of rights; but a majestic determination to dismember a mighty empire; to give life to a new nation!

It is the

A detail of this event cannot be uninteresting. brightest portion of that luminous career to which our eyes are directed. The resolution, in committee of the whole, was debated on the 8th, 9th and 10th, and in the forenoon of this last day it was agreed that it be "reported to the house" and its further consideration postponed until Monday the first day of July, a committee in the mean while, to be appointed to prepare "the Declaration,"

This postponement, until the first of July, did not proceed from any wavering, or wish to temporize, or fear of responsibility; but for the politic purpose of giving Pennsylvania and Maryland time to instruct their delegates in congress to concur in the vote for Independence. The instructions to this effect from Pennsylvania were laid before congress upon the 25th of June, and from Maryland upon the 1st of July.

In proportion as important events crowd upon Congress, and as duties become more delicate and dangerous, Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson grow in the confidence of the body, and in their own personal intimacy and affection.

On the 11th of June the committee to prepare the Declaration of Independence was selected. Mr. Lee, the celebrated mover of "Independency," in consequence of the news of a domestic affliction, left Philadelphia upon the morning of that day. Mr. Jefferson was a silent, and, supposed to be, one of the youngest members of the house-but the admiration of his talents, and confidence in his zeal for his country, were unbounded, and he was made the chairman of this interesting committee. Mr. Adams, receiving one vote less, was the second named, together with Dr. Franklin of Pennsylvania, Mr. Sherman of Connecticut, and Mr. Livingston, of NewYork. They met and intrusted the important duty to Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams. The two remained together; and each insisted that the other should draft the instrument, when

these mutual compliments are terminated by Mr. Jefferson"well if you are decided, I will try and do the best I can."

In a day or two the draft was submitted to the committee, approved of, and reported to the House, without alteration, on Friday the 28th of June.

In the animated Debate which ensued upon Mr. Lee's "Resolution" and Mr. Jefferson's "Declaration," and upon which hung the fate of the nation-in this great agony of the conflict-it is admitted that Mr. Adams was the foremost champion on the side of Independence. Thirty-seven years after this eloquent discussion, the accomplished penman of the Declaration declares that "Mr. Adams was the pillar of "its support on the floor of Congress, its ablest advocate and "defender against the multifarious assaults it encountered."

On the 2d of July "the resolution" was adopted, and the discussion of the "Declaration" postponed until one o'clock of the 4th, when an illustrious vote in the affirmative decided the destinies of the Colonies and elevated them to the rank of an independent nation.

The Declaration of Independence was promulgated at four o'clock, in the State-House yard of Philadelphia, to the people, who, from that moment, date their restoration to sovereignty. Two weeks afterwards the Declaration was ordered to be fairly engrossed on parchment; to be styled “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America" and "to be signed by every member of Congress."

On the 2d day of August following, when our affairs had become more gloomy, shortly before the battle of Long Island, and when General Washington must have foreseen that he would be obliged to abandon the posts of New-York, heroically pursuing their steady course and looking to their own determined spirits for their only encouragement, the members of Congress, walk to the clerk's table and unanimously sign the memorable instrument !

This delay in engrossing the Declaration gave to some delegates from Pennsylvania an opportunity of signing it, who

had not been members on the 4th. For in the mean time Pennsylvania made her election, leaving out the delegates who voted against the Declaration, with the exception of that national benefactor Robert Morris.

