iv. 16,086, who says 200 copies were printed, and who gives various

other early editions). The Rev. William Jackson edited at London, in 1783, _The constitutions of the independent states of America; the declaration of independence; and the articles of confederation. Added, the declaration of rights, non-importation agreement, and petition of Congress to the King. With appendix, containing treaties._ It can be found in Bancroft, viii. 467; H. W. Preston's _Documents illustrating American History_; Sherman's _Governmental Hist. U. S._, p. 615; Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, p. 539; and in very many other collections and places.]

McKean, in 1814, said it was not so,[709] and the best investigators of our day are agreed that the president and secretary alone signed it on that day, though Lossing, following Jefferson, has held that, though signed on that day on paper by the members, it was in the nature of a temporary authentication, and it did not preclude the more formal act of signing it on parchment, which all are agreed was done on August 2d following. Thornton, of New Hampshire, signed as late as Nov. 4th; and McKean, who was absent with the army, seems to have temporarily returned so as to sign later in the year. Thornton's name appears in the printed _Journal_ as attached to the Declaration on July 4th, and McKean's is not, though McKean was present and Thornton was not. The fact is, the printed _Journal_ is not a copy of the record of that day, and was made up without due regard to the sequence of proceedings, when prepared by a committee for the press in the early part of 1777. There is in Force's _American Archives_ (4th ser., vol. vi. p. 1729) a journal constructed by combining the original record (of which we have no printed copy) and the minutes and documents of the official files. From a collation of all these early records it appears that the vote of January 18, 1777, ordering the Declaration to be printed with the names attached,—then for the first time done,—made it convenient to use this printed record in making the published _Journal_ entry under July 4th. In this way the name of Thornton, who signed it even subsequent to Aug. 2d, appears in that printed record as having been put to the Declaration on July 4th. That any paper copy was signed on July 4th is not believed, from the fact that no such copy exists; and if it be claimed that it has been lost, there is still ground for holding rather that it never existed, inasmuch as no vote is found for any authentication except in the usual way, by Hancock and Thomson, the president and secretary. McKean's criticism was the first to confront the usual public belief of its being signed July 4th, as many respectable writers have maintained since who preferred the authority of the printed _Journal_ and of Jefferson and Adams. Such was Mahon's preference, and Peter Force rather curtly criticised him for it, in the _National Intelligencer_.[710] Force did not explain at length the grounds of his assertions, and Mahon did not alter his statement in a later edition; but a full explanation has been made by Mellen Chamberlain in his _Authentication of the Declaration of Independence_ (Cambridge, 1885), which originally made part of the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, Nov., 1884, p. 273. He gives full references.

The immediate effects of the Declaration in America are traced in Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, p. 548. "No one can read", says Wm. B. Reed in his _Life of Joseph Reed_ (i. p. 195), "the private correspondence of the times without being struck with the slight impression made on either the army or the mass of the people by the Declaration of Independence."

The Declaration was, of course, at once commented on in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, in Almon's _Remembrancer_, and in the other periodical publications. Hutchinson's _Strictures_ have been mentioned. The ministry seem to have been behind the _Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress_, referred to in a preceding page, which was ostensibly written by John Lind and privately printed in London in 1776, but was soon published without his name, appearing in five different editions during the year, and was the next year (1777) printed in French both in London and La Haye. In the earlier edition the outline of a counter declaration was included (Sabin, x. 41,281-82). Lord Geo. Germaine is also said to have had a hand in _The Rights of Great Britain asserted against the claims of America_, which passed through three editions at least, the last with additions, during 1776, beside being reprinted in Philadelphia (Hildeburn, no. 3,352). Sir John Dalrymple and James Macpherson are also thought to have some share in it.[711] Lord Camden's views are given in Campbell's _Lives of the Chancellors_ (v. 301). It soon became apparent that the liberal party in England felt that the Declaration showed the Americans determined to act without their continued assistance (Smyth's _Lectures_, ii. 439). Bancroft (ix. ch. 3) traces the general effects in Europe.[712]

The appearance, Jan. 8, 1776, of the _Common Sense_, written by Thomas Paine, a stay-maker and sailor whom Franklin had accredited when he came over in the summer of 1774, had produced a sudden effect throughout the continent.[713]

