They were 26 to 70 years old.
Amongst them were former farmers,
lawyers, printers, tax collectors, and county sheriffs. They were, in many
ways, quite ordinary.
In one particular way, however,
they were extra ordinary. That was in
their dedication to something as ephemeral as an idea, a principle – a cause.
The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence chose to risk everything –
their lives, their fortunes, their family's safety – for an idea, an idea whose
worthiness was shaped by a series of events – continual abuses of power, they
claimed – and patiently born by some 13 colonies for over a decade.
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| Stamp Act cartoon by Glogster.com. |
King George III considered the various
and wide ranging actions of his government to be acceptable simply because they
were the actions of his government.
The colonists disagreed through
meetings with the King's local representatives, through letters to Parliament,
and through civil protest of both modest and extravagant means. To avoid taxes
on sugar, they made do without sweet tea or sugar cakes. To avoid taxes on
stamps, they did without things like diplomas or tins of foodstuffs, or letters
to family.
Finally, on July 2, 1776, the
Continental Congress voted to move forward with a letter to the King and his
Parliament, citing their decision to separate and their reasons why. The
members of this Congress would call this a declaration of independence. When it
was received across the ocean, however, it would be called an act of treason
and a declaration of war.
On July 4, 1776 there were not 56
signatures on the document, but there was one very large and prominent
signature, that of the President of Congress, John Hancock. It is generally
considered that the remaining signatures were added on August 2, 1776 – except
for one. Matthew Thornton, the representative of New Hampshire, signed the
Declaration on November 4, 1776.
From the first signing on July 4,
the document was taken to a Philadelphia printer (not Franklin). Prints ("broadsides"
or posters) were made to be distributed and read all across the colonies. They
were read aloud in public squares, in front of troops, and posted on public
buildings. Was there confusion about the colonies being under a state of
rebellion? Probably, although one must remember that the shots heard round the
world in Lexington and at the bridge in Concord had already happened earlier
that spring.
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| Washington reading the Declaration to his troops, c. July 9, 1776. |
Sometimes, I think about what I
would have done during those times. Would I have been willing to pledge my
life, my fortune, and my sacred honor to fight a kingdom in order to birth a
new nation? Or would I have chosen to play it safe for my family's security?
Here is a hand-written, draft of
the Declaration of Independence,
including cross outs and corrections.
Our founding mothers and fathers
were children of the Enlightenment, forward thinkers who were able to have
faith in a present that envisioned as being shaped only by the possibility of a particular future, a
rough compromise that left slavery unresolved, a rough compromise that left
room for the rights of women while simultaneously precluding them. It was, at once,
an awkward and an eloquent claim on the rights of man.
It also was a well-reasoned
explanation as to why a people would rebel against their government. Should
argument not be persuasive enough, they specified their grievances. Taxation
without representation was only a piece of the fabric. The overall weave was
continually about government's responsibility to care for its citizens' well
being.
If you have never read the entire
Declaration, you should. As I think about what I would have done at the time, I
always come to the same conclusion: I do not know if I would have been as brave
as they were – but I always hope so.
Let it fly!
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united
States of America
When in the Course of human
events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the
earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of
Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute
new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety
and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,
and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the
patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which
constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the
present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute
Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid
world.
He has refused his Assent to
Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to
pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their
operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has
utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws
for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would
relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable
to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together
legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the
depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into
compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative
Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights
of the people.
He has refused for a long time,
after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative
Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for
their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers
of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the
population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for
Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their
migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the
Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing
Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on
his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of
their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New
Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out
their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of
peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the
Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to
subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by
our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of
armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock
Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the
Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with
all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without
our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases,
of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas
to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of
English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary
government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example
and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters,
abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our
Governments:
For suspending our own
Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us
in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here,
by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas,
ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting
large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation,
and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely
paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a
civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow
Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to
become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by
their Hands.
He has excited domestic
insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of
our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these
Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our
repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose
character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be
the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in
attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of
attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement
here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have
conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations,
which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too
have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must,
therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold
them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the
Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress,
Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our
intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these
Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of
Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all
Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them
and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that
as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude
Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and
Things which Independent States may of right do. — 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.
John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple,
Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John
Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington,
William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston,
Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John
Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush,
Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor,
James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read,
Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca,
Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee,
Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee,
Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes,
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward,
Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall,
George Walton
