Congress assembled, the streets were filled with excited men, some
gathered in groups engaged in eager discussion, and others moving toward
the State House. All business was forgotten in the momentous crisis
which the country had now reached. No sooner had the members taken their
seats than the multitude gathered in a dense mass around the entrance.
The bell-man mounted to the belfry, to be ready to proclaim the joyful
tidings of freedom as soon as the final vote was passed. A bright-eyed
boy was stationed below to give the signal.
Around the bell, brought from England, had been cast, more than twenty
years before, the prophetic motto: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the
land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Although its loud clang had
often sounded over the city, the proclamation engraved on its iron lip
had never yet been spoken aloud.
It was expected that the final vote would be taken without delay; but
hour after hour wore on, and no report came from the mysterious hall
where the fate of a continent was in suspense. The multitude grew
impatient. The old man leaned over the railing, straining his eyes
downward, till his heart misgave him, and hope yielded to fear. But
at length, about two o’clock the door of the hall opened, and a voice
exclaimed, “It has passed!”
The word leaped like lightning from lip to lip, followed by huzzas
that shook the building. The boy-sentinel turned to the belfry,
clapped his hands, and shouted, “Ring! ring!” The desponding bell-man,
electrified into life by the joyful news, seized the iron tongue and
hurled it backward and forward with a clang that startled every heart in
Philadelphia like a bugle blast.
“Clang! Clang!” the bell of Liberty resounded on, higher and clearer
and more joyous, blending in its deep and thrilling vibration, and
proclaiming in loud and long accents over all the land the motto that
encircled it.
INDEPENDENCE BELL, PHILADELPHIA
INSCRIPTION, “PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT THE LAND TO ALL THE INHABITANTS
THEREOF.” JULY 4, 1776.
ANONYMOUS
There was tumult in the city,
In the quaint Old Quaker town,
And the streets were rife with people
Pacing restless up and down,—
People gathering at corners,
Where they whispered each to each,
And the sweat stood on their temples
With the earnestness of speech.
As the bleak Atlantic currents
Lash the wild Newfoundland shore,
So they beat against the State House,
So they surged against the door;
And the mingling of their voices
Made a harmony profound,
Till the quiet street of Chestnut
Was all turbulent with sound.
“Will they do it?” “Dare they do it?”
“Who is speaking?” “What’s the news?”
“What of Adams?” “What of Sherman?”
“Oh, God grant they won’t refuse!”
“Make some way, there!” “Let me nearer!”
“I am stifling!” “Stifle, then!
When a nation’s life’s at hazard,
We’ve no time to think of men!”
So they beat against the portal,
Man and woman, maid and child;
And the July sun in heaven
On the scene looked down and smiled:
The same sun that saw the Spartan
Shed his patriot blood in vain,
Now beheld the soul of freedom,
All unconquered, rise again.
See! See! The dense crowd quivers
Through all its lengthy line,
As the boy beside the portal
Looks forth to give the sign!
With his little hands uplifted,
Breezes dallying with his hair,
Hark! with deep, clear intonation,
Breaks his young voice on the air.
Hushed the people’s swelling murmur,
List the boy’s exultant cry!
“Ring!” he shouts, “Ring! Grandpa,
Ring! oh, ring for Liberty!”
Quickly at the given signal
The bell-man lifts his hand,
Forth he sends the good news, making
Iron music through the land.
How they shouted! What rejoicing!
How the old bell shook the air,
Till the clang of freedom ruffled
The calmly gliding Delaware!
How the bonfires and the torches
Lighted up the night’s repose,
And from the flames, like fabled Phœnix,
Our glorious Liberty arose!
That old State House bell is silent,
Hushed is now its clamorous tongue;
But the spirit it awakened
Still is living,—ever young;
And when we greet the smiling sunlight
On the Fourth of each July,
We will ne’er forget the bell-man
Who, betwixt the earth and sky,
Rung out, loudly, “INDEPENDENCE;”
Which, please God, _shall never die_!
