the only alternative to submission; for it alone
would make possible that military and commercial alliance with France
without which America could not successfully withstand the superior
power of Great Britain; and at the same time it would enable the _de
facto_ colonial Governments, with a show of legality, to suppress the
disaffected Loyalists and confiscate their property to the uses of the
cause which they had so basely betrayed.

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, in behalf of the Virginia delegation
and in obedience to instructions from the Virginia Assembly, accordingly
moved "that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and
independent states; ... that it is expedient forthwith to take the most
effectual measures for forming foreign alliances"; and "that a plan of
confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective colonies for
their consideration." Debated at length, the final decision, already a
foregone conclusion, was deferred in deference to the wishes of the
conservative Middle colonies. It was on July 2 that the momentous
resolutions were finally carried; and two days later the Congress
published to the world that famous declaration which derived the
authority of just governments from the consent of the governed, and
grounded civil society upon the inherent and inalienable rights of man.
In the history of the Western world, the American Declaration of
Independence was an event of outstanding importance: glittering or not,
its sweeping generalities formulated those basic truths which no
criticism can seriously impair, and to which the minds of men must
always turn, so long as faith in democracy shall endure.

V

The men who with resolution and high hope pledged their lives, their
fortunes, and their sacred honor to the defense of these novel
principles, could scarcely have foreseen the emotional reaction that was
soon to follow; the profound disillusionment of those weary years when
only an occasional victory came to lift the despondency occasioned by
constant defeat: years when "the spirit of the people begins to flag, or
the approach of danger dispirits them"; when "few of the numbers who
talked so largely of death and honor" were to be found on the field of
battle; when a febrile enthusiasm for liberty and the just rights of
humanity seemed strangely transformed into the sordid spirit of the
money-changer; those years of the drawn-out war when drudgery in
obscure committe