Ben Franklin said the man for the job was Jacky, and the Vatican consequently appointed John Carroll as the first archbishop in the United States.

10 Things You Should Know 

About the American Founding

by Bradley J. Birzer

On this Fourth of July, 238 years after Congress declared independence from the British Empire through the Declaration of Independence, it’s well worth reminding ourselves of a number of things about the Founding era.

In 1776, numerous individuals, families, committees, congregations, localities, and states had already proclaimed their independence, and almost no remaining imperial structure could continue to operate with any legitimacy in what would very soon become 13 states. By the very beginning of July of 1776, it became clear that members of Congress would have to catch up quickly to the more activist localities if they hoped to rein in the movement of independence before it got out of hand and splintered from lack of central direction and a coherent philosophy.

While the passage of the Declaration came on July 4, the members of the Second Continental Congress did not sign the venerable document until August 2.

Here are 10 facts about the American founding that are worth knowing and contemplating as our country celebrates its independence on the Fourth of July.

1. At the time of the passage and signing of the Declaration, roughly 2.15 million persons lived in the 13 colonies. Of those not enslaved, the vast majority was of Anglo-Saxon-Celtic descent and nearly 100 percent were Protestant.

2. Within Parliament and English governance, a debate had raged regarding the nature of the British Empire itself.

3. The first real cry against George III’s centralizing drive came from an unlikely source, lawyer James Otis (1725-83), in 1761. Interrupting a judicial trial, Otis gave a four-hour oration.

4. The level of education for Americans at the time was astounding.

5. The revolution was, therefore, not surprisingly, a “revolution prevented, not made,” as Burke explained it.

6. The first shots fired in what became the War for Independence were calculated to lead neither to a full-scale war nor to the independence of the colonies from her mother. I

7. The most important and stalwart defender of American liberties and American independence in Great Britain was Edmund Burke, one of the two greatest statesmen of the age.

8. A friend and disciple of Burke’s, Maryland’s Charles Carroll of Carrollton, was the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. Maryland had possessed the most anti-Catholic laws in the colonies prior to the War for Independence.

9. Maryland had not been the only place harboring anti-Catholic feelings in the colonies. Indeed, every colony had some form of anti-Catholic law, except for Pennsylvania.

10. None of this should suggest, however, that all Americans held anti-Catholic views.


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