fay Gage contains the brilliant image of an eaglet waving a small American flag in its beak emerging from an egg emblazoned with the Union Jack. 

Apparently, this poster art inspired the song “The Egg,” and not vice versa. See https://broadwaydirect.com/triton-gallery-turns-50/. In that song, Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson are waiting in Independence Hall outside the congressional chamber while inside the initial draft of the Declaration is being read to the Continental Congress. Adams exclaims, “It’s a masterpiece, I say!/ They will cheer every word, every letter.” Jefferson demurs. Sherman Edwards lets Franklin “put it better” and propose the metaphor of the “egg.” All join in:

The eagle’s going to crack the shell
Of the egg that England laid
Yes, sir, we can tell, tell, tell
On this humid Monday morning in this
Congressional incubator [–] 
And just as Tom here has written
Though the shell may belong to Great Britain
The eagle inside belongs to us!

The three walk triumphantly into the chamber to hear the last words of the Declaration. Congress is struck dumb – for all of two seconds. Then the cacophony of calls for amendments pour out. Among them are the insertion of the words “in many cases” in the accusation of the King’s deprivation of trial by jury by a delegate who explains that that right has not been abridged in his state, Delaware. One of his fellow delegates from Delaware needles him, predicting the latter’s preening whenever he reads those words. I admit I always smile when I get to that passage in my annual reading of the Declaration.

Historically Accurate? 

The friction within the Delaware delegation was real. Caesar Rodney had absented himself from Philadelphia due to illness, and in his absence, the Delaware delegation was evenly divided on the issue of independence. The movie accurately shows that Mr. Rodney was brought back to Congress on an overnight ride to break the tie and deliver Delaware’s vote for independence. The musical also depicts a battle over the inclusion of any mention of slavery. The deletion of the slavery paragraph leads to the “yes” votes of the southern states. Surprisingly for those who have not studied the adoption of the Declaration or seen this musical, the Pennsylvania delegation – Franklin’s own – was fractured on the issue of independence. In the movie, only a poll of the delegates leads to the needed “yes” vote for passage of the Declaration.

Of course, the movie takes dramatic license, and those who treat it as a documentary do so at their peril. In the book Past Imperfect – History According to the Movies (1995), Thomas Fleming’s chapter on “1776” (pp. 90-93) highlights many of the movie’s historical inaccuracies. He points to the musical’s depiction of George Washington’s despairing dispatches to Congress concerning the Continental Army as anachronistic, as the despair did not set in until after the Battle of Long Island (a/k/a the Battle of Brooklyn) in August 1776. He also takes issue with the depiction of the personalities of several of the delegates (for example, pro-independence Richard Henry Lee was “[h]umorless, high-minded, intense,” not likely to “make endless puns on the name ‘Lee’” as he does in the song The Lees of Old Virginia). Mr. Fleming also quibbles with “the film’s handling of Jefferson’s relationship with his wife” and the invention of a visit to Philadelphia by Martha Jefferson.

Yet Mr. Fleming notes that the movie “gets a number of things right,” including “the confusion, hesitation, and conflict that raged among the Founding Fathers in the spring of 1776 as they wrestled with the question of whether to declare the independence of thirteen barely united American colonies or try one more time to achieve a reconciliation with Great Britain.” He finds that “1776” is at its best in the final scenes, which cover the first four days in July, when the vote on independence was debated. . . . The film combines the decision for independence on July 2 with the approval of Jefferson’s document on July 4, which were actually two distinct procedures, but this dramatic license is hardly objectionable.” He concludes, “1776” manages to convey the peculiar mix of bravado, wily politicking, and hard-headed courage that produced an epochal moment – and a historic document – that continues to reverberate around the world.”

Independence Hall

The movie ends with the (invented) scene of the characters signing the Declaration in Independence Hall on July 4, 1776, which leads into a beautiful tableau reminiscent of John Trumbull’s iconic painting of the Declaration of Independence in the Capitol Rotunda. Shivers galore.

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Editor’s note: The author, counsel in the New York office of Reed Smith LLP, is a former member of the Board of Editors of the Federal Bar Council Quarterly.