Two days before the American revolutionaries signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Second Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia to formally vote on the matter.
Standing in virtually the same spot 250 years later, their distant successors commemorated that historic moment while grappling, at times, with what it left out.
“The fact that we have you here together is a symbol of progress,” said U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, a retiring Democrat who’s spent more than four decades as one of Philadelphia’s central Black political leaders. “250 years ago, people like me were not fully included in the founders’ vision. … The struggle to live up to our founding ideals was hard fought.”
More than 30 members of the 119th Congress attended the event at Independence Hall, one of many marking the Semiquincentennial in the city this week. U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Philadelphia Democrat whose district includes the historic site, had worked for years to bring his colleagues to the site to mark the nation’s founding.
As Boyle and others walked through that history in Congress Hall — the room where the legislative branch convened before relocating to Washington — they referenced both the uneven history of the country and the divided, polarized times that define modern America.
“America has indeed struggled at times, beginning with the horrors of chattel slavery and the oppression of Native Americans, to live up to our highest ideals,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.). “But the high–minded principles, upon which this great country was born, have served as an eternal lamp post for us to continue to strive and march toward a more perfect union.”
Jeffries’ remarks — from a high-profile lawmaker poised to become the first Black speaker of the U.S. House if his party wins control in the midterms later this year — came as President Donald Trump’s administration has tried to pull back the federal government’s references to the history of slavery, including on Independence Mall, most notably at the President’s House, a block from where the lawmakers gathered.
The Democratic leader was one of multiple speakers, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who made veiled references to Republicans’ ceding Congress’ role as a check on Trump. The members of Congress who served at Independence Hall believed the chamber “would be separate and coequal, never subservient or co-opted,” Jeffries said.
“Let us never forget that we don’t work for any other branch of government,” he said. “There are no kings in the United States of America. We work exclusively for the American people.”
U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Centre County Republican and dean of the Pennsylvania delegation, presided over the event. He said afterward that some of the remarks turned “a little political.”
“But it is an excellent observation,” Thompson said. “We don’t have a king. We can thank George Washington for that.”
Thompson was one of several Pennsylvania Republicans to attend the mostly Democratic event, but other top officials were noticeably absent.
Pennsylvania’s top-ranking Republican federal official, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, did not attend. Neither did U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat who has increasingly aligned himself with Trump and Republicans.
U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.), who lives in nearby Burlington County, was the only senator to attend.
‘Let this sacred place awaken us’
Since 1800, Congress has met outside Washington, D.C., on only extremely rare occasions.
In 1987, a ceremonial joint session in Philadelphia marked the 200th anniversary of the Constitution, and in September 2002, more than 300 members met in New York City for the first anniversary of 9/11.
Thursday’s gathering in Philadelphia was considered a ceremonial event, not a formal joint session, so the lawmakers did not debate legislation or cast votes in the room where they conducted that kind of official business in the earliest days of the nation.
There weren’t defined political parties, all those years ago.
But the fissures that soon arose in the nation’s first capital — and that have only become more entrenched since then — were evident both in and around Thursday’s event.
The 45-minute ceremony was a bipartisan showing. A pair of Pennsylvania Republicans in particular, Thompson and U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Bucks), kicked off the day with a call to order and invocation. Others like U.S. Reps. Ryan Mackenzie (R., Lehigh), Lloyd Smucker (R., Lancaster) and John Joyce (R., Blair) also attended.
Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican facing a tough reelection campaign this year, and Boyle, a moderate Democrat, were among several speakers who talked about the anniversary being a moment for Congress to recommit to its founding goals.
“Let this sacred place awaken us, a solemn charge that flows from what was proclaimed here 250 years ago,” Fitzpatrick said.
Among the over 30 lawmakers, though, Democrats outnumbered their colleagues across the aisle. Jeffries addressed the room, while no members of House Republican leadership, who control the chamber, made an appearance.
‘A great balancing act’
The day itself came after a chaotic few weeks in Washington, even during an unusually divisive two-year term.
The most significant bipartisan legislation produced during Trump’s second term, a comprehensive housing bill that includes a home-repair program that originated in Pennsylvania, was temporarily scuttled when the president refused to sign it. His demands for a controversial voter-ID and elections reform bill first was derided by members of both parties.
Just 48 hours before Thursday’s gathering, that move was still causing turbulence on Capitol Hill as Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson canceled the rest of the week’s agenda because of disagreements around the legislation, known as the SAVE America Act.
Johnson did not attend the event at Independence Hall.
Shapiro, a Democrat and potential 2028 presidential candidate, made a veiled reference to the current Republican-led Congress’ failure to serve as a check on Trump. He said the founders set in motion “a great balancing act” that lawmakers were responsible for upholding.
“Two and a half centuries later, we continue to work to find that balance, work that each of you is charged with taking up every single day,” Shapiro said.
Even in the blocks around the lawmakers’ gathering, the tensions of the Trump era were evident.
A few blocks away at the historic Christ Church, local advocates and interfaith leaders gathered before the congressional event to call out the president’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. One local member of Congress — U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Delaware County Democrat — stood with them before joining her colleagues at Independence Hall.
And just down the street at the President’s House, tourists saw an incomplete display after the Trump administration took down information that memorialized the nine people George Washington enslaved in Philadelphia during the nation’s founding.
Boyle pointed to fights by “generations of Americans who refused to accept that liberty and equality belonged only to some.”
“That struggle is not separate from the American story,” Boyle said. “It is the American story.”
