January 14, 2026

January 14th, 2026.

Today is officially ratification day.

The anniversary of the day in 1784, when members of the Confederation Congress ratified

the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War and formally recognized the independence

of the United States from Great Britain.

It almost didn't happen.

On September 3rd, 1783, negotiators John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay for

the United States, and David Hartley for Great Britain, had signed the document establishing

the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

British officer Lord Cornwallis's surrender of 8,000 men to General George Washington

on October 19th, 1781, following the Battle of Yorktown, had made it clear that Britain

would have to agree to the independence of its former colonies, but the representatives

of those colonies didn't have a lot to bargain with to shape the peace in their favor.

What they did have was the ability to play different European powers off against each

other.

For the American Revolution, after all, was only a piece of a global conflict that included

Great Britain, France, Spain, the Dutch Republic, Jamaica, Gibraltar, and India.

Peace negotiations began in Paris in April 1782 and stretched on through the summer and

into the fall.

The United States were allied with France, which in 1778, just two years after the Declaration

of Independence, had come to the rescue of the fledgling nation and its struggle with Great

Britain.

Britain and the Dutch Republic sided with the Americans too, hoping they could carve

their way out from under King George, thus weakening Great Britain and enabling the European

nations to take more global territory.

With all these parties involved, negotiations were slow and sticky, especially as Spain

wanted to continue to fight until it could capture Gibraltar from the British.

The Great Sea of Gibraltar, which took more than three and a half years, was actually

the largest battle of the war in terms of combatants.

At the same time, French Foreign Minister Charles Grabier, Conte Vérosienne, was frustrated

with the continuing cost of the American War, and in fall 1782, proposed a plan that would

offer independence to the United States, but offer Spain something it would value as much

as Gibraltar, more land in North America.

Essentially, the plan would keep the new nation hemmed in where it already was, dividing

the land around it between Britain and Spain.

US negotiator John J, who, as Minister to Spain during the war, had been instrumental in

convincing Spain to loan money to the United States, immediately turned to the British to

negotiate without France and Spain.

British Prime Minister Lord Schellburn saw an opportunity to split the new country off

from France and set it up as a trading partner, until, as would most likely happen, its

radical new government fell apart, and Britain could reassert control.

The document was a testament to the negotiating skills of the US team.

They got independence, of course, as well as a promise to forget all past misunderstandings

and differences that have unhappily interrupted the good correspondence and friendship which

they mutually wished to restore.

All prisoners of war would be repatriated, no reparations would be demanded, and state

legislatures were urged to provide restitution for the confiscated lands of British subjects,

a provision that the US government had no power to enforce.

The treaty left Britain in possession of Canada, but throughout their gen suggestion and established

the Western boundary of the new nation at the Mississippi River, although it left the

northern and southern boundaries of the new nation vague.

It then gave both Americans and British the right to transport goods along that watery

highway.

It also gave the United States exceedingly valuable fishing rights on the grand banks

of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

But then it said, the solemn ratifications of the present treaty, expedited in good and

due form, shall be exchanged between the contracting parties in the space of six months or sooner

if possible to be computed from the day of the signature of the present treaty.

That is, Congress had six months from the September 3rd signing to get the treaty across the

Atlantic Ocean, ratify the agreement, and get it back across the ocean to England.

The voyages alone could take as much as two months each way.

That put pressure on Congress to act quickly, but the Congress that represented the United

States in that era was organized under the Articles of Confederation, a weak and loose

agreement of a firm league of friendship that the 13 original states adopted on November

15th, 1777.

That national government had little power, and those lawmakers interested in real power

worked to build new governments in their own states.

Congress was supposed to convene at the Maryland State House in November, but it was a terribly

cold winter and delegates trickled in.

As late as January 12th, only seven of the 13 states were represented, and Congress

needed nine states to ratify the treaty.

Finally, a delegate from Connecticut arrived.

Then on January 13th, Richard Barisford of South Carolina, who had been ill in Philadelphia,

finally made it to the gathering.

Congress had a quorum, and it approved the treaty on January 14th.

By the United States, in Congress assembled a proclamation, read the document that Congress

had printed to spread the news of the treaty, it reproduced the terms of the agreement,

and said, and we, the United States, in Congress assembled, having seen and duly considered

the definitive articles of force said, did approve, ratify, and confirm the same.

Seeming to recognize the extraordinary significance of their actions, the congressmen continued,

we have thought proper to notify all the good citizens of these United States that

referencing those stipulations entered into on their behalf, under the authority of that

federal bond by which their existence as an independent people is bound up together

and is known and acknowledged by the nations of the world.

And with that good faith, which is every man's surest guide, they carry into effect the

said articles, and every clause and sentence thereof, sincerely, strictly, and completely.

The document was signed by the President of the Congress, his Excellency Thomas Mifflin,

a name few people now remember.

For while the long, difficult, and meticulous negotiations, and then the fitful energies

of Congress had achieved an agreement that the former colonies were now independent,

it would not be until the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788, that

they would finally begin the long, difficult journey of becoming a new nation, the United

States of America.

The letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson.

It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead of Massachusetts, recorded with music

composed by Michael Moss.