At sunrise on Friday, July 4, 1788, the peal of a bell from Christ Church followed by booming cannon from the Rising Sun, anchored off Market Street, announced the day of the Federal Procession. Philadelphians celebrated. It the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and ten states had ratified the Constitution. Along the Delaware River, ten ships dressed out with white flags fluttering in a brisk breeze, respectively identified New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia. Five thousand participants gathered in the side streets to form a mile and a half procession. It wound over a three-mile course.[1]
Under cloudy skies, the procession was underway by half past nine, led by twelve axe men dressed in white, representing severance of America’s ties with Great Britain. The First City Troop of light dragoons followed. A horseman bearing a staff topped by a liberty cap, and a silk flag emblazoned with “Fourth of July , 1776” in gold letters celebrated the country’s declaration of independence twelve years earlier. Next, mounted on a horse that once belonged to Count Rochambeau, a rider paid homage to America’s alliance with France. He carried a white silk flag with three fleurs-de-lys and thirteen stars in union. More light dragoons followed as a band kept the procession moving to a grand march.[2]
A team of six horses drew a twenty-foot float bearing a statue of a bald eagle, its breast emblazoned with thirteen silver stars on a sky blue field over thirteen red and white stripes. A liberty cap surmounted the Constitution, framed and fixed on a staff bearing the words “the people” in gold letters.[3]
Highlighting the country’s unity, ten men representing the ratifying states walked arm in arm. William Williams and his crew worked four days to erect the Federal Edifice or The New Roof, emblematic of the union. Thirteen Corinthian columns supported a dome, surmounted by a cupola bearing a figure of plenty with a cornucopia. The pedestal was emblazoned by the words “in unison the fabric stands firm.” Mounted on a carriage, the Federal Edifice, painted white and drawn by ten white horses, underscored the economic bounty and benefits of unified states. Four hundred and fifty architects and house carpenters followed, bearing the insignia of their trade.[4]
Cartoon from the Massachusetts Centinel. The Federal Edifice was an important emblem of national unity. This cartoon from the Massachusetts Centinel, January 30, 1788, depicts columns representing Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut awaiting the addition of the Massachusetts column uplifted by a pair of hands coming out of clouds. The caption reads, “The Pillar of the Great Federal Edifice rises daily.”Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Trade organizations made up most of the procession “Troops of light cavalry, infantry and militia,” merchants, clergy, government officials, professors and students were interspersed throughout the parade.[5]
The manufacturing society’s float, twenty-ninth in the procession, symbolized the importance of fabric to the nation. Ten bay horses drew a thirty-foot float covered with American made white cotton. The float featured a carding machine with two workers carding long staple black seeded cotton at the rate of fifty pounds per day. A spinning machine of eighty spindles demonstrated drawing cotton fiber for “fine jeans or federal rib.” A man wove fabric on a large loom with a flying shuttle. One flag bore the inscription “May the union government protect the manufactures of America,” and the weavers’ flag read, “may government protect us.” Nearly one hundred tradesmen followed the float. In his observations on the procession, Benjamin Rush expected that cotton manufacturing would unify the nation.[6]
“Cotton may be cultivated in the southern, and manufactured in the eastern and middle states, in such quantities, in a few years, as to clothe every citizen of the United States. Hence will arise a bond of union to the states, more powerful than any article of the New Constitution.” [7]
Benjamin Rush, American Museum
Rudimentary cotton gins had been in use for centuries. At least four other inventors had made improvements to the gin. Six years after the Federal Procession, in 1793, Eli Whitney (1765-1825) following the advice of Catherine Littlefield Greene, invented his cotton gin, which could card fifty pounds of green seeded cotton a day. Long fiber black seeded cotton, which could only be grown in the low country was far easier to seed, than short-staple green seeded cotton that could be grown throughout the South.
