Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed independence on 7 June, 1776, and the resolution survived committee approval by one - changed - vote. The entire Second Continental Congress voted for independence 2 July. After a two day delay due to a printer’s error, only John Hancock signed on 4 July; fifty-six others, driven from Philadelphia by the advancing British, could not sign before 2 August.
These men who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor", knowing too well that the penalty for losing was life itself. That price was not a distant theory: the smallest of governments, penniless and lacking credible defense, chose war against the mightiest military ever assembled.
Twenty-four signers were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; most were men of means, and unusually well-educated. They could count much to lose by engaging revolution, but recognized instead the higher price to pay for abandoning their conviction. Liberty was, for them, more important than security.
The British captured five, torturing them as traitors before they died. Nine others died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. The homes of twelve burned to the ground. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Two lost sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, and another had two sons captured. One lost all of his nine children. Wives, sons and daughters were killed, jailed, mistreated, persecuted or left penniless, while the signers were offered immunity, freedom, property, rewards or release of loved ones for withdrawing their signature. None recanted, even in the darkest hours. Every signer was richer when he went to Philadelphia than when he left public service. Today, most of these men and their families - and worse, their purpose -- are forgotten.
Wealthy planter and trader Carter Braxton of Virginia saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
The British hounded Thomas McKean, who moved his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, kept his family in hiding, but still lost his possessions and lived thereafter in poverty. Francis Lewis lost his home and properties too, but the British found his wife and jailed her. She died within a few months.
As John Hart’s wife lay dying, the British drove him from her bedside. Their thirteen children fled for their lives. His fields and gristmill destroyed, Hart lived in forests and caves for more than a year. He returned to find his wife dead, his children gone. Hart died weeks later from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston experienced similar stories. Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr. quietly urged General George Washington to open fire upon British General Cornwallis, who had taken Nelson’s home for his headquarters. The home destroyed, Nelson died bankrupt and his widow survived thereafter on charity. The signer who put up his entire fortune to save Washington’s army at the Delaware ended up in debtor’s prison.
"Self-evident" liberty - the radical idea that complete freedom is an inalienable part of human existence -- revolutionized modern thought. No longer was liberty the negotiable privilege of European tradition; American freedom was a responsibility bestowed by the Creator that could not be seized, abandoned or given away. Two thirds of the Declaration of Independence is, in fact, an indictment against the English King for attempting just these sorts of seizure.
These fifty-six men set a standard for revolution that is even today emulated but never duplicated. Freedom and liberty was their objective, not nationalism. For these ideas they gave up everything. Only after this became secure did the signers turn to forming a nation that reflected those ideas.
The signers would find King George the least of their concerns if they were alive today. The sovereign liberty that surrounded their Declaration - before it the Albany Convention and after it, the second Article of Confederation and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, is not part of today’s American landscape. The 3% tax on tea that sparked their revolution has become taxation that consumes almost half of our earned wealth.
If the fifty-six renewed their clarion call in 2002, they would be branded as subversives, not heroes. Today, we recognize the signers as heroes and celebrate inalienable American rights to life, liberty, and property - or we accept defeat of these ideals and indict these fifty-six signers, and their ideas as dangerous.
Would the signers of the Declaration of Independence support modern American ideals with their "lives, fortune and sacred honor"? Today we will celebrate as if that answer is clear. We will act as if these men were role models and not a danger to society. Today, at some point during our beer, hot dog, softball and float extravaganza, think about how we will choose to treat the legacy of the signers for the other 364 days of the year.
- author anonymous
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1 comment:
That was a nice break from studying.
This weekend Americans across the country will waive flags and raise beers to America but dismally too few will realize what America actually is or what it means. Even fewer will question where America is going and what each and every one of us can do to make it a better place to live. I would posit this: far too many of us practice our patriotism in the form of nationalism rather than as the sirens of liberty our founding fathers had hoped, acted, and bled for.
The writer makes an excellent point that in 2002, individuals like our founding fathers with the gall to question the powers that be would be treated as radical heretics and not as patriots. I second this point, and submit that we as Americans have ceded far too much control of our Nation’s ideals at the altar of nationalism, while practicing a dismal amount of dissent and action. We as a society, as a people, have become far too complacent. We question little and parrot much. No matter what one’s political leanings may be; the point is self evident that we as a people must take control of our country back. We must hold our leaders and ourselves accountable. We must ask questions. We must demand action. We take our liberty, our lives, and where our Nation is going for granted. Dissent is the purest form of patriotism, but nationalism and patriotism alone are the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Each one of us should ask about what their duty is as an American. What have we been entrusted with and what are we doing to defend and improve this gift? America’s founding fathers were courageous and brave men, who lived the words action, dissent, and sacrifice for the greater good. Ask yourself; what have you questioned lately? What have you done lately to make your country a better place? What have you done to uphold these ideals?
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