In England
the colonists were often taunted with being "rebels." The answer
was not wanting that ancestors of those who now cried "rebel" had
themselves been rebels a hundred years earlier when their own
liberty was at stake.
There were in Congress men who ventured to say that the
Declaration was a libel on the government of England; men like
John Dickinson of Pennsylvania and John Jay of New York, who
feared that the radical elements were moving too fast.
Radicalism, however, was in the saddle, and on the 2d of July the
"resolution respecting independency " was adopted. On July 4,
1776, Congress debated and finally adopted the formal Declaration
of Independence. The members did not vote individually. The
delegates from each colony cast the vote of the colony. Twelve
colonies voted for the Declaration. New York alone was silent
because its delegates had not been instructed as to their vote,
but New York, too, soon fell into line. It was a momentous
occasion and was understood to be such. The vote seems to have
been reached in the late afternoon. Anxious citizens were waiting
in the streets. There was a bell in the State House, and an old
ringer waited there for the signal. When there was long delay he
is said to have muttered: "They will never do it! they will never
do it!" Then came the word, "Ring! Ring!" It is an odd fact that
the inscription on the bell, placed there long before the days of
the trouble, was from Leviticus: "Proclaim liberty throughout all
the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.
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