s, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

Having thus passed the main resolution, congress proceeded to consider
the reported draft of the declaration. It was discussed on the second,
and third, and fourth days of the month, in committee of the whole,
and on the last of those days, being reported from that committee, it
received the final approbation and sanction of congress. It was ordered,
at the same time, that copies be sent to the several states, and that
it be proclaimed at the head of the army. The declaration thus published
did not bear the names of the members, for as yet, it had not been
signed by them. It was authenticated like other papers of the congress,
by the signatures of the President and secretary. On the 19th of
July, as appears by the secret journal, congress "Resolved, That the
declaration, passed on the fourth, be fairly engrossed on parchment,
with the title and style of 'THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;' and that the same, when engrossed, be signed
by every member of congress." And on the SECOND day of August following,
"the declaration being engrossed, and compared at the table, was signed
by the members." So that it happens, fellow-citizens, that we pay these
honors to their memory on the anniversary of that day, on which
these great men actually signed their names to the declaration. The
declaration was thus made, that is, it passed and was adopted as an act
of congress, on the fourth of July; it was then signed, and certified
by the President and secretary, like other acts. The FOURTH OF JULY,
therefore, is the anniversary of the declaration. But the signatures of
the members present were made to it, being then engrossed on parchment,
on the second day of August. Absent members afterward signed, as they
came in; and indeed it bears the signatures of some who were not
chosen members of congress until after the fourth of July. The interest
belonging to the subject will be sufficient, I hope, to justify these
details.

The congress of the revolution, fellow-citizens, sat with closed doors,
and no report of its debates was ever taken. The discussion, therefore,
which accompanied this great measure, has never been preserved, except
in memory and by tradition. But it is, I believe, doing no injustice to
others to say that the general opinion was, and uniformly has been, that
in debate, on the side of independence, John Adams had no equal. The
great author of the