Was July 1 really America's Independence Day? Peter de Bolla, writing in The Fourth of July, offers a very different version of America's actual birthday:"Many of those present recognized that by the end of Monday, July 1, 1776, the resolution was fait accompli. This was certainly the view of of the man who is said to have cast the first vote for independence, Josiah Bartlett, a physician from New Hampshire. He had written from Philadelphia to John Langdon on 1 July: 'The affair of Independency has been the day determined in a Committe of the Whole; by next post I expect you will receive a formal declaration of the reasons . . .' So a case could be mounted for proposing 1 July as the significant punctual moment, especially given the fact that notwithstanding the secrecy which surrounded the deliberations of the Committee of the whole, it would appear that the entire city was aware what was happening."
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