mass. Shortly after, the gazettes began to speak out. These were
followed by the issue of several pamphlets; among which, that entitled
_Common Sense_, by Thomas Paine, "produced a wonderful effect in the
different colonies in favor of independence." Influential individuals
in every colony urged it as a step absolutely necessary, to preserve
the rights and liberties, as well as to secure the happiness and
prosperity of America. Reconciliation, they said, on any terms
compatible with the preservation and security of these great and
important objects, was now impossible. These sentiments were
disseminated among the people by distinguished individuals, in a
variety of ways. The chief justice of South Carolina, William Henry
Dayton, appointed under the new form of government, just adopted, in
his charge to the grand jurors, in April, after justifying the
proceedings of that colony, in forming a new government, on the
principles of the revolution in England, in 1688, thus concludes: "The
Almighty created America to be independent of Great Britain: let us
beware of the impiety of being backward to act as instruments in the
Almighty's hand, now extended to accomplish his purpose; and by the
completion of which alone, America, in the nature of human affairs,
can be secure against the crafty and insidious designs of her enemies,
who think her power and prosperity already far too great. In a word,
our piety and political safety are so blended, that to refuse our
labors in this divine work, is to refuse to be a great, a free, a
pious, and a happy people." This was bold language for one so
prominent to utter. In the view of royalists, it was treasonable; but
in the estimation of the true friends of American liberty, if bold, it
was just and patriotic.
At length, the question of independence entered some of the colonial
assemblies and conventions, and expressions in favor of such a measure
were made. North Carolina, it is believed, has the honor of taking the
lead, as a _province_, having by her convention, as early as April
22d, empowered their delegates in congress, "to concur with those in
the other colonies in declaring independency."[36]
On the 15th of May the convention of Virginia went still further, and
unanimously _instructed_ their delegates in the general congress, "to
propose to that respectable body, to declare the united colonies free
and independent states, absolved from all allegiance or dependence
upon the crown or parliament of Great Britain; and to give the
_assent_ of that colony to such declaration." During the same month,
Massachusetts and Rhode Island virtually adopted similar resolutions.
In short, public sentiment appeared to be setting strongly in favor of
action, on this great and momentous question.
Meanwhile, congress were not idle or uninterested spectators of
events. They had been watching with no small solicitude the "signs of
the times." Personally, they had counted the cost. Most of the members
had come to the conclusion that rather than be slaves, as they had
been, they would sacrifice fortune and life itself. These, therefore,
they were willing to peril, by any act or declaration which might seem
to contribute to their country's cause.
But a sacred regard to that cause, required the utmost prudence.
Premature action might injure a cause which they wished, above all
others, to benefit. The popular feelings must have become duly
interested--the popular will must _precede_ and _direct_.
At length, the propitious time was believed to have arrived, and in
humble dependence upon the guidance and protection of Almighty God, it
was determined to go forward with this great and solemn work.
On the 7th of June, therefore, the great question of independence was
brought directly before congress, by Richard Henry Lee, one of the
delegates from Virginia. He submitted a resolution, declaring "that
the united colonies are, and 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 Great Britain is, and
ought to be, dissolved." The resolution was postponed until the next
day, and every member enjoined to attend, to take the same into
consideration. On the 8th, it was debated in committee of the whole.
No question of greater magnitude was ever presented to the
consideration of a deliberative body, or debated with more eloquence,
energy, and ability. Every member seemed duly impressed with the
important bearing that their decision would have upon the future
destiny of the country.
Mr. Lee, the mover, and Mr. John Adams were particularly distinguished
in supporting, and Mr. John Dickinson in opposing the resolution. On the
10th, it was adopted in committee, by a bare majority of the colonies.
The delegates from Pennsylvania and Maryland, were instructed to oppose
it; and the delegates from some of the other colonies were without
special instructions on the subject. To give time for greater unanimity,
the resolution was postponed in the house, until the first of July. In
the mean time, a committee, consisting of Mr. Jefferson, John Adams, Dr.
Franklin, Mr. Sherman, and R. R. Livingston, was appointed to prepare a
declaration of independence. During this interval, measures were taken
to procure the assent of all the colonies.[37]
A portion of the colonies had not given specific instructions to their
delegates, while others had, and in opposition to the measure. On a
question of such magnitude, it was deemed of the utmost importance that
entire unanimity, if possible, should be had. The delegates of New York
dispatched an express to the convention of that colony, then in session,
for advice; but the convention, not considering themselves or their
delegates authorized to declare the colony independent, recommended that
the people, who were then about to elect new members to the convention,
should give instructions on the subject. June 15th, New Hampshire
instructed her delegates to join the other colonies on this question. On
the 14th, Connecticut gave similar instructions. New Jersey followed on
the 21st. Pennsylvania, the same month, removed restrictions which in
the previous November, had been laid upon their delegates, and now
authorized them to unite in the measure. Maryland had also instructed
her delegates to vote against independence; but on the 28th of June,
following the example of Pennsylvania, the members of this convention
rëcalled their former instructions, and empowered their delegates to
concur. These new instructions were immediately dispatched by express to
Philadelphia, and, on 1st of July, were laid before congress.
