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 taken 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 M’Corkle 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, 1st, 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 1st 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, being, 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 present, 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 was not till the 9th, (five days after the general signature,) that their Convention authorized them to do so.  The Convention of Pennsylvania, learning that it had been signed by a majority only of their delegates, named a new delegation on the 20th, leaving out Mr. Dickinson, who had refused to sign, Willing and Humphreys, who had withdrawn, reappointing the three members who had signed, Morris, who had not been present, and five new ones, to wit, Rush, Clymer, Smith, Taylor, and Ross:  and Morris and the five new members were permitted to sign, because it manifested the assent of their full delegation, and the express will of their Convention, which might have been doubted on the former signature of a minority only.  Why the signature of Thornton, of New Hampshire, was permitted so late as the 4th of November, I cannot now say; but undoubtedly for some particular reason, which we should find to have been good, had it been expressed.  These were the only post-signers, and you see, sir, that there were solid reasons for receiving those of New York and Pennsylvania, and that this circumstance in no wise affects the faith of this Declaratory Charter of our rights, and of the rights of man.