The Americans Who Risked Everything

     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind was from the
southeast. Up especially early, a tall bony, redheaded young Virginian found
time to buy a new thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen
shillings. He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife, who was ill at home.

Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The temperature was 72.5
degrees and the horseflies weren't nearly so bad at that hour. It was a lovely
room, very large, with gleaming white walls. The chairs were comfortable.
Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but they would not be used
today.

The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room
became an oven. The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling voices
could not be heard by passersby. Small openings atop the windows allowed a
slight stir of air, and also a large number of horseflies. Jefferson records that
"the horseflies were dexterous in finding necks, and the silk of stockings was
nothing to them." All discussing was punctuated by the slap of hands on
necks.

On the wall at the back, facing the President's desk, was a panoply—
consisting of a drum, swords, and banners seized from Fort Ticonderoga the
previous year. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had captured the place,
shouting that they were taking it "in the name of the Great Jehovah and the
Continental Congress!"

Now Congress got to work, promptly taking up an emergency measure about

which there was discussion but no dissention. "Resolved: That an application
be made to the Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania for a supply of flints for
the troops at New York."

Then Congress transformed itself into a committee of the whole. The

Declaration of Independence was read aloud once more, and debate resumed.
Though Jefferson was the best writer of all of them, he had been somewhat
verbose. Congress hacked the excess away. They did a good job, as a side-by-
side comparison of the rough draft and the final text shows. They cut the
phrase "by a self-assumed power." "Climb" was replaced by "must read," then
must was eliminated, then the whole sentence, and soon the whole paragraph
was cut. Jefferson groaned as they continued, what he later called "their
depredations." "Inherent and inalienable rights" came out "certain unalienable
rights," and to this day no one knows who suggested the elegant change.

A total of 86 alterations were made. Almost 500 words were eliminated,

leaving 1,337. At last, after three days of wrangling, the document was put to
a vote.

Here in this hall Patrick Henry had once thundered: "I am no longer a
Virginian, Sir, but an American." But today the loud, sometimes bitter
argument stilled, and without fanfare the vote was taken from north to south
by colonies, as was the custom. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of
Independence was adopted.

There were no trumpets blown. No one stood on his chair and cheered. The
afternoon was waning and Congress had no thought of delaying the full
calendar of routine business on its hands. For several hours they worked on
many other problems before adjourning for the day.

Much To Lose

What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of
Independence and who, by their signing, committed an act of treason against
the crown? To each of you, the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock, and
Jefferson are almost as familiar as household words. Most of us, however,
know nothing of the other signers. Who were they? What happened to them?

I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the names not there:
George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry. All were elsewhere.

Ben Franklin was the only really old man. Eighteen were under 40; three were
in their 20s. Of the 56 almost half, 24, were judges and lawyers. Eleven were
merchants, 9 were landowners and farmers, and the remaining 12 were
doctors, ministers, and politicians.

With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these

were men of substantial property. All but two had families. The vast majority
were men of education and standing in their communities. They had
economic security as few men had in the 18th century.

Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it. John
Hancock, one of the richest men in America, already had a price of 500
pounds on his head. He signed in enormous letters so that his Majesty could
now read his name without glasses and could now double the reward. Ben
Franklin wryly noted: "Indeed we must all hang together, otherwise we shall
most assuredly hang separately." Fat Benjamin Harrison of Virginia told tiny
Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts: "With me it will all be over in a minute, but
you, you will be dancing on air an hour after I am gone."

These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by
hanging. And remember, a great British fleet was already at anchor in New
York Harbor.

They were sober men. There were no dreamy-eyed intellectuals or draft card
burners here. They were far from hot-eyed fanatics, yammering for an
explosion. They simply asked for the status quo. It was change they resisted.
It was equality with the mother country they desired. It was taxation with
representation they sought. They were all conservatives, yet they rebelled.

It was principle, not property, that had brought these men to Philadelphia.
Two of them became presidents of the United States. Seven of them became
state governors. One died in office as vice president of the United States.
Several would go on to be U.S. Senators. One, the richest man in America, in
1828 founded the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. One, a delegate from
Philadelphia, was the only real poet, musician and philosopher of the signers
(it was he, Francis Hopkinson, not Betsy Ross, who designed the United States
flag).
Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, had introduced the resolution to
adopt the Declaration of Independence in June of 1776. He was prophetic in
his concluding remarks: "Why then sir, why do we longer delay? Why still
deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic. Let her
arise not to devastate and to conquer but to reestablish the reign of peace and
law.

"The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us. She demands of us a living example of
freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever
increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to
prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted
repost. If we are not this day wanting in our duty, the names of the American
Legislatures of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the side of all of those
whose memory has been and ever will be dear to virtuous men and good
citizens."

Though the resolution was formally adopted July 4, it was not until July 8 that
two of the states authorized their delegates to sign, and it was not until
August 2 that the signers met at Philadelphia to actually put their names to
the Declaration.

William Ellery, delegate from Rhode Island, was curious to see the signers'
faces as they committed this supreme act of personal courage. He saw some
men sign quickly, "but in no face was he able to discern real fear." Stephan
Hopkins, Ellery's colleague from Rhode Island, was a man past 60. As he
signed with a shaking pen, he declared: "My hand trembles, but my heart
does not."

"Most Glorious Service"

Even before the list was published, the British marked down every member of
Congress suspected of having put his name to treason. All of them became the
objects of vicious manhunts. Some were taken. Some, like Jefferson, had
narrow escapes. All who had property or families near British strongholds
suffered.
• Francis Lewis, New York delegate saw his home plundered and his estates
in what is now Harlem, completely destroyed by British Soldiers. Mrs. Lewis
was captured and treated with great brutality. Though she was later
exchanged for two British prisoners through the efforts of Congress, she died
from the effects of her abuse.

