Our Independence is, then, one logical fact or event in a long
succession, to the enumeration of which we may yet add the confederation
of 1778, the constitution of 1787, the French Revolution of 1789, the
rapid increase of American territory and States, the revolutionary
spirit of continental Europe, the reforms in the British government at
home, the wise modifications of its colonial policy, and for us a long
career of prosperity based upon the cardinal doctrine of the equality of
all men before the law.
Nor can any reader of the Declaration itself assume that it contains one
statement, proposition, idea, or word, not carefully considered, and
carefully expressed. It was not the production of hasty, thoughtless, or
reckless men. The country had been gradually prepared for the great
event. States, counties, and towns, had made the most distinct
expressions of opinion upon the relations of the colonies to the mother
country. On the 7th of June, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia,
moved, in the Congress of the United Colonies, a resolution declaring,
That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and
independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British crown, and that all political connection between them and the
state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. The
subject was considered on the tenth; and, on the eleventh instant, the
committee, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Dr.
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