On the same day, the resolution of Mr. Lee, relating to independence,
was resumed in that body, referred to a committee of the whole, and
was assented to by all the colonies, except Pennsylvania and Delaware.
The delegates from the former, then present, were seven, and four
voted against it. The number present from Delaware, was only
two--Thomas McKean and George Read--and they were divided; McKean in
favor, and Read against the resolution. Being reported to the house,
at the request of a colony, the proposition was postponed until the
next day, when it passed, and was entered on the journals. The
declaration of independence was reported by the special committee on
the 28th of June, and on the 4th of July, came before congress for
final decision, and received the vote of every colony.
Two of the members from Pennsylvania, Morris and Dickinson, were
absent; of the five who were present, Franklin, Wilson, and Morton,
were in favor, and Willing and Humphrey against. Mr. McKean, to secure
the vote of Delaware, sent an express for Mr. Rodney, the other
delegate from that colony; who, although at the distance of eighty
miles from Philadelphia, arrived in time on the 4th to unite with him
in the vote, and thus complete the union of the colonies on this
momentous question. The committee appointed to prepare a declaration
of independence, selected Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson a sub-committee;
and the original draft was made by Mr. Jefferson.
This draft, without any amendment by the committee, was reported to
congress, and after undergoing several amendments, received their
sanction.
It now only remained to affix their signatures to the declaration, and
to publish it to the world, and their duty, in respect to this
important measure, was done. Having been engrossed on parchment, it
was brought out, and laid on the table. This was on the 2d of August.
Meanwhile, some who had voted for the declaration, had left congress,
and others had taken their places. The latter signed the instrument.
John Hancock, as president of the congress, led the way. Taking a pen,
he recorded his name. He wrote with great power, and on the original
parchment, no signature is so bold and full-faced as his. The others
followed by states--fifty-six in number.
The declaration of independence, was the great act of the Revolution.
It was the hinge on which turned the important events which followed.
Yet, at the period the plan was brought forward, it appeared to many
to partake of the wildness and extravagance of some measure of the
knight of la Mancha. At that day, the colonies were few and feeble.
They had no political character--no bond of union but common
sufferings, common necessities, and common danger. The inhabitants did
not exceed three millions--they had no veteran army--no arsenals but
barns--no munitions of war--few fortifications--no public treasury, no
power to lay taxes, and no credit on which to obtain a loan.
[Illustration: John Hancock.]
No wonder that the hearts of some trembled. No wonder that many
doubted the expediency of such a bold and adventurous step. Who was
the nation with which the colonies had to contend?--the mistress of
the world--a nation whose navy far exceeded that of any other nation
on the globe. Her armies were numerous and veteran--her officers were
skilful and practised--her statesmen subtle and sagacious, and were
now fired with indignation.
All these circumstances were well known to the patriots who composed
the congress of '76. They were aware that they put in peril life,
liberty, and country.
Yet, they well knew the importance of the measure proposed, and not
only its importance, but its necessity. The country needed some great
object distinctly before them. The colonies required a bond of
union--a common cause--one expressed--recorded--recognised--some one
great plan, the object of which they could pledge their lives,
fortunes, and sacred honor, to secure. That plan was independence.
The influence of the declaration was immediately perceived--it roused
the nation to a higher tone of feeling, and gave impulse and
concentration to the national energies. It helped on the tide of
Revolution, and mightily aided in driving back the waves of British
oppression. But the full influence of that measure is not yet felt--is
not yet seen. That belongs to distant time. Some day, hereafter, it
will stand out in the great picture of human liberty, in all its
grandeur and importance. More will be thought of it than of the
splendid and long-lauded achievements of Marathon and Salamis--of
Waterloo and Trafalgar!
Nor can we yet estimate the greatness of the _men_. We are still too
near them. But they are rising higher and higher, every year that
passes. As we retire into the distance from the date and scene of
their actions, their magnitude and worth acquire their true and proper
dimensions. In stern and self-denying virtue, they will compare with
Regulus, and in a pure and lofty patriotism, will be placed on the
same roll with William Tell and Robert the Bruce.
