3/11/2023 0 Comments Declaration of independence textMembers of the Congress present on August 2 affixed their signatures to this parchment copy on that day and others later. (The convention of New York gave its consent on July 9, and the New York delegates voted affirmatively on July 15.) On July 19 the Congress ordered the document to be engrossed as “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.” It was accordingly put on parchment, probably by Timothy Matlack of Philadelphia. On the following day at the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, with the New York delegation abstaining only because it lacked permission to act, the Lee resolution was voted on and endorsed. The document was prepared, and on July 1 nine delegations voted for separation, despite warm opposition on the part of Dickinson. Livingston was promptly chosen on June 11 to prepare a statement justifying the decision to assert independence, should it be taken. However, a committee consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Some of the delegates had not yet received authorization to vote for separation a few were opposed to taking the final step and several men, among them John Dickinson, believed that the formation of a central government, together with attempts to secure foreign aid, should precede it. The passage of Lee’s resolution was delayed for several reasons. It had denied Parliamentary sovereignty over the colonies as early as December 6, 1775, and on May 10, 1776, it had advised the colonies to establish governments of their own choice and declared it to be “absolutely irreconcilable to reason and good conscience for the people of these colonies now to take the oaths and affirmations necessary for the support of any government under the crown of Great Britain,” whose authority ought to be “totally suppressed” and taken over by the people-a determination which, as Adams said, inevitably involved a struggle for absolute independence. By that time the Congress had already taken long steps toward severing ties with Britain. John Adams of Massachusetts seconded the motion. On May 15 the Virginia convention instructed its deputies to offer the motion-“that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States”-which was brought forward in the Congress by Richard Henry Lee on June 7. On April 12, 1776, the revolutionary convention of North Carolina specifically authorized its delegates in the Congress to vote for independence.
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