Page 109 - JM Book 9/2020

Monday, July 8, 1776
The Pennsylvania State House bell began to ring at the noon hour calling citizens for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. Within minutes, the yard behind the State House was full of anxious spectators.
Colonel John Nixon, a member of the Philadelphia Committee of Safety, mounted the platform that had been constructed for this special occasion. He looked out over the sea of faces. The crowd grew silent. In a loud, clear voice he began to read – enunciating each word very carefully.
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. . . .”
Nixon stopped and looked at the crowd standing before him. He was wondering if the words he was reading were having the same affect on his audience as they were having on him. After a few moments he continued to read.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . . .”
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