• William Floyd, another New York delegate, was able to escape with his wife
and children across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, where they lived as
refugees without income for seven years. When they came home they found a
devastated ruin.

• Philips Livingstone had all his great holdings in New York confiscated and
his family driven out of their home. Livingstone died in 1778 still working in
Congress for the cause.

• Louis Morris, the fourth New York delegate, saw all his timber, crops, and
livestock taken. For seven years he was barred from his home and family.

• John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his
dying wife. Hessian soldiers rode after him, and he escaped in the woods.
While his wife lay on her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked
his homestead. Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was hunted across the
countryside. When at long last, emaciated by hardship, he was able to sneak
home, he found his wife had already been buried, and his 13 children taken
away. He never saw them again. He died a broken man in 1779, without ever
finding his family.

• Dr. John Witherspoon, signer, was president of the College of New Jersey,
later called Princeton. The British occupied the town of Princeton, and billeted
troops in the college. They trampled and burned the finest college library in
the country.

• Judge Richard Stockton, another New Jersey delegate signer, had rushed
back to his estate in an effort to evacuate his wife and children. The family
found refuge with friends, but a Tory sympathizer betrayed them. Judge
Stockton was pulled from bed in the night and brutally beaten by the
arresting soldiers. Thrown into a common jail, he was deliberately starved.
Congress finally arranged for Stockton's parole, but his health was ruined.
The judge was released as an invalid, when he could no longer harm the
British cause. He returned home to find his estate looted and did not live to
see the triumph of the revolution. His family was forced to live off charity.

• Robert Morris, merchant prince of Philadelphia, delegate and signer, met

Washington's appeals and pleas for money year after year. He made and
raised arms and provisions which made it possible for Washington to cross
the Delaware at Trenton. In the process he lost 150 ships at sea, bleeding his
own fortune and credit almost dry.

• George Clymer, Pennsylvania signer, escaped with his family from their
home, but their property was completely destroyed by the British in the
Germantown and Brandywine campaigns.

• Dr. Benjamin Rush, also from Pennsylvania, was forced to flee to Maryland.
As a heroic surgeon with the army, Rush had several narrow escapes.

• John Martin, a Tory in his views previous to the debate, lived in a strongly
loyalist area of Pennsylvania. When he came out for independence, most of
his neighbors and even some of his relatives ostracized him. He was a
sensitive and troubled man, and many believed this action killed him. When
he died in 1777, his last words to his tormentors were: "Tell them that they
will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it [the signing] to have
been the most glorious service that I have ever rendered to my country."

• William Ellery, Rhode Island delegate, saw his property and home burned
to the ground.

• Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina delegate, had his health broken from
privation and exposures while serving as a company commander in the
military. His doctors ordered him to seek a cure in the West Indies and on the
voyage he and his young bride were drowned at sea.

• Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., the other
three South Carolina signers, were taken by the British in the siege of
Charleston. They were carried as prisoners of war to St. Augustine, Florida,
where they were singled out for indignities. They were exchanged at the end
of the war, the British in the meantime having completely devastated their
large landholdings and estates.

• Thomas Nelson, signer of Virginia, was at the front in command of the

Virginia military forces. With British General Charles Cornwallis in
Yorktown, fire from 70 heavy American guns began to destroy Yorktown
piece by piece. Lord Cornwallis and his staff moved their headquarters into
Nelson's palatial home. While American cannonballs were making a shambles
of the town, the house of Governor Nelson remained untouched. Nelson
turned in rage to the American gunners and asked, "Why do you spare my
home?" They replied, "Sir, out of respect to you." Nelson cried, "Give me the
cannon!" and fired on his magnificent home himself, smashing it to bits. But
Nelsons sacrifice was not quite over. He had raised $2 million for the
Revolutionary cause by pledging his own estates. When the loans came due, a
newer peacetime Congress refused to honor them, and Nelson's property was
forfeited. He was never reimbursed. He died, impoverished, a few years later
at the age of 50.

Lives, Fortunes, Honor

Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of

wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in
each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families.
One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one
time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve
signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they
owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor,
and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact.

And, finally, there is the New Jersey Signer, Abraham Clark. He gave two
sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and
sent to that infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor known as
the hell ship "Jersey," where 11,000 American captives were to die. The
younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father.
One was put in solitary and given no food. With the end almost in sight, with
the war almost won, could anyone have blamed Abraham Clark for begging
for mercy from the King and Parliament? The utter despair in this man's heart,
the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each and one of us down
through 200 years with the answer: "No."

The 56 signers of the Declaration Of Independence proved by their every deed

that they made no idle boast when they composed the most magnificent
curtain line in history: "And for the support of this Declaration with a firm
reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each
other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

My friends, I know you have a copy of the Declaration of Independence somewhere

around the house—in an old history book (newer ones may well omit it), an
encyclopedia, or one of those artificially aged "parchments" we all got in school years
ago. I suggest that each of you take the time this month to read through the text of the
declaration, one of the most noble and beautiful political documents in human history.

There is no more profound sentence than this: "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..."

These are far more than mere poetic words. The underlying ideas that infuse every
sentence of this treatise have sustained this nation for more than two centuries. They
were forged in the crucible of great sacrifice. They are living words that spring from
and satisfy the deepest cries for liberty in the human spirit.

"Sacred honor" isn't a phrase we use much these days, but every American life is
touched by the bounty of this, the Founders' legacy. It is freedom, tested by blood, and
watered with tears.

          —Rush Limbaugh