McKean to be sent for to secure the Delaware delegation. says, in a letter written in 1814 to John Adams, “I sent an, express for Cæsar Rodney to Dover, in the county of Kent, in Delaware, at my private expense, whom I met at the Statehouse door on the 4th of July, in his boots; he resided eighty miles from the city, and just arrived as Congress met." Jefferson has, however, thrown much doubt over these octogenarian recollections by McKean, and thinks that he confounded the different votes together. There is little doubt that this hurried night-ride by Rodney was in preparation for the Second of July, not the Fourth, and that the vote on the Fourth went quietly through. But the Declaration, being adopted, was next to be signed; and here again we come upon an equally great contradiction in testimony. This same Thomas McKean wrote in 1814 to exPresident Adams, speaking of the Declaration of Independence, "No man signed it on that day"-namely, July 4, 1776. Jefferson, on the other hand, writing some years later, thought that Mr. McKean's memory had deceived him, Jefferson himself asserting, from his early notes, that "the Declaration was reported by the Committee, agreed to by the House, and signed by every member present except Mr. Dickinson." But Jefferson, who was also an octogenarian, seems to have forgotten the subsequent signing of the Declaration on parchment, until it was recalled to his memory, as he states, a few years later. If there was a previous signing of a written document, the manuscript itself has long since disappeared, and the accepted historic opinion is that both these venerable witnesses were mistaken; that the original Declaration was signed only by the president and secretary, John Hancock and Charles Thomson, and that the general signing of the parchment copy took place on August 2d. It is probable, at least, that fifty-four of the fiftysix names were appended on that day, and that it was afterwards signed by Thornton, of New Hampshire, who was not then a member, and by McKean, who was then temporarily absent. Jefferson used to relate, "with much merriment," says Parton, that the final signing of the Declaration was hastened by a very trivial circumstance. Near the hall was a large stable, whence the flies issued in legions. Gentlemen were in those days peculiarly sensitive to such discomforts by reason of silk TABLE AND CHAIRS USED AT THE SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION. stockings; and when this annoyance, superadded to the summer heat of Philadelphia, had become intolerable, they hastened to bring the business to a conclusion. This may equally well refer, however, to the original vote; flies are flies, whether in July or August. American tradition has clung to the phrases assigned to the different participants in this scene: John Hancock's commentary on his own bold handwriting, "There, John Bull may read my name without spectacles;" Franklin's, "We must hang together, or else, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately;" and the heavy Harrison's remark to the slender Elbridge Gerry, that in that event Gerry would be kicking in the air long after his own fate would be settled. These things may or may not have been said, but it gives a more human interest to the event when we know that they were even rumored. What we long to know is, that the great acts of history were done by men like ourselves, and not by dignified machines. This is the story of the signing. Of the members who took part in that silent drama of 1776, some came to greatness in consequence, becoming presidents, vice-presidents, governors, chief-justices, or judges; others came, in equally direct consequence, to poverty, flight, or imprisonment. "Hunted like a fox by the enemy;" "a prisoner twenty-four hours without food,” “not daring to remain two successive nights beneath one shelter"-these are the records we may find in the annals of the Revolution in regard to many a man who stood by John Hancock on that summer day to sign his name. It is a pleasure to think that not one of them ever disgraced, publicly or conspicuously, the name he had written. Of the rejoicings which, everywhere throughout the colonies, followed the signing, the tale has been often told. It has been told so often, if the truth must be confessed, that it is not now easy to distinguish the romance from the simple fact. The local antiquarians of Philadelphia bid us dismiss forever from the record. the picturesque old bell-ringer and his eager boy, waiting breathlessly to announce to the assembled thousands the final vote of Congress on the Declaration. The tale is declared to be a pure fiction, of which there exists not even a local tradition. The sessions of Congress were then secret, and there was no expectant crowd outside. It was not till the fifth of July that Congress sent TEARING DOWN THE KING'S ARMS FROM ABOVE THE DOOR IN THE CHAMBER OF THE SUPREME COURT ROOM IN INDEPENDENCE HALL, JULY 8, 1776. king's arms over the door of the Supreme Court room in Independence Hall were torn down by a committee of the Volunteer force called "associators;" these trophies were burned in the evening, in the presence of a great crowd of citizens, and no doubt amid the joyful pealing of the old "Independence" bell. There is also a tradition that on the afternoon of that day, or possibly a day or two earlier, there was a joyful private GARDEN-HOUSE, OWNED BY DR. ENOCH EDWARDS, WHERE JEFFERSON AND OTHERS CELEBRATED THE PASSAGE OF THE DECLARATION. celebration of the great event, by Jefferson and others, at the garden-house of a country-seat in Frankford (near Philadelphia), then occupied by Dr. Enoch Edwards, a leading patriot of that time. It is certain that a portion of the signers of the Declaration met two years after, for a cheery commemoration of their great achievement, in the Philadelphia City Tavern. The enjoyment of the occasion was enhanced by the recent deliverance of the city from the presence of General Howe, and by the contrast between this festival and that lately given by the |