The voice of the bell joined in joyful celebration with that of the people when the odious Stamp Act was repealed; late in the year 1773 it witnessed the agitated remonstrances of the inhabitants against the proposed importations of taxed tea. On September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress convened in Carpenter’s Hall, Philadelphia. It convened again the following May in the State House, and paved the way to the Declaration of Independence. When the Battle of Lexington was reported on an April day, the State House bell summoned to the historic enclosure called the “Yard” a company of eight thousand people, determined to defend “with arms their lives, liberty and property, against all attempts to deprive them of them.”
Matters were hurrying to the breaking-point when in June, 1776, the State Assembly received the resolutions of the General Convention of Virginia, which forecast in sentiment and wording the final Declaration. Two days later the National Assembly, also in session at the State House, took the first step toward the Colonies’ Magna Charta when the resolution was read and seconded “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.” A committee on the Declaration of Independence was chosen; July second the “Resolution respecting Independency” was confirmed by representatives of all the colonies except New York. For two days it was debated, on the evening of the fourth day of July it was passed, and the next day it was officially promulgated. On July eighth the Declaration of Independence was read from a balcony in the State House square, and the bell, which for a quarter of a century had awaited this moment to fulfill the prophecy of its Biblical quotation, proclaimed free and independent the Colonies of America.
The bell’s period of service was finally closed exactly forty-nine years after that day of rejoicing, when in tolling for the death of Chief Justice John Marshall its sides again cracked. It was then removed from the steeple, and now remains a monument in Independence Hall to the days when American Liberty was young.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 6, No. 10, SERIAL No. 158
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN INDEPENDENCE HALL.
CHILDREN OF LIBERTY
THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY
Children of Liberty
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