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 dissension. "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, nine 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 US 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 Nelson's 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, no one could have blamed Abraham
Clark for acceding to the British request when they offered him his sons' lives
if he would recant and come out for the King and Parliament. The utter despair
in this man's heart, the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each one
of us down through 200 years with his 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."
Source: Herman Talmadge III posted in New Georgia Republican
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