Res. No. 1012

Resolution designating July 2 annually in the City of New York as Freedom Day to commemorate the anniversary of the vote of the Second Continental Congress to declare independence from Great Britain in 1776.

By Council Members Ariola, Marmorato, Morano, Holden and Carr

Whereas, On July 2, 1776, the members of the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and voted unanimously to approve a resolution submitted by delegate Richard Henry Lee of Virginia that declared “[t]hat 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

Whereas, Second Continental Congress delegate John Adams wrote then that he believed that July 2 would “be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival” and that 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”; and

Whereas, After the vote on July 2, the delegates began to edit the draft of a document that was designed to explain their actions to the public and that was originally written by the Committee of Five, consisting of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston of New York, who did not stay in Philadelphia to sign the finished document, but later, after serving in many official capacities, administered the oath of office to President George Washington in New York City; and

Whereas, The delegates took two days to edit the document, whose primary author became Thomas Jefferson, and approved the final version of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776; and

Whereas, Subsequently, 56 individuals from state delegations signed the Declaration of Independence; and

Whereas, The signers representing New York were William Floyd, a 41-year-old land speculator born in Brookhaven, New York; Philip Livingston, a 60-year-old merchant born in Albany, New York; Lewis Morris, a 50-year-old plantation owner born in West Chester County, New York; and Francis Lewis, a 63-year-old wealthy merchant and political radical, born in Wales, whose Whitestone, Queens, estate was pillaged and whose wife was imprisoned by the British during the Revolutionary War after the Battle of Brooklyn in August, 1776; and

Whereas, For many years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, there were arguments between the Federalists and the Republicans over how to celebrate the nation’s independence until the Federalists lost power in the early 1800s; and

Whereas, In a June 24, 1826, letter to Washington, D.C., Mayor Roger Weightman and the last letter that Thomas Jefferson ever wrote, Jefferson remarked on the importance of the anniversary of the declaration of the colonies’ independence, saying “[f]or ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them”; and

Whereas, Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died days later on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the nation’s independence; and

Whereas, It is fitting that July 2, the date of the original vote, be celebrated along with the traditional July 4 holiday as the birthday of an independent United States; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York designates July 2 annually in the City of New York as Freedom Day to commemorate the anniversary of the vote of the Second Continental Congress to declare independence from Great Britain in 1776.

LS #20089

7/17/2025

RHP