It is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration and the founding of the nation, so it is an opportune time to revisit this momentous event. I have found that very few people have actually read the Declaration of Independence—most especially those in elected office. Having taught it for years, I spent the early part of my career writing about what the textbooks get wrong. We generally do a very poor job as historians and textbook authors in telling the story of the Declaration.

For example, we celebrate July 4th as Independence Day, but it was actually July 2nd when they voted for independence. On July 3rd, John Adams wrote his wife Abigail a letter saying that generations of Americans for all of history to come would be celebrating July 2nd as Independence Day. Poor John Adams. Congress approved it on July 4th, but July 2nd is the true Independence Day.

We also know little about the writing of it. Thomas Jefferson spent seventeen days in a second-story loft at the Graff House in Philadelphia working on the draft. He gets all the credit, but a good chunk of the Declaration was removed or added largely by Ben Franklin. By any objective measure, Franklin's edits were considerable upgrades to Jefferson's work. Yet Jefferson complained that Franklin mangled his genius, and he spent much of the rest of his life whining and complaining about it. But it was Franklin's work that made it a vastly better document. 

If you could take a time machine and go back to 1775, or even June of 1776, and talk to the founders and talk to people, you'd find that the lion's share of them favored reconciliation, not what they called independency. It was almost a "Hail Mary," fourth-quarter kind of thing—a very unlikely scenario. These are just some of the big stories that we get wrong and don't seem to have a good understanding of as a nation. What better time to revisit this than now, as we celebrate or commemorate the 250th anniversary?

Ongoing thread. More from Robert P. Watson to follow.