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
IN CONGRESS JULY 4, 1776
(The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.)
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them,
a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That
to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed, that, whenever any
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety
and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and,
accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces
a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards
for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these
colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter
their former systems of government. The history of the present King of
Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all
having, in direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over
these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:—
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for
the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be
obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to
them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and
formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records,
for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with
manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others
to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation,
have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State
remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from
without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that
purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing
to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the
conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent
to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of
officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the
consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to,
the civil power.
He has combined, with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to
our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to
their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders
which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province,
establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its
boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for
introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and
altering, fundamentally, the powers of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested
with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection
and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our people.
He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to
complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas,
to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their
friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to
bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages,
whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all
ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the
most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have
warned them from time to time of attempts made by their legislature to
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of
the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed
to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, by
the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would
inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have
been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold
them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the
authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and
declare, 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; and
that, as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy war,
conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all
other acts and things which Independent States may of right do. And, for
the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection
of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our
fortunes, and our sacred honor.
JOHN HANCOCK
(New Hampshire) JOSIAH BARTLETT, WM. WHIPPLE, MATTHEW THORNTON.
(Massachusetts Bay) SAML. ADAMS, JOHN ADAMS, ROBT. TREAT PAINE, ELBRIDGE
GERRY.
(Rhode Island) STEP. HOPKINS, WILLIAM ELLERY.
(Connecticut) ROGER SHERMAN, SAM’EL HUNTINGTON, WM. WILLIAMS, OLIVER
WOLCOTT.
(New York) WM. FLOYD, PHIL. LIVINGSTON, FRANC. LEWIS, LEWIS MORRIS.
(New Jersey) RICHD. STOCKTON, JNO. WITHERSPOON, FRANS. HOPKINSON, JOHN
HART, ABRA. CLARK.
(Pennsylvania) ROBT. MORRIS, BENJAMIN RUSH, BENJ. FRANKLIN, JOHN MORTON,
GEO. CLYMER, JAS. SMITH, GEO. TAYLOR, JAMES WILSON, GEO. ROSS.
(Delaware) CÆSAR RODNEY, GEO. REED, THO. M’KEAN.
(Maryland) SAMUEL CHASE, WM. PACA, THOS. STONE, CHARLES CARROLL of
Carrollton.
(Virginia) GEORGE WYTHE, RICHARD HENRY LEE, TH. JEFFERSON, BENJA.
HARRISON, THOS. NELSON, JR., FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE, CARTER BRAXTON.
(North Carolina) WM. HOOPER, JOSEPH HEWES, JOHN PENN.
(South Carolina) EDWARD RUTLEDGE, THOS. HEYWARD, JUNR., THOMAS LYNCH,
JUNR., ARTHUR MIDDLETON.
(Georgia) BUTTON GWINNETT, LYMAN HALL, GEO. WALTON.
INDEPENDENCE EXPLAINED
BY SAMUEL ADAMS
(Delivered in Philadelphia, August 1, 1776, twenty-seven days after the
Declaration of Independence.)
My countrymen, from the day on which an accommodation takes place between
England and America on any other terms than as independent States, I
shall date the ruin of this country. We are now, to the astonishment
of the world, three millions of souls united in one common cause. This
day we are called on to give a glorious example of which the wisest
and best of men were rejoiced to view only in speculation. This day
presents the world with the most august spectacle that its annals ever
unfolded,—millions of freemen voluntarily and deliberately forming
themselves into a society for their common defense and common happiness.
Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, and Sidney! will it not add to
your benevolent joys to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of
_men_—evincing to the world the reality and expediency of your systems,
and in the actual enjoyment of that equal liberty which you were happy
when on earth in delineating and recommending to mankind?
