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and Bunker Hill had become a part of the nation's history, and George Washington had been made commander in chief, when Richard Henry Lee, acting under instructions from Virginia, offered the resolution which was to convert the United Colonies into free and independent states.

"Resolved, 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 connections between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved."

But "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which united them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

So, while Congress was considering the weighty matter presented to its members by Lee on the 7th of June, a matter too weighty to be considered at once and offhand, it appointed a committee consisting of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston, to write a declaration showing a decent respect to the opinions of mankind and have it ready in case it was wanted. As Jefferson was chairman of the committee, the duty of writing the declaration, a duty which he regarded as one of the greatest of his life and so worthy to be inscribed as such upon his monument, was given to him.

July 2, Lee's resolution was passed and two days later the Declaration of Independence was adopted and later copies were sent to the states.

Pennsylvania got her copy first, and on noon of July 8 it was read before a great crowd of people in the statehouse yard, the people, declaring their approbation by repeated huzzas, while the great bell which had been cast some years before with the prophetic words upon its side, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the

inhabitants thereof," rang out a joyful peal. The king's arms in the courtroom were taken down and there were bonfires and other demonstrations of joy at this first celebration of the passage of the Declaration of Independence. The story of the little boy who waited to tell his grandfather that the declaration had become a fact, so that he might ring the great bell as a message to the people, seems not to be borne out in fact.

He had time to wait, indeed, in those anxious days which tried men's souls, for the resolution was before the congress thirty-nine times before it was finally carried. The delegates from Pennsylvania and Georgia were at first against it. At one time Delaware had one delegate voting for and one voting against it, whereupon its advocate sent for an absent delegate, who rode eighty miles on horseback to cast his vote for it. The New York delegates were in favor of its passage, but as they were uninstructed, would not vote for it until advice came from their constituents as to what they should do.

So a London paper of the time was justified when it told its readers that "on the first trial there were but six votes in Congress for independence (the vote being taken by states), the other seven being against it. The delegates from Pennsylvania were known to be divided. Adams wrought upon the versatility of one of them, a Mr. Dickenson, and so carried his point. Thus a matter of such moment to both countries, and which, the rebels would make us believe, was the unanimous vote of the thirteen colonies, was finally determined by the single suffrage of Mr. Dickenson."

To John Adams, who seconded the motion for the adoption of the declaration, fell the work of speaking for it on the floor, for Jefferson, though a ready and able writer, was no orator.

In 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of Independence day found them both alive, but its evening left them dead. It was a singular coincidence that each should have died on the day so memorable to both. Jefferson's death, which occurred at noon, preceded that of Adams by a few hours, and the last rational words of the latter, "Jefferson still survives," had already been

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contradicted by death. Both had attained old age, Jefferson being 83, and Adams 91, and both had served the country brought into being by the declaration for which they worked, as president. The fifth president of the United States, James Monroe, also died on the national holiday five years later, at the age of 73 years.

Of the fifty-six men whose names appear on the Declaration of Independence, only one signed on the first Fourth. John Hancock, president of the Congress, one of the two traitors whom General Gage refused to pardon, for and on behalf of Congress, signed that day, but most of the signatures were written, as is shown in the journal, August 2. Some were not written until November and one signer stated that he did not write his name until 1781.

Of the fifty-six signers, twenty-one were lawyers; ten, merchants; four, doctors; three, farmers; one, a clergyman; three had studied for the ministry, and one was a printer. Twenty-five were college graduates and sixteen were wealthy.

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Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the richest man of the colonies, who died in 1832, was the last surviving signer, and on August 2, 1826, the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the declaration, the year which found three signers living but left him the sole survivor, he made a reaffirmatory declaration showing that August 2 was the date on which the document received his signature, with most of the others:

"Grateful to Almighty God for the blessing which, through Jesus Christ our Lord, he has conferred upon my country in her emancipation, and upon myself, in permitting me, under circumstances of mercy, to live to the age of 89 years and to survive the fiftieth year of American Independence, and certifying by my present signature my present approbation of the Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress on the fourth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventysix, which I originally subscribed on the second day of August of the same year, and of which I am now the last surviving signer,

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Carroll was not chosen a delegate to Congress until the fourth of July, and did not take his seat until the eighth, but it was his influence that caused Maryland to concur with the other colonies in declaring themselves independent states. In May the Maryland convention met while Carroll was in Canada as member of a commission sent there to induce the Canadians to join the movement against Great Britain. In his absence the Maryland convention met at Annapolis and instructed its delegates not to concur in a vote for independence. In June, after his return, he protested against the action and a new resolution recalling the instructions and advising Maryland's delegates to vote for independence was passed.

When he signed, the fact that few risked so much as he was shown in the exclamation of a member: "There go a few millions."