The signers of the declaration of American independence, and their
compatriots in toil, and trial, and blood, will never be forgotten. They
_need_ no monument, but they _deserve_ one; and, for myself, I wish
there was one--a _Revolutionary monument_--erected by the nation--worthy
of the empire whose liberties, civil and religious, they secured--one
which should stand--if God pleased--through all time, to serve as a
consecrated offering to their patriotism, and the evidence of their
imperishable glory:--a monument to which we might conduct our sons in
future days; and, as they pondered the deeply engraved names of these
heroes and martyrs to liberty--we, the fathers, might say, "_Look upon
your ancestry, and scorn to be slaves_!"
What a day is the 4th of July, as it yearly recurs! The cannon on that
day thunders from our hills--but it speaks of liberty. The bell from
every spire sends forth its peal, but in sounds which impart a joyous
impulse to the blood of the sire, and awaken a thrill of delight in
the bosom of the stripling.
No other nation ever celebrated such a day. Days of joy and jubilee
they have had; but they were days which, while they removed one
usurper from the throne, made way for another; or celebrated some
ambitious hero's victories, achieved at the expense of slaughtered
thousands. Is it the spirit of an unholy triumph, which prompts the
Americans to dwell with delight upon the day? Patriotic sympathy would
hail with joy such a day, for any nation on the globe. And such a day,
we trust, will come for all; when the sun of liberty, which warms and
refreshes us, will fill with joy even the vassals of the Russian
autocrat, and spread his heart-cheering beams over the tyrannized
millions of the misnamed "celestial empire."
It has sometimes been cast upon us as a reproach, that we exalt the
day too much. Exalt it too much! It has indeed sometimes been abused.
The spirit of liberty has grown wanton, and excess has sullied the
irreproachable propriety, which should ever characterize the
demonstrations of joy on such a day as this. But those days are
chiefly passed. No--whence the charge of exalting the day too
highly?--Not by those who have tasted the sweets of American liberty,
nor by those who have drawn long and deep draughts from the refreshing
fountains of western freedom. Oh, no--not by such; but by the
hirelings of some eastern usurper--by the myrmidons of crowned heads,
who hate a day which speaks so loudly of rational liberty to the rest
of the world in bondage.
What monarch in Europe would think his throne safe, were his subjects
to witness an American celebration of the 4th of July? It would open
visions before them upon which they would gaze with intense emotions.
It would excite pantings after liberty, which, if unresisted, would
convulse every nation, and demolish every despotic throne. What would
the Russian serf say, were he to look in upon the smiling faces which
course the streets of a New England village, on a bright and balmy 4th
of July? What would the subjects of Algerine or Turkish despotism say?
Yet we exalt the day too much! But for that day, what would have been
our present condition? Where would have been that constitution, under
which our political voyage of more than sixty years has been made with
so much prosperity to the nation? Where were that enterprise which has
levelled our forests, and spread a smiling and happy population over our
western wilds? Where that inventive genius, which, in its creations, has
rivalled, and in some respects excelled, the inventions of Europe? Look
at our ships--our manufactures--our printing establishments--our
cities--our canals--our railroads--our thousand and ten thousand sources
of wealth and happiness--where had these been, but for the 4th of July,
1776, connected as it was, and must ever be, with the achievement of our
national independence? Would Great Britain have suffered these? Would
she have seen such thrift--such expansion--such accumulation of national
power, and not have repressed it--when she could not bear, without
passing prohibitory laws, that our forefather's should make a hat to
cover their heads--or manufacture a sheet of paper on which to write a
letter to a friend! Had the mother-country had her will, where had been
the genius of Fulton, Whitney, and Clinton? On the other side of the
waters--not on this. Our halls of legislature would have failed in the
manly eloquence of rival orators, and our temples of worship would have
been devoted to God _and_ the aggrandizement of a phalanx of spiritual
lords.
Said a patriarch and apostle of liberty, just after the vote on the
question of independence had been taken--"Let the day be commemorated as
the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God. Let it be
solemnized with pomp, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one
end of the continent to the other, from this time forward for ever."
The patriarch uttered noble and patriotic sentiments. Be the day
remembered now and for ever. Remember it, _fathers_, as connected with
the civil and religious blessings, which have been your portion in
your earthly pilgrimage. Remember it, _mothers_, for it has made you
the wives and companions of freemen. Remember it _sons_ and
_daughters_, as the birth-day of liberty, but for which you might be
shedding your blood in the service of a tyrant, or staining your
virtue in the embraces of a bachanalian.
Be it remembered--and as it recurs--and may it recur with every year
while time shall last--first and foremost let the tribute of a devout
homage ascend to the GOD of our fathers--to HIM, who imparted wisdom
to their counsel and success to their arms--who, when darkness
encircled them, dispelled it--when stores failed, supplied them--who
was a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night--to Him be
glory for a land like that which the patriarch saw from Pisgah--and
whose hills are like those of Lebanon and Carmel.
