=164. Signing of the Declaration.=—After much private discussion had revealed the opinions of the members of Congress, Richard Henry Lee,[76] on the 7th of June, offered a resolution that “these united colonies are and ought to be independent states, and they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown.” The resolution was vigorously opposed by Dickinson of Pennsylvania and Livingston of New York, partly on the ground that a sufficient time had not yet elapsed for an answer from the king, and partly because the individual colonies had not yet authorized such action. But the colonies did not long hesitate. Most of them had already erected independent governments of their own. As early as July, 1775, Massachusetts had formed a government in which the king’s authority was practically set aside, and James Bowdoin was made chief executive officer and John Adams chief justice. Before July, 1776, all the other provinces, with the exception of New York, had taken similar measures, and more than two-thirds of them had voted for independence and had instructed their delegates to vote for Lee’s resolution. This resolution was accordingly adopted by Congress on the 2d of July. A committee, with Thomas Jefferson[77] as chairman, had been appointed in June to draw up a formal declaration in case independence should be agreed upon. Jefferson, then only thirty-three years of age, wrote the paper which, after slight modifications by Franklin and Adams, was adopted as the Declaration of Independence, on the 4th of July, 1776. This immortal document was thus put forth as an expression of the deliberate and firm conviction of the American people that the priceless treasure of human liberty could be preserved in no other manner. As the members one after another, with a solemn sense of the danger of this momentous act, signed the memorable document, Franklin[78] threw a gleam of sunshine upon the occasion by remarking that they must now all hang together, or they would hang separately. [Illustration: =Old Statehouse in Philadelphia, now known as Independence Hall.=]