Why Americans Once Held Separate Fourth of July Celebrations

On the surface, the Fourth of July would seem to be the ultimate unifying holiday for Americans, a time to celebrate the triumphant birth of a nation and the staggering progress achieved since its founding. The reality, of course, is more complicated.

This was especially true during the 1790s when the fierce political rivalry between the Federalist and Republican parties spilled into Independence Day celebrations. As politicians sought to showcase their ideals of patriotism, Americans often observed July Fourth separately.

The first Fourth of July celebrations unfurled as soon as there was an anniversary to commemorate. In Philadelphia, where independence had been proclaimed the year before, the inaugural 1777 festivities included the firing of cannons from armed ships and a nighttime display of fireworks over the commons. Boston held a similar commemoration the same day.

“Those early celebrations…they’re expressions of continued support for the Continental Congress, for the army, for the war effort generally,” says historian Michael D. Hattem, author of The Memory of ’76: The Revolution in American History. “In those early years, they look very much like the celebrations of older colonial holidays: There would be fireworks and dancing. There would be an oration by some prominent member of the community.”

In areas under British control, Fourth of July festivals were muted, if they happened at all. That changed in the post-war years as independence was fully realized. However, the euphoria of victory soon gave way to clashes over the direction of the young nation, and with them came a widening divide over how to celebrate America’s founding.

On June 21, 1788, the political wrangling over the formation of a powerful central government was settled when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Two weeks later, giddy supporters in Philadelphia marked July 4 with a massive Grand Federal Procession that included some 22,000 participants and such ostentatious features as a neoclassical temple and a warship to symbolize the strength of the new governing document.

By the early 1790s, clear partisan battle lines had been drawn between the Federalists, who supported the central banking policies of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and trade relations with Great Britain, and the Republicans, who favored states’ rights and a sympathetic outlook toward America’s key Revolutionary War ally, France.

According to Len Travers’ Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic, the idea of separate celebrations to mark America’s birthday was largely fueled by Republicans, then the smaller of the two parties. Where Federalist leaders controlled the military exercises and selection of favored orators, Republican organizations began putting their own imprint on the occasion. Often that meant joint celebrations of American and French independence, with participants waving the flags of both countries and donning liberty caps.

Republicans also began staging separate parades that emphasized the working class more than its opponents. “For Republicans, especially in the North, the parades would heavily feature artisans and workers, because they see themselves as the more popular, less elitist party,” Hattem explains. “Processions in Federalist-controlled areas would have been organized in a much more hierarchal fashion [and] led by the most important people in town.”

As partisan newspapers fanned the flames, Federalists and Republicans doubled down on their attempts to frame the annual midsummer celebrations as a reflection of their competing agendas. “As you start to get more into the middle of the decade…the parties start to realize that the Fourth of July is not just a holiday, it’s a political opportunity,” Hattem notes. “It becomes more organized.”

Tensions between the two sides nearly detonated into an ugly climax in 1795, following Senate approval of the Jay Treaty with Great Britain. That July 4, a group of carpenters in Federalist-dominated Philadelphia marched through the streets carrying a caricature of John Jay, the architect of the controversial treaty. Along with depicting a scale in which “British gold” outweighed “American liberty and independence,” the painting showed the Supreme Court chief justice announcing, “Come up to my price, and I will sell you my country.”

“The Federalists called out the city cavalry to block the procession, and for a moment, it seemed like there was going to be some real violence,” Hattem says. Although the carpenters chose to de-escalate the situation and march back to their neighborhood, they later set the Jay painting on fire and hurled stones at the cavalrymen who attempted to stop the burning.

While the Federalists held onto power with the election of John Adams as U.S. president in 1796, a series of unpopular actions, including the signing of the Alien and Sedition Acts, helped propel arch-Republican Thomas Jefferson to the presidency four years later.

With the decline of the Federalist Party came the demise of the once-prevalent dueling Fourth of July commemorations. “The hyperpartisan nature of those celebrations in the 1790s begins to disappear after 1800 and over the course of the next decade so that by the time that you get to 1812 or so, there’s just not enough Federalists anymore for there to be contested Fourth of July celebrations,” Hattem says.

Reconciliation wasn’t easily attained in the Federalist stronghold of Boston. According to Celebrating the Fourth, Republicans were forced to relocate their annual celebrations to nearby Charlestown in 1808 and didn’t resume holding them in their home city until after the War of 1812 ended.

By then, the Federalists were all but finished, sunk by their opposition to the “Second War for Independence” and the calls for secession that emanated from their ill-fated Hartford Convention. With nationalistic fervor at a peak, and the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on the horizon, Americans finally had cause to set aside lingering differences and celebrate their founding on common grounds.