As America gets ready to celebrate its 250th birthday, Congress is taking a road trip back to the place where it all began — Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
Led by Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Brendan F. Boyle, members will gather for a ceremonial event Thursday in his hometown, an effort Boyle said was two years in the making.
“This is going to be truly one of the highlights of my tenure in Congress, to be sitting there where our Founding Fathers sat exactly 250 years prior, to the exact day,” Boyle said, adding he hoped it could be a rare “unifying moment.”
While July 4 gets most of the fanfare, Boyle said its lesser-known neighbor, July 2, deserves more attention as the day the Second Continental Congress voted to declare independence from Great Britain in 1776.
“It was always the date that John Adams thought would be celebrated as America’s birthday. Unfortunately, this was another instance in which Adams lost to [Thomas] Jefferson — because Americans came to, of course, celebrate two days later the Fourth of July, which is the date Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence,” he said.
