John Adams: From an Address to the Continental Congress supporting the Declaration, July 1, 177


[W]hatever may be our fate … be assured that this declaration shall stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present I see the brightness of the future as the sun in Heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day.
When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, with illuminations. On its annual return they will shed tears, copious gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of Joy.
Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to take upon it; and I leave off as I begun, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration.
It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence, now, and independence forever. … 

An excerpt from John Adams’ speech before Congress, delivered on July 1, 1776. Sources include Daniel Webster’s oration on Jefferson and Adams, August 2, 1826; and David Josiah Brewer, World’s Greatest Orations (1899).