Independence Hall, Philadelphia.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

In August 1775, Mr. Jefferson took his seat in the Continental Congress, preceded by the fame of being one of the most accomplished and powerful champions of the cause, though among the youngest members of the body. It was the wish of Mr. Adams, and probably of Mr. Jefferson, that independence should be declared in the fall of 1775; but the country seemed not then ripe for the measure.

At length the accepted time arrived. In May 1776, the colonies, on the proposition of Mr. Adams, were invited by the General Congress to establish their several state governments. On the 7th of June the resolution of independence was moved by Richard Henry Lee. On the 11th a committee of five was chosen, to announce this resolution to the world; and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams stood at the head of this committee. From their designation by ballot to this most honourable duty, their elevated standing in the Congress might alone be inferred. In their amicable contention and deference each to the other of the great trust of composing the all-important docu- ment, we witness their patriotic disinterestedness and their mutual respect. This trust devolved on Jefferson, and with it rests on him the imperishable renown of having penned the Declaration of Independence of America. To have been the instrument of expressing, in one brief decisive act, the concentrated will and resolution of a whole family of states; of unfolding, in one all-important manifesto, the causes, the motives, the justification of the great movement io human affairs which was then taking place; to have been permitted to give the impress and peculiarity of his own mind to a charter of public right, destined, or rather let me say, already elevated to an importance, in the estimation of men, beyond everything human, ever borne on parchment, or expressed in the visible signs of thought, this is the glory of Thomas Jefferson. To have been among the first of those who foresaw, and foreseeing broke the way for this great consummation; to have been the mover of numerous decisive acts, its undoubted precursors; to have been among many able and generous spirits, that united in this perilous adventure, by acknowledgment unsurpassed in zeal, and unequalled in power; to have been exclusively associated with the author of the declaration; and then, in the exercise of an eloquence as prompt as it was overwhelming, to have taken the lead in inspiring the Congress to adopt and proclaim it, this is the glory of John Adams.

Nor was it among common and inferior minds, that these men enjoyed their sublime pre-eminence. In the body that elected Mr. Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence, there sat a patriot sage, than whom the English language does not boast a better writer, Benjamin Franklin. And Mr. Adams was pronounced by Mr. Jefferson himself the ablest advocate of independence, in a Congress which could boast among its members such men as Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and our own Samuel Adams. They were great and among great men; mightiest among the mighty, and enjoyed their lofty standing in a body of which half the members might with honour have presided over the deliberative councils of a nation.