y therefore thought
themselves not justifiable in voting on either side, and asked leave to
withdraw from the question; which was given them. The committee rose and
reported their resolution to the House. Mr. Edward Rutledge, of South
Carolina, then requested the determination might be put off to the
next day, as he believed his colleagues, though they disapproved of
the resolution, would then join in it for the sake of unanimity. The
ultimate question, whether the House would agree to the resolution of
the committee, was accordingly postponed to the next day, when it was
again moved, and South Carolina concurred in voting for it. In the
mean time, a third member had come post from the Delaware counties, and
turned the vote of that colony in favor of the resolution. Members of a
different sentiment attending that morning from Pennsylvania also, her
vote was changed, so that the whole twelve colonies, who were authorized
to vote at all, gave their voices for it; and, within a few days, [July
9.] the convention of New York approved of it, and thus supplied the
void occasioned by the withdrawing of her delegates from the vote.

Congress proceeded the same day to consider the Declaration of
Independence, which had been reported and laid on the table the Friday
preceding, and on Monday referred 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 clause too, reprobating the enslaving
the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South
Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the
importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to
continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little
tender under those censures; for though their people had very few slaves
themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to
others. The debates having taken up the greater parts of the 2nd, 3rd,
and 4th days of July, were, on 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. As the sentiments
of men are known, not only by what they receive, but what they reject
also, I will state the form of the Declaration as originally reported.
The part