John Adams (_Works_, ii. 507; ix. 617) said of _Common Sense_ that it embodied a "tolerable summary of the arguments for independence which he had been speaking in Congress for nine months", and which Mahon (vi. 96) has called "cogent arguments" "in clear, bold language;" but Adams deemed unwise some of its suggestions for the governments of the States, and to counteract their influence he published anonymously his _Thoughts on Government_ (Philadelphia, 1776; Boston, 1776; often since, and also in _Works_, iv. 193; ix. 387, 398), which he says met the approval of no one of any consideration except Benjamin Rush. He added his name to the second edition, and records that it soon had due influence upon the Assemblies of the several States, when about this time they adopted their constitutions. Adams's views were first embodied in a letter to R. H. Lee, Nov. 15, 1775 (_Works_, iv. 185; Sparks's _Washington_, ii., App.). What seems an anonymous reply from a native of Virginia—that colony being then engaged in framing a constitution—was _An address to the Convention of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia_, which was an attempt to counteract the tendency to popular features in government, which Adams had inculcated. It is in Force, 4th ser., vi. 748, and was written by Carter Braxton (Hildeburn's _Issues of the press in Pennsylvania_, Philad., 1886, no. 3,340).

Adams also wrote an amplified statement of some of his views to John Penn, of North Carolina, which is given in John Taylor's _Inquiry into the principles and policy of the Government of the United States_ (1814), and in Adams's _Works_, iv. 203.

The vote of Congress of May 15, 1776, had called upon the several colonies to provide for independent governments, and Jameson (_Constitutional Conventions_, N. Y., 1867, p. 112, etc.) summarizes the actions of the several States.[714] New Hampshire was the first to act, and Belknap in his _New Hampshire_, and the histories of the other States, tell the story of their procedures. South Carolina was the next, but Virginia was the earliest to form such a constitution that it could last for many years. On June 12, 1776, she adopted her famous Declaration of Rights, drawn by Geo. Mason,[715] and June 29th perfected her constitution.[716] For New Jersey, see L. Q. C. Elmer's _Hist. of the Constitution adopted in 1776 and of the government under it_ (Newark, 1870, and in _N. J. Hist. Soc. Proc._, 2d ser., ii. 132), and the _Journal and votes and Proceedings of the Convention of New Jersey_ (Burlington, 1776). For the movements in Pennsylvania, see Reed's _Jos. Reed_, i. ch. 7; the _Proceedings relative to the calling of the Conventions of 1776 and 1790_ (Harrisburg, 1825); Anna H. Wharton's "Thomas Wharton, first governor of Pennsylvania", in the _Penna. Mag. of Hist._, v. 426, vi. 91; and the biographies of the members of the convention in the _Penna. Mag. of Hist._, iii. and iv. The statements of the loyalist Jones in his _New York during the Rev._ (p. 321) are controverted by Johnston in his _Observations_ (p. 41).

For the convention in New York, see _Debates of the N. Y. Conventions_ (1821), App., p. 691; Flanders's _Life of Jay_, ch. 8; and Sparks's _Gouverneur Morris_.[717] For Georgia, see C. C. Jones's _Georgia_, ii. ch. 13. Jameson (p. 138) outlines the peculiar circumstances of the early constitutional history of Vermont. Massachusetts was the last (1780) of the original States to frame a constitution. (See _John Adams's Works_, iv. 213; ix. 618.) Adams drafted the constitution presented by the committee, which was printed as _Report of a Constitution or form of government_,[718] and is printed without embodying the Errata in _John Adams's Works_ (iv. 219), which copies it from the Appendix of the _Journal of the Convention_ (Boston, 1832), where it was also printed in that defective manner.[719]

John Adams, in his _Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America_ (1787,—in _Works_, iv. 271), set forth the views which influenced largely the framers of many of the constitutions of the States. Connecticut and Rhode Island retained their original charters through the war.

This action of the States rendered easier a plan of confederation, which seems to have been proposed by Franklin as early as Aug. 21, 1775. On July 12, 1776, a plan in Dickinson's handwriting, based on Franklin's, was reported, and was finally adopted by Congress, Nov. 15, 1777 (_Journals_, ii. 330), which was ratified by all the States in 1778 except Delaware (1779) and Maryland (1781), at which last date it became obligatory on all.[720]

The reader needs to be cautioned against a publication which assumes to be an _Oration delivered at the State House in Philadelphia Aug. 1, 1776_, by Samuel Adams (Philadelphia, reprinted at London, 1776), and which was translated into French and German. It is reprinted in Wells, iii., App. There is no copy of the pretended Philadelphia original known, and the publication is a London forgery (Wells, ii. 439), discoverable, if for no other reason, from the fact that its writer was unaware that the Declaration of Independence had passed.