Other nations have received their laws from conquerors; some are
indebted for a constitution to the sufferings of their ancestors through
revolving centuries; the people of this country alone have formally
and deliberately chosen a government for themselves, and, with open,
uninfluenced consent, bound themselves into a social compact. And, fellow
countrymen, if ever it was granted to mortals to trace the designs of
Providence and interpret its manifestations in favor of their cause, we
may, with humility of soul, cry out, NOT UNTO US, NOT UNTO US, BUT TO THY
NAME BE THE PRAISE. The confusion of the devices of our enemies, and the
rage of the elements against them, have done almost as much towards our
success as either our counsels or our arms.
The time at which this attempt in our liberties was made,—when we were
ripened into maturity, had acquired a knowledge of war, and were free
from the incursions of intestine enemies,—the _gradual_ advances of our
oppressors, enabling us to prepare for our defense, the unusual fertility
of our lands, the clemency of the seasons, the success which at first
attended our feeble arms, producing unanimity among our friends and
compelling our internal foes to acquiescence,—these are all strong and
palpable marks and assurances that Providence IS YET GRACIOUS UNTO ZION,
THAT IT WILL TURN AWAY THE CAPTIVITY OF JACOB! Driven from every other
corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment
in matters of conscience direct their course to this happy country as
their last asylum. Let us cherish the noble guests! Let us shelter them
under the wings of universal toleration! Be this the seat of UNBOUNDED
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM! She will bring with her in her train, Industry,
Wisdom, and Commerce.
Our union is now complete. You have in the first armies sufficient to
repel the whole force of your enemies. The hearts of your soldiers
beat high with the spirit of freedom. Go on, then, in your generous
enterprise, with gratitude to heaven for past success, and confidence
of it in the future! For my own part, I ask no greater blessing than
to share with you the common danger and the common glory. If I have a
wish dearer to my soul than that my ashes may be mingled with those of
a Warren and a Montgomery, it is, THAT THESE AMERICAN STATES MAY NEVER
CEASE TO BE FREE AND INDEPENDENT!
THE DIGNITY OF OUR NATION’S FOUNDERS
BY WILLIAM M. EVARTS
The Declaration of Independence was, when it occurred, a capital
transaction in human affairs; as such it has kept its place in
history; as such it will maintain itself while human interest in human
institutions shall endure. The scene and the actors, for their profound
impression on the world, at the time and ever since, have owed nothing
to dramatic effects, nothing to epical exaggerations. To the eye there
was nothing wonderful or vast or splendid or pathetic in the movement or
the display. Imagination or art can give no sensible grace or decoration
to the persons, the place, or the performance which made up the business
of that day. The worth and force that belong to the agents and the
action rest wholly on the wisdom, the courage and the faith that formed
and executed the great design, and the potency and permanence of its
operation upon the affairs of the world which followed as foreseen and
legitimate consequences.
The dignity of the act is the deliberate, circumspect, open and serene
performance by these men, in the clear light of day and by a concurrent
purpose, of a civic duty which embraced the greatest hazards to
themselves and to all the people from whom they held this disputed
discretion but which to their sober judgments promised benefits to that
people and to their posterity, exceeding these hazards and commensurate
with its own fitness. The question of their conduct is to be measured
by the actual weight and pressure of the manifold considerations which
surrounded the subject before them and by the abundant evidence that they
comprehended their vastness and variety. By a voluntary and responsible
choice they willed to do what was done and what without their will would
not have been done.
Thus estimated, the illustrious act covers all who participated in it
with its own renown and makes them forever conspicuous among men, as it
is forever famous among events. And thus the signers of our Declaration
of Independence “wrote their names where all nations should behold
them and all time should not efface them.” It was “in the course of
human events” intrusted to them to determine whether the fullness of
time had come when a nation should be born in a day. They declared
the independence of a new nation in the sense in which men declare
emancipation or declare war,—the declaration created what was declared.
