It now remained for Philadelphia to come forward. In 1869 Mr. M. Richard Muckle, of _The Philadelphia Ledger_, wrote a letter to President Grant, urging the holding of a World’s Fair in the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and this letter, widely published and commented upon, fairly set the ball in motion. Soon after it appeared the Franklin Institute and the Academy of Fine Arts memorialized Congress on the subject, and the City Councils appointed a Centennial Committee. In February, 1871, a committee from the New Jersey Legislature visited Philadelphia to confer with the Councils, and in April a delegation from Virginia came on the same errand. At the instance of the Pennsylvania members, Congress took up the question in the session of 1870-71, and on the 3d of March passed an act “to provide for celebrating the One Hundredth Anniversary of American Independence by holding an International Exhibition of arts, manufactures, and products of the soil and mine in the City of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania, in the year 1876.” Under this act one hundred Commissioners were appointed; but it was found impossible to assemble a quorum of this unwieldy body, and the organization was changed by a supplementary act, providing for one Commissioner and one alternate from each State and Territory, appointed by the President on the nomination of the Governors. No money was appropriated. In June, 1872, Congress passed another act, creating a separate corporation, called the Board of Finance, to raise funds by subscriptions throughout the country, and to take entire charge of the finances of the Exhibition, which was made a stock concern, with a capital of $10,000,000, in shares of $10 each. Large subscriptions were at once obtained from the citizens of Philadelphia. The State of Pennsylvania appropriated $1,000,000; the City of Philadelphia, $1,500,000; the State of New Jersey, $100,000; and the States of Delaware, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, $10,000 each. Subscriptions amounting to about $250,000 were subsequently raised in New York City. The business men of the New England States also contributed, but the West gave almost nothing, and the South nothing. The aggregate amount spent by foreign countries for the Exhibition was about $2,500,000.