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South Carolina concurred in voting for it. In the mean time, a third member had come post from the Delaware counties, and turned the vote of that colony in favor of the resolution. Members of a different sentiment attending that morning from Pennsylvania also, her vote was changed ; so that the whole twelve colonies, who were authorised to vote at all, gave their votes for it; and within a few days [July 9th] the convention of New York ap- proved of it, and thus supplied the void occasioned by the with- drawing of their delegates from the vote.’ [Be careful to observe, that this vacillation and vote were on the original motion of the 7th of June, by the Virginia delegates, that Congress should declare the colonies independent.| ‘ Congress proceeded, the same day, to consider the Declaration of Independence, which had been re- ported and laid on the table the Friday preceding, and on Monday, referred to a Committee of the whole. ‘The pusillanimous idea, that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offence. ‘The debates having ta- ken up the greater parts of the second, third and fourth days of July, were, in the evening of the last, closed : the Declaration was reported by the Committee, agreed to by the House, and signed by every member present except Mr. Dickinson.’ So far my notes.
Governor M‘Kean, in his letter to McCorkle of July 16th, 1817, has thrown some lights on the transactions of that day : but, trusting to his memory chiefly, at an age when our memories are not to be trusted, he has confounded two questions, and ascribed proceedings to one which belonged to the other. ‘These two questions were, Ist, the Virginia motion of June the 7th, to declare Independence ; and 2nd, the actual Declaration, its matter and form. Thus he states the question on the Declaration itself, as decided on the Ist of July; but it was the Virginia motion which was voted on that day in committee of the whole ; South Carolina, as well as Pennsylvania then voting against it. But the ultimate decision in the House, on the report of the Committee, bemg, by request, postponed to the next morning, all the states voted for it, except New York, whose vote was delayed for the reason before stated. It was not till the 2nd of July, that the Declaration itself was taken up; nor till the 4th, that it was decided, and it was signed by every member present, except Mr. Dickinson.
The subsequent signatures of members who were not then pre- sent, and some of them not yet in office, is easily explained, if we observe who they were ; to wit, that they were of New York and Pennsylvania. New York did not sign till the 15th, because it
