Perceived need for unanimity, not indecision, delayed independence.

Evidence

The mid-May vote by Congress for Adams’s preamble to the resolution on independent governments suggested that most delegates and a majority of delegations favored independence but that the five middle colonies from New York to Maryland still barred their members from supporting it. A narrow majority might suffice for a resolution on governments, but the delegates generally agreed that the grand question of independence called for unanimity or at least a robust majority. Even such eager advocates of separation as the Adamses and Washington had long maintained that, if the British chose to fight, then winning a revolution would require unity but that, if united, no empire on earth could defeat the Americans. Events since its troops left Boston showed that the British government intended to fight with all its might. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 207

Categorization

• XREF: Relevant to institutional-design arguments about supermajority voting and legitimacy - echoes of the Electoral College and jury-unanimity debates in a legal systems frame.