Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ney and Thomas McKean of Delaware, and Francis Hopkinson of New Jersey; William Ellery of Rhode Island and Samuel Chase of Maryland. Truly it was an illustrious body of men. Here were future presidents, governors, ministers abroad, cabinet officers, and United States senators. Nearly all of them lived to be old, and to see the new Government take its place among the nations; and not one of them ever did or said anything to bring dishonor upon the new-born republic. The one who survived all his fellows was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, who died in 1832 at the great age of ninety-five years. The Final Act in the Great Drama The whole country was astir during the spring of 1776. Perils were threatening on every hand. The Howes were moving on New York; Carleton was threatening an invasion from the north; a British fleet was harassing the southern coast, while the merciless Indian was plying the tomahawk on the frontier. But the patriots, instead of being awedinto submission, clamored the louder for independence. This showed, not only a noble patriotism, but a courage that all the world must admire. A great English writer has said, " America was never so great as on the day when she declared her independence." Congress passed in May a resolution permitting the colonies to form governments of their own in defiance of British authority. This was true revolution, that is, a changing of their form of government. " Is not America already independent ? why not then declare it ?" said the ever vigilant Samuel Adams. Early in June the messenger from the Virginia convention reached Philadelphia. What his message was we have seen. On the /th, Richard Henry Lee offered a resolution which was seconded by John Adams. Here are the words : — " That these United Colonies a...