Famous always among men are the founders of states and fortunate above
all others in such fame are these, our fathers, whose combined wisdom and
courage began the great structure of our national existence and laid sure
the foundations of liberty and justice on which it rests. Fortunate first
in the clearness of their title and in the world’s acceptance of their
rightful claim. Fortunate next in the enduring magnitude of the State
they founded and the beneficence of its protection of the vast interests
of human life and happiness which have here had their home. Fortunate
again in the admiring imitations of their work which the institutions
of the most powerful and most advanced nations more and more exhibit.
Fortunate last of all in the full demonstration of our later time that
their work is adequate to withstand the most disastrous storms of human
fortunes and survive unwrecked, unshaken and unharmed.
THE CHARACTER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
BY GEORGE BANCROFT
This immortal State paper, which for its composer was the aurora of
enduring fame, was “the genuine effusion of the soul of the country
at that time,” the revelation of its mind, when, in its youth, its
enthusiasm, its sublime confronting of danger, it rose to the highest
creative powers of which man is capable. The bill of rights which it
promulgates is of rights that are older than human institutions, and
spring from the eternal justice that is anterior to the State.
Two political theories divided the world: one founded the Commonwealth on
the reason of State, the policy of expediency; the other on the immutable
principles of morals. The new Republic, as it took its place among the
powers of the world, proclaimed its faith in the truth and reality and
unchangeableness of freedom, virtue and right.
The heart of Jefferson, in writing the Declaration, and of Congress in
adopting it, beat for all humanity; the assertion of right was made for
the entire world of mankind, and all coming generations, without any
exception whatever; for the proposition which admits of exceptions can
never be self-evident. As it was put forth in the name of the ascendant
people of that time, it was sure to make the circuit of the world,
passing everywhere through the despotic countries of Europe; and the
astonished nations, as they read that all men are created equal, started
out of their lethargy, like those who have been exiles from childhood,
when they suddenly hear the dimly remembered accents of their mother
tongue.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
BY HENRY T. RANDALL
To the Patriots, the Declaration gave strength and courage. It gave them
a definite purpose,—and a name and object commensurate with the cost.
When it was formally read by the magistracy from the halls of justice
and in the public marts by the officers of the army at the head of their
divisions, by the clergy from their pulpits, its grandeur impressed the
popular imagination. The American people pronounced it a fit instrument,
clothed in fitting words. The public enthusiasm burst forth, sometimes in
gay and festive, and sometimes in solemn and religious, observances—as
the Cavalier or Puritan taste predominated.
In the Southern and Middle cities and villages, the riotous populace tore
down the images of monarchs and Colonial governors and dragged them with
ropes round their necks through the streets—cannon thundered, bonfires
blazed—the opulent feasted, drank toasts, and joined in hilarious
celebrations. In New England, the grimmer joy manifested itself in
prayers and sermons, and in religious rites.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
BY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
The Declaration of Independence! The interest which in that paper has
survived the occasion upon which it was issued; the interest which is of
every age and every clime; the interest which quickens with the lapse of
years, spreads as it grows old, and brightens as it recedes, is in the
principles which it proclaims. It was the first solemn declaration, by a
nation, of the only legitimate foundation of civil government. It was the
corner stone of a new fabric, destined to cover the surface of the globe.
It demolished at a stroke the lawfulness of all governments founded upon
conquest. It swept away all the rubbish of accumulated centuries of
servitude. It announced in practical form to the world the transcendent
truth of the inalienable sovereignty of the people. It proved that the
social compact was no figment of the imagination, but a real, solid,
and sacred bond of the social union. From the day of this declaration
the people of North America were no longer the fragment of a distant
empire, imploring justice and mercy from an inexorable master in another
hemisphere. They were no longer children, appealing in vain to the
sympathies of a heartless mother; no longer subjects, leaning upon the
shattered columns of royal promises, and invoking the faith of parchment
to secure their rights. They were a nation, asserting as of right, and
maintaining by war, its own existence. A nation was born in a day.