e resolution as
having been agreed to. Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, said that
were the vote postponed till next day, he believed that his colleagues,
though they disapproved of the resolution, would then join in it for the
sake of unanimity. The final question, in accordance with this request,
was postponed until the next day; but it was agreed to go into Committee
on the draft of the Declaration.

"On the 2nd July, probably fifty members were present in Congress. After
disposing of the business of the morning, it resumed the resolution _on
independence_, and probably without much debate proceeded to vote.
McKean sent an express to Rodney, at Dover, which procured his
attendance, and secured the vote of Delaware in the affirmative; while
the same result was reached for Pennsylvania by Dickenson and Morris
absenting themselves, and allowing Franklin, Wilson, and Morton to give
the vote against Willing and Humphries. The South Carolina delegates
concluded to vote for the measure. Thus twelve colonies united in
adopting the following resolution:

"'That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and
independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the
State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.'"
(Frothingham's Rise of the Republic of the United States, Chap. xi., pp.
537, 538.)

On the adoption of this resolution, continues the same historian,
"Congress went immediately into Committee of the Whole to consider the
draft of a Declaration of Independence, or the form of announcing the
fact to the world. During the remainder of that day, and during the
sessions of the 3rd and 4th, the phraseology, allegations, and
principles of this paper were subjected to severe scrutiny. Its author
relates: '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 censure on the people of England were
struck out, lest they should give them offence. The clause, too,
reprobating the enslaving of the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in
complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to
restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, wished to
continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender
under these censures; for though their people had very few slave