This is the eighth in a series.

Some celebrate the Fourth of July, others Independence Day. Are they the same or distinct holidays?

During the winter of 1776, as most people only thought of a future break with England, others saw it as only a beginning to something much larger. In March of that year, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John, saying, “I long to hear that you have declared an independency and by the way in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would remember the…