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Two obvious historical errors. The Declaration of Independence was passed on July 2nd, not July 4th. Check the Journal of the Congress for exact day of passage.
More importantly, John Dickenson, who would later serve as President of Delaware and President of Pennsylvania, was a great patriot. He served as President of the Annapolis Convention of 1786.
Never heard of the Annappolis Convention, you say? Only five states sent official delegations, So, it lacked a quorum. But Dickenson assigned Alexander Hamilton to write its final Report. That Report invited all states to send delegations to Philadelphia in May, 1787, the place where the Constitution of the United States was written.
And Dickenson had the wisdom to see that mere amendment of the Articles of Confederation was insufficient. They were fatally flawed. That invitation to all states was to do what is "necessary for the exigencies of the union." By repeating that language, which most states did, they gave their delegations the very power to write the Constitution.
So let's have no more comparing of John Dickenson to Li'l Tommy Dashcle. Dickenson was one of the great patriots who is little known. Do not accept a made-up conversation in a Broadway musical (1776 was a good show, though) as description of how things really happened.
Dashcle is not fit to black the boots of Dickenson, who shares with Sam Houston the distinction of being the only two men who ever served as Governor (President) of two different states.

Congressman Billybob

Last day: "The Un-Music Man"

Look, I didn't write this, if you think you are so smart you will see the Author is "Matthew Brent Pandel, he wrote the book. As for the movie part, he also wrote that part. But as for you telling me who I can, or cannot compare a person too, I'll compare whomever I choose, you do not do my thinking for me. You have your opinion, I have mine. Take your snipity, know it all attitude and go somewhere else.

The original quotation for this thread was correct:

~ The resolution submitted by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, "that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states," was indeed adopted by the Continental Congress on 2 July 1776.

~ The formal declaration, however, technically the report of a committee (John Adams, Livingston, Sherman, Franklin, and Jefferson), was adopted as amended by the Congress on 4 July 1776, and it included in its closing paragraph the text of the resolution approved two days earlier.

The second act thus subsumed and repeated the first. If you're a stickler for legal effect (as seen, o'course, when the war was won), independence was asserted on 2 July. If the formal case with reasoning is what is important, that was consummated on 4 July.