The Alarm or, An Address to the People of Pennsylvania, On the Late Resolve of Congress, for Totally Suppressing all Power and Authority derived from the Crown of Great Britain…. [Philadelphia: Printed by Henry Miller, 1776].

An exceptionally rare testimony to the grassroots movement for independence. This short broadsheet pamphlet is one of many local declarations for ending royal authority and establishing new independent government, which preceded Jefferson’s famous Congressional Declaration of Independence by almost two months. Though undated, contemporary sources document the distribution of this imprint as early as 19 May 1776, following by four days the critical 15 May Congressional resolution that declared the end of Royal authority in the colonies, and called for the creation of new “state” governments.¹ This broadside is Pennsylvania radicals’ response to that 15 May Congressional resolution. In it, Pennsylvania’s radical committees and “Associator Battalions,” voluntary militias that sprang up to prepare for war against Britain and govern in absence of royal authority, call for a Revolution.

In Pennsylvania, this meant not only defying the king, but also ousting the conservative Quaker-dominated colonial legislature, effectively a colony-wide coup d-Etat. This broadsheet pamphlet calls for the coup: the end of royal authority, the displacement of the colonial assembly by a new revolutionary legislature, and the creation of a new state “conventions” to form new government on “the authority of the people.” Ultimately Pennsylvania’s colonial assembly continued to meet and oppose independence, but the associators succeeded in creating a new parallel legislature, which voted for it, delivering a claim of popular support for the measure that Pennsylvania’s members of the Continental Congress used to side with the vote in favor of independence on 2 July 1776. This pamphlet could therefore be considered a kind of local Declaration of Independence in its own right, but at least as an indispensable step to achieving the adoption of Jefferson’s famous Declaration of Independence adopted by the Continental Congress on 4 July 1776.

Following the Congressional Resolution of 15 May and before the 4 July Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress, at least 88 local declarations of independence were adopted in the thirteen rebelling colonies.² In Pennsylvania, these local declarations were all adopted by Associator Battalions, demonstrating the radical militarization of the Revolutionary coup against both Royal authority and the Quaker-dominated colonial assembly in that state. French audiences, watching closely for signs of the emergence of a new ally, immediately interpreted the 15 May Congressional resolution, and the connected local rebellions like this one, as declarations of Independence, and French authors through the Revolutionary War continued to see 15 May as the date of American independence.³

Rare. Copies known at the Huntington Library, Historical Society of Pennsylvania (2), Library Company of Philadelphia (2), and The Library of Congress. The last copy to come to auction was sold by Philip O. Sang (his sale, Sotheby's New York, 4 December 1981, lot 1278). RBH records five other copies appearing at auction between 1904 and 1950 but it is unclear if these are different copies, or repeated sales of the same copy (or copies).

Evans 14642, who also records a version published in German (14643).

Four pages, quarto (275 x 225mm). Deckle edges preserved on three sides, top edge trimmed at an angle, apparently as issued. (Inconspicuous stray ink mark to pg. 1, old folds lightly rubbed.)

We are grateful to Dr. Philip Mead for his assistance in research and cataloguing for this lot.
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¹ Another copy of this pamphlet has a note at the foot of the fourth page that states, "Distributed on Monday May 19th at Philadelphia."
² Pauline Maier. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 305-325. (See Appendix B in which she discusses the subject of "Local Resolutions on Independence.")
³ Emily Sneff. When the Declaration of Independence Was News. New York: Oxford University Press, 2026. 15-32.

Grubb Family Collection (No. 1967), Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Deaccessioned 1971 (pencil note at foot of page four).