Today, as we celebrate our independence from Great Britain and look forward to the 250th anniversary in 2026, it’s important to reflect on the complex journey to liberty and freedom. While we grill hot dogs and slice watermelon, we might nostalgically view the decision for independence as an obvious one. However, it was a highly contentious process. If you think achieving national consensus is challenging today, consider 1776, when delegates from the colonies gathered in Philadelphia to debate independence. For instance, in December 1775, Maryland unanimously and vigorously voted against separation from Great Britain, declaring they were:

desirous to remove from the mind of the King, an opinion which we feel to be highly injurious to the people of this province and in order to manifest to his Majesty, to the Parliament, the people of Great Britain, and to the whole world, the rectitude and purity of our intentions in the present opposition to the measures of the British Ministry and Parliament, do declare, That the people of this province, strongly attached to the English constitution, and truly sensible of the blessing they have derived from it, warmly impressed with sentiments of affection for and loyalty to the House of Hanover, connected with the British nation by the ties of blood and interest and being thoroughly convinced, that to be free subjects of the King of Great Britain, with all its consequences is to be the freest members of any civil society in the known world, never did, nor do entertain, any views or desires of independency. That as they consider their union with the mother country, upon terms that may insure to them a permanent freedom, as their highest felicity, so would they view the fatal necessity of separating from her, as a misfortune next to the greatest that can befall them.

Maryland considered independence a “misfortune next to the greatest”? Why did they change their minds six months later?