of the members, for as yet it had not been signed by them.  It was authenticated, like other papers of the Congress, by the signatures of the President and Secretary.  On the 19th of July, as appears by the secret journal, Congress “Resolved, That the Declaration, passed on the fourth, be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title and style of ’THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’; and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress.”  And on the SECOND DAY OF AUGUST following, “the Declaration, being engrossed and compared at the table, was signed by the members.”  So that it happens, fellow-citizens, that we pay these honors to their memory on the anniversary of that day (2d of August) on which these great men actually signed their names to the Declaration.  The Declaration was thus made, that is, it passed and was adopted as an act of Congress, on the fourth of July; it was then signed, and certified by the President and Secretary, like other acts.  The FOURTH OF JULY, therefore, is the ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECLARATION.  But the signatures of the members present were made to it, being then engrossed on parchment, on the second day of August.  Absent members afterwards signed, as they came in; and indeed it bears the names of some who were not chosen members of Congress until after the fourth of July.  The interest belonging to the subject will be sufficient, I hope, to justify these details.[7]

The Congress of the Revolution, fellow-citizens, sat with closed doors, and no report of its debates was ever made.  The discussion, therefore, which accompanied this great measure, has never been preserved, except in memory and by tradition.  But it is, I believe, doing no injustice to others to say, that the general opinion was, and uniformly has been, that in debate, on the side of independence, JOHN ADAMS had no equal.  The great author of the Declaration himself has expressed that opinion uniformly and strongly.  “JOHN ADAMS,” said he, in the hearing of him who has now the honor to address you, “JOHN ADAMS was our colossus on the floor.  Not graceful, not elegant, not always fluent, in his public addresses, he yet came out with a power, both of thought and of expression, which moved us from our seats.”

For the part which he was here to perform, Mr. Adams doubtless was eminently fitted.  He possessed a bold spirit, which disregarded danger, and a sanguine reliance on the goodness of the cause, and the virtues of the people, which led him to overlook all obstacles.  His character, too, had been formed in troubled times.  He had been rocked in the early storms of the controversy, and had acquired a decision and a hardihood proportioned to the severity of the discipline which he had undergone.