At the time Lee had introduced his resolution, seven of the Colonies—New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia—favored independence. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, and Maryland were either opposed or undecided. Throughout the month, Revolutionaries in those provinces labored to gain control of the assemblies. Delaware and Pennsylvania, unable to reach a decision, instructed their representatives to vote in their colonies’ “best interests.” New Jersey issued similar directions, but also elected an entirely new and Whig-oriented slate of Delegates. The Maryland assembly, largely through the persuasion of Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and William Paca, voted unanimously for independence and so charged its Delegates. The South Carolinians, though they had been authorized months before to cast their lot with the majority, vacillated. The New Yorkers impatiently awaited instructions.
First page of Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration.
July 1 was the day of decision. The Revolutionaries, overconfident from their progress of the preceding month, anticipated an almost unanimous vote for independence. They were disappointed. Following congressional procedure, each colony balloted as a unit, determined by the majority of Delegate opinion. Only nine of the Colonies voted affirmatively; Pennsylvania and South Carolina, negatively; New York abstained; and the two Delegates present from Delaware deadlocked. Technically the resolution had carried, but the solidarity desirable for such a vital decision was missing. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, hinting his colony might change sides, moved that the vote be retaken the next day.
That day proved to be one of the most dramatic in the history of the Continental Congress. John Adams of Massachusetts exerted an overwhelming influence. South Carolina, its Delegates swayed by Rutledge, reversed its position. Two conservatives among the seven Pennsylvanians, Robert Morris and John Dickinson, though unwilling to make a personal commitment to independence, cooperated by purposely absenting themselves; the remaining Delegates voted three to two in favor. The most exciting moment of the day occurred when Caesar Rodney, Delaware’s third Delegate, galloped up to the statehouse after a harrowing 80-mile night ride from Dover through a thunderstorm and broke the Delaware tie. Home on a military assignment, the evening before he had received an urgent plea from Thomas McKean, the Delawarean who had voted for independence, to rush to Philadelphia. In the final vote, 12 Colonies approved Lee’s resolution, New York again abstaining. Congress declared the resolution to be in effect.
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For the remainder of July 2 and continuing until the 4th, Congress weighed and debated the content of the Declaration of Independence, which the drafting committee had submitted on June 28. Its author was young Thomas Jefferson, who had been in Congress about a year. The committee had chosen him for the task because he was from Virginia, the colony responsible for the independence resolution, and because of his reputation as an excellent writer and man of talent and action.
Facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, engraved in 1823 while the document was still in relatively good condition.
Laboring in his rented rooms on the second floor of a private home at the corner of Seventh and Market Streets, Jefferson had completed a rough draft in about 2 weeks. Apparently Franklin and Adams made some minor changes, and Livingston and Sherman expressed no reservations so far as is known. To Jefferson’s irritation, however, Congress altered the final draft considerably. Most of the changes consisted of refinements in phraseology. Two major passages, however, were deleted. The first, a censure of the people of Great Britain, seemed harsh and needless to most of the Delegates. The second, an impassioned condemnation of the slave trade, offended Southern planters as well as New England shippers, many of whom were as culpable as the British in the trade.