The day is becoming a _religious festival_. This is right. Let the
sanctuary be opened, and homage be offered there. Let our
Sabbath-schools assemble, and fill our groves with divine song. But
never should we dispense with other innocent demonstrations of joy.
Let the cannon thunder from our hills--let the bells peal through our
villages and through our vallies. In every appropriate way, let the
future generations celebrate that glad era in our history when British
cohorts were obliged to retire, and "God save the king" on the rolling
drum, died upon our shores.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] It has long been claimed that the first declaration of
independence was made by the people in Charlotte town, Mecklenburg
county, North Carolina, in May, 1775. All doubt on this subject is now
dispelled, and the honor of such declaration must be accorded to them.
In a letter from Mr. Bancroft, American minister at London, to
Governor Swain, of North Carolina, dated London, July 4th, 1848, he
says: "You may be sure that I have spared no pains to discover in the
British state paper office a copy of the resolves of the committee of
Mecklenburg, and _with entire success_. The first account of 'the
extraordinary resolves of the people in Charlotte town, Mecklenburg
county,' was sent over to England by Sir James Wright, then governor
of Georgia, (to whom they had found their way) in a letter of the 20th
of June, 1775. The newspaper thus transmitted is still preserved, and
is the number 498 of the South Carolina Gazette and County Journal,
Tuesday, June 13, 1775."--"It is identically the same with the paper
which you enclosed to me."--The letter of Sir James Wright, referred
to by Mr. Bancroft, closes as follows: "By the enclosed paper, your
lordship will see the extraordinary resolves of the people of
Charlotte town, in Mecklenburg county: I should not be surprised if
the same should be done every where else"
[37] Pitkin.
VI. ATTACK ON SULLIVAN'S ISLAND.
INVASION of Southern Colonies proposed--Expedition
dispatched--Charleston its first Object--Proceedings of its
Citizens--Sullivan's island Fortified--Arrival of General
Lee--His opinion of Fort Moultrie--British Fleet
arrives--Preliminary movements--Fort Moultrie
attacked--Remarkable Defence of it--Action described--Heroic
conduct of Sergeant Jasper--British repulsed--Respective
losses--Liberal conduct of Governor Rutledge--Mrs.
Elliot--Death of Jasper.
The successful defence of Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's island, is
justly considered one of the noblest achievements recorded in the
annals of the Revolution.
The reduction of the southern colonies to obedience, was deemed a
measure of prime importance by the British government, nor was it
considered a project of difficult achievement. Hitherto the principal
theatre of the war had been in the north; and, hence, it was
calculated that preparations for the defence of the southern colonies
had been so much neglected, that little more than a demonstration in
that quarter would be necessary to bring the people to terms.
Early in 1776, an expedition having the above object in view was
devised, the command of which was entrusted to Sir Peter Parker and
Earl Cornwallis. Accordingly, on the 3d of May, Admiral Parker, with
twenty sail, arrived at Cape Fear, with Generals Cornwallis, Vaughan,
and several others.
General Clinton was expected from New York, with another considerable
corps, to cöoperate in the attack. With his troops he had arrived at the
point of destination, even anterior to the naval armament; and, being
the senior general, on the junction of the forces, assumed the command.
The immediate object was the reduction and possession of Charleston, the
capital of South Carolina; on the fall of which, the subjugation of that
and the other southern provinces would be an easy achievement.
The meditated invasion was not unknown to the Carolinians, who, being
a high-minded and chivalrous people, determined that if their capital
fell, it should be at an expense of a treasure of British blood.
With great activity and energy, therefore, they betook themselves to the
fortification of every assailable point. With patriotic
disinterestedness, the citizens demolished their valuable store-houses
on the wharves to supply materials for defence. Streets were barricaded,
and intrenchments erected along the shore. Even windows were stripped of
their weights, to supply the demand for bullets. The inhabitants
generally came to the work of defence, and scarcely a man on the ground
could be discovered without a spade, a pickaxe, or other implement of
work. Even the blacks from the city, and for miles in the country, were
employed, and seemed animated with the enthusiasm and zeal of their
masters. The commanding general was Major-general Lee, who, having been
appointed by congress to the command of the southern forces, and
possessing the entire confidence of the troops and of the people, was
enabled to carry to completion the various works of defence, which his
knowledge and skill had decided to be important. Governor Rutledge, also
a man of great influence in the province, cöoperated with General Lee,
in all his measures of defence, and by his example and exhortations
essentially contributed to the happy results which followed.