Thirty-three members were sworn in when the United States Semiquincentennial Commission first organized in 2018.
The members took their oaths at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on November 16, 2018. Holding the first organizing meeting at that landmark linked the commission’s modern planning work with the place where the Declaration of Independence was debated and adopted.
The commission’s membership combined public officials, members of Congress, and private citizens. Contemporary descriptions identified 16 private citizens, eight members of Congress, and nine federal officials, which totals 33 people.
The number is easy to confuse with other figures associated with the founding era. The Declaration of Independence is commonly associated with 56 signers, while the original thirteen colonies are another familiar Revolutionary number. The commission’s 33 members were a modern planning body, not the Continental Congress or the group that signed the Declaration.