The Second Continental Congress approved the resolution declaring American independence on July 2, 1776.
The Lee Resolution, introduced by Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee, stated that the colonies should be free and independent states. Congress approved that resolution on July 2, creating the formal legal decision to separate from Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence followed as an explanation of that decision.
July 4 became the celebrated national date because Congress adopted the Declaration’s final wording on that day. The declaration announced and justified the independence decision, while the earlier resolution supplied the decisive political act. This distinction explains why July 2 and July 4 both appear in accounts of independence.
John Adams believed July 2 would become the great annual celebration, but public tradition ultimately centered on July 4. America250 uses the 1776 founding milestone broadly, while historians distinguish the independence resolution, the declaration’s adoption, and the later signing of the engrossed parchment.