Pennsylvania
and Maryland had refused to sanction the measure, and New York, South
Carolina and Georgia were silent. The delegates from Maryland were
unanimously in favor of it, while those from Pennsylvania were divided.
When, on the first of July, a vote was taken in Committee of the whole
House, all the colonies assented, except Pennsylvania and Delaware; four
of the seven delegates of the former voting against it, and the two
delegates from Delaware, who were present, were divided. Thomas M'Kean
favored it, and George Read (who afterward signed it), opposed it. Mr.
M'Kean burning with a desire to have his State speak in favor of the
great measure, immediately sent an express after his colleague, Caesar
Rodney, the other Delaware delegate, then eighty miles away. Rodney was
in the saddle within ten minutes after the arrival of the messenger, and
reached Philadelphia on the morning of the fourth of July, just before
the final vote was taken. Thus Delaware was secured. Robert Morris and
John Dickenson of Pennsylvania were absent; the former was favorable,
the latter opposed to the measure. Of the other five who were present,
Doctor Franklin, James Wilson, and John Morton were in favor of it;
Thomas Willing, and Charles Humphreys were opposed to it; so the State
of Pennsylvania was also secured. At a little past meridian, on the
FOURTH OF JULY 1776, a unanimous vote of the thirteen colonies was given
in favor of declaring themselves FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES. A number
of verbal alterations had been made in Mr. Jefferson's draft, and one
whole paragraph, which severely denounced Slavery was stricken out,
because it periled the unanimity of the vote. In the journal of Congress
for that day, is this simple record:

"Agreeably to the order of the day, the Congress resolved itself into a
committee of the whole, to take into their further consideration, the
Declaration; and after some time, the President resumed the chair, and
Mr. Harrison reported, that the Committee have agreed to a Declaration,
which they desired him to report. The Declaration being read, was agreed
to as follows:

"A DECLARATION OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them
with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the
separate and equal stat