Think not fora moment, that a sluggish, or indifferent spirit marked in those times, our own Pennsylvania. She was staunch and steadfast from first to last. But her population was distinguished by the calmness and deliberation, no less than by the determined character of her Founder. That she was indifferent to the great principles asserted in the mềmorable Declaration, no one can believe. She had been taught from her infancy the doctrine there inculcated. Yes, people of Pennsylvania! let us not forget the illustrious dead, however remote from the present time. To some of you it may not be known that William Penn, so long ago as the year 1681, proclaimed, boldly and distinctly, the very principles which were re-asserted in 1776. The definition which this great man has left to us of civil and political liberty, cannot be improved upon. The world has since been struggling to realize it. In a few words, marked by the chaste and beautiful simplicity of his style, he declares that that country only is free" where the laws rule, and the people are a party to those laws."-Less than this, he says, is tyranny, more than this, is anarchy. To attain this enviable state of things has since been the object of every virtuous patriot. Wherever an oppressed people shall succeed in throwing off the galling yoke of tyranny, they will only be where William Penn declared that God and nature entitled them to be. And you, people of Pennsylvania! if ever your fair fabric should be overturned by foreign or intestire violence, and tyranny result as the natural consequence, you will, to your shame and confusion, find this sentiment placed under its original corner stone! Your ancestors were not thus guilty. When the state of things was really found to exist which is set forth so truly in the Declaration ; when it was ascertained that the laws did not rule, but were suspended by military violence; when the people, so far from

being "a party to those laws," were ignominiously put aside and trampled upon-then was the definition of tyranny complete! The crisis had arrived which the mild and benevolent founder of Pennsylvania had declared to be intolerable. She then did her part. Well may we be proud of the venerable Commonwealth under which we live, and great is the responsibility to the rights of man, which has thus been devolved upon us!

But time urges, and we must hasten, in justice to our task, to take a momentary retrospect of the Continental Congress of '75--'6

This body was hastily brought together and kept compact only by the pressure of the occasion; some delegates with powers vaguely restricted, others with authority, general and unlimited. It was a mass in which light and heat seem to have been generated only by the restless activity and force of its own elements.-The powers of the Government were not distributed. Congress was obliged to assume and exercise every kind of function; executive, legislative, military, naval, and sometimes judicial; and we are frequently at a loss wheth er most to admire its bold and lofty declarations, or its indefatigable attention to the humblest matters of detail. The wonderful-the restless-the minute-the pervading anxiety of these men in relation to the cause in which they had enga. ged, can be learned only from their proceedings. Had those proceedings fallen into the hands of Burgoyne or Cornwallis previous to their respective captures, they would have furnished an inexhaustible fund of merriment. We ourselves, but for the glorious and imperishable result of this earnest, all-engrossing zeal, might be disposed to smile at them. At one moment you find them discussing fundamental principles in relation to the civil and religious rights of man, and the next occupied with a fiscal appropriation of" one dollar and eight cents."-Again, you find them planning foreign alliances, and at the next moment voting to some gallant volunteer company," half a keg of powder and fifty flints"---and at one

sitting, in this medley of business, were to be found, mingled together on their table, Despatches from the Commander-inChief, Correspondence with foreign ministers, Bills of Rights, and Letters from an Indian agent at " Fort Pitt" about "strings of wampum !" Thus perseveringly weaving the minutest thread of that net which entangled, and finally subdued the British Lion.

For honor not to be shaken-for a perseverance not to be remitted, the old Continental Congress has no parallel in history. If for the pure and elevated principles which these men then professed-if for "the Resolution" and "Declaration of Independence," they merit the deepest veneration and the loftiest praise, what additional honor will you not bestow upon them when you contemplate the heroic firmness and moral courage with which they maintained their principles and pursued their steadfast course? Nothing could appal them! Regardless of their own safety, they never thought for one moment of abandoning the Declaration they had made. They had weighed the consequences, and were prepared to meet the event. They were true to themselves and true to their country. They would make no surrender; listen to no terms founded on pardon, or a resumption of the condition of British subjects; nor court any foreign alliance not based upon the perfect freedom and fair equality of trade.

At one day the hostile bands approach Philadelphia. The clang of their arms almost re-echoes in the Hall of Independence. At another, our forces being driven back and discomfitted, the enemy victoriously takes possession of the City. Yet this body of representatives is not dissolved. They adjourn, and in a few days you find them at Baltimore, at Lancaster and at York, in cool and dispassionate deliberation.

The year 1776 terminates the joint labors in Congress of Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson.

In the fall of this year the latter was called upon by his native State to act upon a commission to revise her code of laws;