Note (in a note) — Chapter XXV

[392] Allan's American Revolution, Chap, xii., pp. 344, 345.

"The question before the Committee was the portion of the motion relating to independence, submitted by the Virginia delegates on the 7th of June. The New York members read their instructions, and were excused from voting. Of the three delegates from Delaware, Rodney was absent, Read in the negative, and thus the vote of that colony was lost. South Carolina was in the negative; and so was Pennsylvania, by the votes of Dickenson, Willing, Morris, and Humphries, against those of Franklin, Morton, and Wilson. Nine colonies—New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia—voted in the affirmative. The Committee rose, the President resumed the chair, and Harrison reported the resolution as having been agreed to. Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, said that were the vote postponed till next day, he believed that his colleagues, though they disapproved of the resolution, would then join in it for the sake of unanimity. The final question, in accordance with this request, was postponed until the next day; but it was agreed to go into Committee on the draft of the Declaration.

"On the 2nd July, probably fifty members were present in Congress. After disposing of the business of the morning, it resumed the resolution on independence, and probably without much debate proceeded to vote. McKean sent an express to Rodney, at Dover, which procured his attendance, and secured the vote of Delaware in the affirmative; while the same result was reached for Pennsylvania by Dickenson and Morris absenting themselves, and allowing Franklin, Wilson, and Morton to give the vote against Willing and Humphries. The South Carolina delegates concluded to vote for the measure. Thus twelve colonies united in adopting the following resolution:

"'That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.'" (Frothingham's Rise of the Republic of the United States, Chap. xi., pp. 537, 538.)

On the adoption of this resolution, continues the same historian, "Congress went immediately into Committee of the Whole to consider the draft of a Declaration of Independence, or the form of announcing the fact to the world. During the remainder of that day, and during the sessions of the 3rd and 4th, the phraseology, allegations, and principles of this paper were subjected to severe scrutiny. Its author relates: 'The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages which conveyed censure on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offence. The clause, too, reprobating the enslaving of the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.' (Memoirs of Jefferson, i. 15.) The striking out of the passage declaring the slave trade 'piratical warfare against human nature itself,' was deeply regretted by many of that generation. Other alterations were for the better, making the paper more dispassionate and terse, and—what was no small improvement—more brief and exact. On the evening of the 4th the Committee rose, when Harrison reported the Declaration as having been agreed upon. It was then adopted by twelve States, unanimously." [That is, by the majority of the delegates of twelve provinces, and, of course, reported as "unanimous," according to previous agreement.]—Ib., p. 539.