to ministers or to Parliament, there were no reasons to be
given for now refusing obedience to their authority. This
clear and obvious necessity of founding the Declaration on
the misconduct of the king himself, gives to that instrument
its personal application, and its character of direct and pointed accusation.
34. The Declaration having been reported to Congress by the committee, the resolution itself was taken up and debated on the first day of July, and again on the second, on which last day it was agreed to and adopted, in these words:—
"Resolved, 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."
34. Having thus passed the main resolution. Congress proceeded to consider the reported draught of the Declaration.[1] It was discussed on the second, and third, and fourth days of the month, in committee of the whole; and on the last of those days, being reported from that committee, it received the final approbation and sanction of Congress. It was ordered, at the same time, that copies be sent to the several States, and that it be proclaimed at the head of the army. The Declaration thus published did not bear the names of the members, for as yet it had not been signed by them. It was authenticated, like other pai)ers of the Congress, by the signatures of the President and Secretary. On the 19th of July, as appears by the secret journal, Congress "Resolved, That the Declaration, passed on the fourth, be fairly engrosed on parchment, with the title and style of ' The unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America;' and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress." And on the second day of August following, "the Declaration, being engrossed and compared at the
- ↑ The story of how the Declaration of Independence was drawn up, with much incidental personal matter, together with many pen pictures of its signers, was given in the current magazines of 1875 and 1876—the "Centennial" years.