Philadelphia’s merchants and traders marched with a ship flag. One side of the flag depicted a merchant ship, the Pennsylvania, with the inscription “4th July, 1788,” ten illuminated stars and “three traced round in silver, but not yet illuminated.” The other side of the flag praised the virtues of America’s international trade, represented by a globe surmounted with a scroll inscribed in French “for all the world.” Tench Coxe, a friend of Carey’s and promoter of tariffs and trade with France marched with his fellow merchants.[8]
Carey accompanied the printers, bookbinders and stationers’ float, fifty-seventh in the procession. Four gray horses drew a stage, nine feet square, mounted with the federal printing press, worked by two pressman. A compositor demonstrated typesetting. Alongside the horses an actor portraying Mercury, “the god of intelligence” wore a costume adorned with wings on his head and feet. He danced through the crowd tossing four thousand copies of a poem into onlookers. The poem was written for the occasion by Francis Hopkinson, organizer of the procession. Periodically, Mercury attached packages of the ode to carrier pigeons. He released them from his hat and they flew to locations in the ten ratifying states. The printers and bookbinders’ standard bore the motto “we protect and are supported by liberty.” Fifty members of the trades followed. [9]
Ministers and rabbis, seventeen in all, marched together; five of them arm in arm, celebrating America’s dedication to religious freedom, and the importance of the Union. Rush noted “The Clergy…manifested…their sense of the connexion between religion and good government.”[10]
The procession ended at William Hamilton’s estate Bush Hill. There, on Union Green, the food committee had arranged tables covered with canvas awnings encircling the Federal Edifice. They prepared enough food to serve 17,000 Philadelphians. At 12:30 p.m., as the procession ended, James Wilson mounted the Edifice to deliver a short oration.[11]
In his observations Benjamin Rush emphasized the civility of the event.
“It was remarkable that every countenance wore an air of dignity as well as pleasure…Rank for a while forgot all its claims, and Agriculture, Commerce and Manufactures, together with the learned and mechanical Professions, seemed to acknowledge, by their harmony and respect for each other, that they were all necessary to each other, and all useful in cultivated society.” [12]
Benjamin Rush, American Museum
Rush wrote that he “derived no small pleasure…that out of seventeen thousand people who appeared on the green, and partook of the collation, there was scarcely one person intoxicated, nor was there a single quarrel or even dispute…all was order, all was harmony and joy.” He attributed this in part to the libations being beer and cider, rather than “spirituous liquours.” Later he amended his comments noting that there were several quarrels.[13]
Bush Hill: A large collation was served for 17,000 Philadelphians on the slopes of William Hamilton’s Bush Hill after the Federal Procession. The food was left unguarded, and “land pirates” absconded with legs of mutton and ham. Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia
James Wilson (1742-1798) was a signer of the Declaration of Independence who helped to draft the Constitution. He mounted the Federal Edifice, placed in a circle of tables on Union Green at Bush Hill to deliver a speech following the Federal Procession.
Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791) organized the procession, with 5,000 participants in a parade that extended a mile and a half over a three mile course. He wrote an ode for the occasion, and an actor dressed as Mercury affixed it to the legs of carrier pigeons dispatched to the ten states that had ratified the Constitution.
When Mathew Carey reached Union Green at Bush Hill, he noted that the organizers had not thought to post guards. “When the procession entered the demesne, I saw a number of…plunderers with hams, legs of mutton & pieces of beef climbing the fences and decamping with their prey,” he wrote. It took him awhile to connect with the master of ceremonies to find his designated table. Others had already enjoyed some of the food. He and the members of his trade attacked the remains of a large ham. “In the midst of our operations,” he recounted, “a long arm appeared over my head, and the hand which preceeded it seized hold of the Ham—and the marauder, as he carried off the plunder ejaculated with a violent oath that he had not had a mouthful…he appeared by his costume to have pretensions to the character of a gentleman, being elegantly dressed. We were for a moment at a Stand[still] whether to resist the violence or laugh…the latter prevailed.” [14]
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[1] “Account of the federal procession in Philadelphia, July 4, 1788,” American Museum, V. 4 N. 1 (July, 1788) 57.
[2] “Account of the federal procession,” American Museum, 57-8.
[3] “Account of the federal procession,” American Museum, 58.
[4] “Account of the federal procession,” American Museum, 59.
[5] “Account of the federal procession,” American Museum, 59.
[6]“Account of the federal procession,” American Museum, 60.
[7] Benjamin Rush, “Observations on the Philadelphia procession,” American Museum, V. 4 N. 1, (July 1788) 76.
[8] “Account of the federal procession,” American Museum, 62.
[9] “Account of the federal procession,” American Museum, 66-7.
[10] Rush, “Observations,” American Museum, 77.
[11] “Account of the federal procession,” American Museum, 70-71.
[12] Rush, “Observations,” American Museum, 76.
[13] Rush, “Observations,” American Museum, 79-80.
[14] Mathew Carey, Miscellanies II, ms. (c. 1834 ) private collection, 33-5.