According to parliamentary usage, Mr. Lee would have been the chairman of this committee; but he was absent in Virginia on account of the illness of a member of his family. Mr. Jefferson, however, having the greatest number of votes, was selected by the other members of the committee to act as chairman, and the draft prepared by him was first read in committee. Some verbal alterations were made by Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, and it was not thought necessary to read the drafts prepared by the others. It was stated at the time that the other members of the committee were so pleased with Mr. Jefferson’s draft that they would not submit theirs even for consideration. Perhaps no higher compliment was ever paid to the author of our Declaration of Independence than that which emanated from the gentlemen who composed this committee.
The Declaration, thus prepared and amended, was finally adopted in Congress on the 4th, and was read to a meeting of the citizens of Philadelphia, assembled at the State-House yard, from the steps of the building.
The house in which Mr. Jefferson wrote the Declaration is still standing, at the southwest corner of Seventh and Market Streets. Mr. Jefferson had rooms in it as a lodger when a member of the Congress of ’76. Two days before the adoption of the Declaration and its promulgation, Mr. Adams, in a letter addressed to his wife, makes use of the following language:—
“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the grand anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward and forever.
“I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration and to support and defend the States: yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph, although you and I may rue it,—which I hope we shall not.”
When the bell sounded forth from the steeple of the old State-House, the first peal for liberty gave new life to the citizens: from lip to lip, from street to street, from city, town, and through the country, away, away, the words roll like the waves of the ocean, and reverberating like the roar of the wind as, undulating, it passed through all space. The city of Philadelphia on the afternoon of July 4, 1776, presented to view a city convulsed. Joy united with patriotism, and then the word “Freedom!” became the watchword.
When the news reached New York, the bells were set ringing, and the excited multitude, surging hither and thither, at length gathered around the Bowling Green, and, seizing the leaden equestrian statue of George III. which stood there, broke it into fragments: this was afterwards run into bullets and hurled against his majesty’s troops.[35] When the Declaration arrived in Boston, the people gathered around old Faneuil Hall to hear it read, and, as the last sentence fell from the lips of the reader, a loud shout went up, and soon from every fortified height and every battery the thunder of cannon re-echoed the cry.
LIBERTY-TREE.
During the Stamp Act excitement there arose a practice of signifying public sentiment in a very effectual way,—though without any responsible agent, unless the inanimate Liberty-Tree may be so considered. This tree was a majestic elm that stood in front of a house opposite the Boylston market, on the edge of the “High Street,” in the town of Boston. On the 14th of August, 1765, an effigy representing Andrew Oliver, a gentleman appointed to distribute the stamps, was found hanging upon this tree, with a paper before it, on which was written, in large characters,—
“Fair Freedom’s glorious cause I’ve meanly quitted,