His reaffirmatory declaration appears on a facsimile of the declaration in the New York library. The original parchment is carefully guarded by the Department of State in Washington and is kept in a steel cabinet and seldom shown to anyone.

So momentous an event as a nation's birth dwarfs all other happenings, yet in the course of the years it would be strange if they refused deeds of note to the Fourth of July. In this country, it is, indeed, often selected as a fitting day in which to inaugurate important public enterprises. Thus the commencement of the Erie Canal dates from the Fourth of July, 1817, and the first mail stage commenced running from Pittsburg to Philadelphia on that day in 1804. The ceremony of laying the corner stone of the Washington monument in

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The Spirit of Bunker Hill

JOE MITCHELL CHAPPLE, IN "THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE" FOR JUNE.

Sooner or later every stranger who visits Boston invariably announces: "I must see Bunker Hill." June 17th is the ideal day to gratify that wish; to correctly entertain my guests a supply of luscious chicken and ham sandwiches should be packed, with plenty of pickles and a few pieces of pie, for Charlestown-accent on the "town" and pronounce it clearly, please-is within the "pie belt." We climb the stately pile on Bunker Hill; attend the exercises held by some historical association; listen to the strains of that old ode sung at the dedica

tion of the monument in 1843, when Daniel Webster delivered his famous oration; behold the parade sweep in majesty about the foot of the historic pile, and watch the sun flash in golden gleams on the renowned "Sword of Bunker Hill." Like many another historical landmark that otherwise would have been obliterated. Bunker Hill has been preserved to posterity by the devotion of women. Where today are well-kept turf, a stately monument and joyous sightseers, in 1775 a bare summit scarred by cannonshot, a raw, half-sodded fieldworks and low

redoubt overlooked the burning churches and houses of Charlestown. Beyond from the Charles River, the British men-of-war joined the land batteries on the farther bank in the unceasing thunder of artillery, hurling death upon the men of Massachusetts Bay, Vermont and Connecticut.

Due north to the very verge of the Mystic ran a weak breastwork across pasture lands and meadows, with here and there an orchard abloom with the delicate pink and white of apple, pear, cherry and quince; fields of yellow-hearted, white-petalled daisies swayed in the vortex of cannon shot and the mad rush of furious charges.

Anon the orchards were full of redcoated, white-gaitered infantry; the snowwhite daisies were marred by great splashes of life blood, and the pastures strewn with patches of scarlet, where soldiers in their gay uniforms had fallen to rise no more. To the left a half score of brass howitzers, posted amid brick kilns and clay pits, sought to enfilade and and sweep away the Baymen who kept the hill.

Farmers, sailors, fishermen, tradesmen, clad in everyday garb, armed with their homely weapons of the chase, with scarcely

a flag to fight under, suffering hunger, thirst and weariness under the broiling sun, coolly trained across the Bunker Hill breastwork the long, rusty tubes which had already heaped windrows of dead and dying men upon the fields below, where the newmown hay still lay drying. The British lines continued to charge. "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!" The word passed along the line of set faces and levelled guns; a moment later hoarse cries, "Fire! Fire!" rang out; a crash of triple volleys and the rattle of deadly file-firing followed. The powder failed, the provincials broke away pursued by Pitcairn's marines for the moment, our fathers' hope of victory was over.

Yes, visit Bunker Hill; look upon a monument erected to cherish the memory of a defeat that brought success, for Victory crowned the vanquished that day. The day set apart to commemorate the battle of Bunker Hill is exclusively a Charlestown holiday, but far wider than Boston's "trimountains" spreads the spirit of Bunker Hill throughout a great nation christened on that day in the red blood of American freeman.

America and the New Diplomacy

BY JAMES BROWN SCOTT, J. U. D., SOLICITOR FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

The discovery of America opened up a new world; the independence of the United States a new diplomacy.

The discovery of America opened up a world to the broken and depressed of Europe and gave them an opportunity to begin life anew in a world in which there were no traditions of the past, no limitations to the future and which they might fashion according to their will. From all lands they came, from Protestant and Catholic communities, from countries speaking various and discordant languages, the man of unconquerable mind and the broken in spirit, the rich and the poor, the criminal and the outcast. Freed from the restraint of the Old World they bred a race of Freemen. By the sweat of their brow they prospered, and unwilling to surrender the

proceeds of their industry and devotion or to yield to the Old World what they had acquired in the New, they maintained in war what they had acquired in peace. United by oppression or fear of oppression, they sank their differences of race, of religion, of language and tradition, founded a Republic and transmitted it to their offspring. Cast in the melting pot, they emerged from the crucible a Union, a Nation, which has stood the test of a civil war at home and commands because it deserves respect abroad. The experience of the United States established the simple doctrine that people of various nationalities may live side by side, that questions of religion are no barrier to union for the public good, and that groups of states possessing local self-government in the highest sense

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