Prompt action in so serious a matter was not to be expected, and Congress put it off till July 1. Meanwhile Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were appointed to write a declaration of independence and have it ready in case it was wanted. As Jefferson happened to be the chairman of the committee, the duty of writing the declaration was given to him. July 2, Congress passed Lee's resolution, and what had been the United Colonies became free and independent states. [Illustration: Campaigns of 1775-1776] [Illustration: %The Pennsylvania Statehouse, or Independence Hall[1]] [Footnote 1: From the _Columbian Magazine_ of July, 1787. The tower faces the "Statehouse yard." The posts are along Chestnut Street. For the history of the building, read F. M. Etting's _Independence Hall._] %138. Independence declared.%--Independence having thus been decreed, the next step was to announce the fact to the world. As Jefferson says in the opening of his declaration, "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another ... a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." It was this "decent respect to the opinions of mankind," therefore, which now led Congress, on July 4, 1776, to adopt the Declaration of Independence, and to send copies to the states. Pennsylvania got her copy first, and at noon on July 8 it was read to a vast crowd of citizens in the Statehouse yard.[1] When the reading was finished, the people went off to pull down the royal arms in the court room, while the great bell in the tower, the bell which had been cast twenty-four years before with the prophetic words upon its side, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," rang out a joyful peal, for then were announced to the world the new political truths, "that all men are created equal," and "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," and "that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." [Footnote 1: The declaration was read from a wooden platform put up there in 1769 to enable David Rittenhouse to observe a transit of Venus.] [Illustration: The royal arms] %139. The Retreat up the Hudson.%--A few days later the Declaration was read to the army at New York. The wisdom of Washington in going to New York was soon manifest, for in July General Howe, with a British army of 25,000 men, encamped on Staten Island. In August he crossed to Long Island, and was making ready to besiege the army on Brooklyn Heights, when, one dark and foggy night, Washington, leaving his camp fires burning, crossed with his army to New York.