John Adams, representing Massachusetts in the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, laments the body's refusal to debate his motion to declare the colonies' independence from Great Britain and instead to discuss more trivial matters.

Lee returns, proposes the resolution and, over the objections of John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, leader of the faction seeking reconciliation with Britain, Congress agrees to debate the question.

President of the Congress, John Hancock, breaks the tie vote in favor of a declaration and appoints Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia to a committee to write it.

After a full week passes without completing the task, Adams summons Martha, who charms both him and Franklin, to Philadelphia and Jefferson finishes the draft.

After the members return to their lodgings, a young military courier arrives and sadly relates to Congressional custodian Andrew McNair how his best friend was killed in battle.

Edward Rutledge of South Carolina leads the Southern members in walking out in protest just as Chase returns with Maryland's vote supporting independence.

Frustrated at Adams' haughtiness and refusal to compromise, Franklin tells him to accept the fact that those with opinions contrary to his will be part of their new nation.

Eventually, all states, except divided Pennsylvania and New York, whose remaining representative, Lewis Morris, has abstained throughout the proceedings, vote for independence.

As the members prepare to sign the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, Morris receives word that his estate has been destroyed and his family moved to safety.

Ralston Hill, Ron Holgate, David Ford, Charles Rule and others repeated their roles from the Broadway production, marking their only appearances in feature film.

Exteriors were filmed at the Warner Ranch in Burbank, California, the former Columbia Pictures backlot, where they built an entire street of Colonial Philadelphia.

The Los Angeles Times stated "The song 'Cool, Cool, Considerate Men' depicts Revolutionary War–era conservatives as power-hungry wheedlers focused on maintaining wealth.

[11] In a 2015 interview, Hunt mentioned that Warner, on his deathbed in 1978, told a friend that he regretted editing the scene, believing he had ruined the film's structure as a result.

[10] When the Broadway musical was about to be presented to Nixon at the White House in 1970, before the film was made, his staff pressed the producers to cut the song then; their request was denied.

"[12] Because Congress was held in secrecy and there are no contemporary records on the debate over the Declaration of Independence, the authors of the play created the narrative based on later accounts and educated guesses, inventing scenes and dialogue as needed for storytelling purposes.

Although Dickinson is portrayed as loyalist in the film, and John Adams is seen making points of objection about the tax abuses of George III of the United Kingdom including regressive taxes and "taxation without representation", all to fund wars and the King's lifestyle, not to benefit the people, it was Dickinson's Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania that had originally made these points.

[19] Although the play depicts Delaware's Caesar Rodney as an elderly man near death from skin cancer (which would eventually kill him), he was just 47 years old at the time and continued to be very active in the Revolution after signing the Declaration.

He was not absent from the voting because of health; however, the play is accurate in having him arrive "in the nick of time", having ridden 80 miles (130 km) the night before (an event depicted on Delaware's 1999 State Quarter) unaided, instead of with the help of another delegate.

John Dickinson, who is portrayed as an antagonist here, was motivated mainly by his Quaker roots and his respect for the British Constitution, having lived in England for 3 years in the 1750s.

[23] The film also misses the objection some had to the Declaration's stated basis in "rights of Man" based in "natural law" derived from a supernatural being.

Dickinson's objection to the Declaration had to do with this, as well as the fact he and his base preferred civil disobedience to war as the means, and a view that the colonies were too immature and the egalitarian mid-Atlantic culture would be overruled by the slavery of the South and the patriarchal Puritan attitudes of New England, represented by John Adams, in the foundation of the new country.

The walkout is fictional, as the debate over the wording of the declaration took place after the vote for independence on July 2, and apparently most delegates, northern and southern, supported the deletion of the clause.

In both the play and the film, John Adams sarcastically predicts that Benjamin Franklin will receive from posterity too great a share of credit for the Revolution.

In fact, Wilson was considered one of the leading thinkers behind the American cause, consistently supporting and arguing for independence, although he would not cast his vote until his district had been caucused.

At the time, pins were necessary for a wide range of crafts, creating garments and headgear (including wigs), making lace, ribbon and other trimmings and textiles.

The real Abigail, if dressed as in this scene in the film, would have supported the front lacing of her gown by using pins to fasten the fabric to the stiffened bodice beneath.

The lyrics sound as if they'd been written by someone high on root beer, and the book is familiar history—compressed here, stretched there—that has been gagged up and paced to Broadway's not-inspiring standards.

This reaction, I suspect, represents a clear triumph of emotional associations over material ... [It] is far from being a landmark of musical cinema, but it is the first film in my memory that comes close to treating seriously a magnificent chapter in the American history.

"[29] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave 1776 two stars and declared, "This is an insult to the real men who were Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and the rest ...

There are good actors in the movie (especially William Daniels as Adams and Donald Madden as John Dickinson), but they're forced to strut and posture so much that you wonder if they ever scratched or spit or anything ...