From the plate in W. D. Cooke's _Rev. Hist. of No. Carolina_, p. 64. Cf. Lossing's _Field-Book_, ii. 619, for another fac-simile and accounts of the signers; also see C. L. Hunter, _Sketches of Western North Carolina_ (Raleigh, 1877, p. 39). It has been strenuously claimed and denied that, at a meeting of the people of Mecklenburg County, in North Carolina, on May 20, 1775, resolutions were passed declaring their independence of Great Britain. The facts in the case appear to be these:—On the 31st of May, 1775, the people of this county did pass resolutions quite abreast of the public sentiment of that time, but not venturing on the field of independency further than to say that these resolutions were to remain in force till Great Britain resigned its pretensions. These resolutions were well written, attracted notice, and were copied into the leading newspapers of the colonies, North and South, and can be found in various later works (Lossing's _Field-Book_, ii. 619, etc.). A copy of the _S. Carolina Gazette_ containing them was sent by Governor Wright, of Georgia, to Lord Dartmouth, and was found by Bancroft in the State Paper Office, while in the _Sparks MSS._ (no. lvi.) is the record of a copy sent to the home government by Governor Martin of North Carolina, with a letter dated June 30, 1775. Of these resolutions there is no doubt (Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, p. 422). In 1793, or earlier, some of the actors in the proceeding, apparently ignorant that the record of these resolutions had been preserved in the newspapers, endeavored to supply them from memory, unconsciously intermingling some of the phraseology of the Declaration of July 4th in Congress, which gave them the tone of a pronounced independency. Probably through another dimness of memory they affixed the date of May 20, 1775, to them. These were first printed in the _Raleigh Register_, April 30, 1819. They are found to resemble in some respects the now known resolves of May 31st, as well as the national Declaration in a few phrases. In 1829 Martin printed them, much altered, in his _North Carolina_ (ii. 272), but it is not known where this copy came from. In 1831 the State printed the text of the 1819 copy, and fortified it with recollections and certificates of persons affirming that they were present when the resolutions were passed on the 20th: _The Declaration of Independence by the Citizens of Mecklenburg County, N. C., on the twentieth day of May, 1775, with documents, and proceedings of the Cumberland Association_ (Raleigh, 1831). This report of the State Committee is printed also in 4 Force, ii. 855. The resolves are reprinted in _Niles's Reg._ (1876, p. 313); in Caldwell's _Greene_; in Lossing (ii. 622), and in other places. Frothingham says he has failed to find any contemporary reference in manuscript or print to these May 20th resolutions. Jefferson (_Memoir and Corresp._, iv. 322; Randall's _Jefferson_, 1858, vol. iii. App. 2)