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"OUR LIVES, OUR FORTUNES, AND OUR SACRED HONOR"
That’s what the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged on the first Fourth of July, 1776. What was their reward for such patriotism?
Five of them were subsequently captured, tortured and killed. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Nine died from wounds or the hardships of the war.
Carter Braxton of Virginia saw his shipping empire destroyed by the British navy, and he died a pauper.
Thomas McKeam and his family were hounded into poverty.
Dilley, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heward, Ruttledge and Middleton had their properties looted.
Thomas Nelson Jr. urged General Washington to shell his own home at the Battle of Yorktown because the British were using it as a command post. It was destroyed, and Nelson died penniless.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed, and the British imprisoned his wife, where she died.
John Hart was driven from the bedside of his dying wife, his property destroyed, and his thirteen children scattered
(the above information is adapted from text by Fight Back Wisconsin)
Abstractions like “freedom” and “independence’ are seldom truly appreciated until objectified by their absence.
How many of us would, today, pledge “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” for these abstractions?
How many of us would stand with their neighbors and fight at Bunker Hill?
How many of us would have the courage to wait with Francis Scott Key, a prisoner on the deck of a British warship, for the dawn’s early light and the sight of those “broad stripes and bright stars?”
How many of us would ride through the enemy lines, the wrong way, to join Travis, Bowie, Crocket and the rest in certain death at the Alamo?
How many of us would sing, “let us die to make men free,” amidst the carnage at Gettysburg?
How man of us would endure the stench and death of the trenches of the Great War so that Frenchmen might be free?
How many of us would charge up San Juan Hill with TR?
How many of us would say “nuts” to surrendering to the surrounding Nazis in the dead of winter at The Battle of the Bulge?
How many of us would help raise the flag at Iwo?
How many of us would not surrender during the retreat from the Chosin Reservoir?
How many of us would follow the Code of Honor and give up the opportunity to leave the Hanoi Hilton before the others?
How many of us would march with Martin?
How many of us would stand with the Poles and Hungarians throwing rocks at Russian Tanks;with the Gipper at the Brandenburg Gate, defying the Evil Empire; with the Chinese people in Tiananmen Square, the Iraqi crowds pulling down the statue of Saddam, or with the protesters in Tehran?
The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence would have, I am certain.
The Fourth of July has magic in it: two principal authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, first comrades, then bitter enemies, and finally reconciled in old age, both died on the Fourth of July, 1826, the Declaration’s fiftieth anniversary. Jefferson’s last words were, “Adams still lives.”
And indeed, the Declaration and its signers still live in spirit, and inspire us today to stand and if need be to fight for our guiding principle, unique among all the nations of the earth, “that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them being life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” To these holy abstractions may our Creator give us the courage to pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
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