LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/wires/20010702/tCB00V3129.html
Monday, July 2, 2001
225th Anniversary of Independence
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON-- When Thomas Jefferson held the first Independence Day
celebration at the White House 200 years ago this week, he underscored the
fervent prediction made by John Adams in July 1776.
Adams was convinced that the day the United States declared
independence would be remembered with celebrations and "illuminations from
one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever
more."
This year, on the 225th anniversary of independence, as rockets
flash-freeze the Washington Monument in bolts of patriotic light, Adams'
prediction stands unchallenged.
The fact that Jefferson, the declaration's author, and Adams, its
foremost advocate, both died on its 50th anniversary, July 4, 1826,
cemented the date in the national mind.
In 1831, former President Monroe, one of the last of the
revolutionary generation, also died on the Fourth of July, "opening his
eyes when the noise of firing began at midnight," it was written.
Over 225 years the celebration has been marked by fireworks, cannon
salutes, the blasting of ship horns and the pealing of church bells, band
concerts, parades, orations, political rallies and the re-enactment of
battles.
An extraordinary compilation of the events of the Fourth of July has
been assembled by James R. Heintze, a librarian at American University.
Posted on the university's Web site, it includes an ongoing effort to
document where presidents were and exactly what they did on each
Independence Day.
On July 4, 1861, for example, President Lincoln reported to Congress
on Confederate defiance of the national government's insistence on
continuing the Union. He reviewed 29 Army regiments newly arrived from New
York. And he raised the Stars and Stripes to the top of a 100 -foot
flagstaff.
Two years later, as news tumbled in of the decisive Union victory at
Gettysburg and the fall of the Confederate fortress at Vicksburg, Miss.,
Lincoln postponed his Independence Day remarks until July 7.
On the Fourth of July, Lincoln said, "the enemies of the declaration
that all men are created equal had to turn tail and run."
The celebration of Independence Day was suspended through most of the
South after the Civil War. Its gradual restoration over the next 40 years
marked the growing reconciliation between the two formerly warring
sections.
Daniel Webster, the future senator and secretary of state, delivered
the first of his many Fourth of July orations in 1800 as a student at
Dartmouth College. He gave his last in 1851 at the laying of the
cornerstone of an expanded U.S. Capitol, imploring his country not to
abandon the federal Union.
President Polk presided in 1848 over the laying of the cornerstone of
the Washington Monument. Like so many American ceremonies marking new
beginnings, it was held on the Fourth of July.