Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offenses of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, "Come, come, we shall be friends again for all this." But examine the passions and feelings of mankind, bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me whether you can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon your posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend or lover, and, whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant.
Gentlemen of the First American Congress, in the name of Equality, Fraternity and Liberty, I welcome you to this council. What is your pleasure, gentlemen?
RICHARD HENRY LEE. Mr. President:--I wish to move the adoption of the following resolution: "Resolved, 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."
JOHN ADAMS. Mr. President:--I second the motion.
JOHN HANCOCK. Gentlemen of the Continental Congress, you have heard the motion of Mr. Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, for immediate and absolute independence. Are there any remarks?
RICHARD HENRY LEE. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--Why do we delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American republic. Let her arise, not to devastate and to conquer, but to reëstablish the reign of peace and law. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us. She demands of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever increasing tyranny which devastates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace and the persecuted repose. She entreats us to cultivate a propitious soil where that generous plant of liberty, which first sprang and grew in England, but is now withered by the blasts of tyranny may revive and flourish, sheltering under its salubrious shade all the unfortunate of the human race. If we are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, the names of the American legislators of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the side of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romulus, of Numa, of the three Williams of Nassau and of all those whose memory has been and forever will be, dear to virtuous men and good citizens.[3]