Tea Party Patriots Ordinary citizens reclaiming America's founding principles.
Showing posts with label Independence Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Independence Day. Show all posts

Monday, July 4, 2022

Mark Steyn: America The Beautiful



The great Mark Steyn has a regular feature on his website, Steyn's Song of the Week, and his column over this weekend offers the wonderful backstory to the song America The Beautiful by Katharine Lee Bates and Samuel A Ward.  Here is most of the column:

. . . And to round out this Glorious Fourth in not so glorious times, at a time when we dwell mostly on what is ugly in our society, here is a hymn to beauty. This much requested essay is adapted from Mark's book A Song For The Season:

In 1893, a Massachusetts professor called Katharine Lee Bates was giving a series of summer lectures on English literature at Colorado College, in Colorado Springs. "One day," she recalled, "some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there."

Professor Bates had not previously traveled in the Rockies or seen much of her country at all beyond New England, and the unbounded beauty of the land awed her - and inspired her. It was "the most glorious scenery I ever beheld, and I had seen the Alps and the Pyrenees," she said.

"My memory of that supreme day of our Colorado sojourn is fairly distinct even across the stretch of 35 crowded years," Miss Bates wrote a year before her death in 1929. "We stood at last on that Gate-of-Heaven summit, hallowed by the worship of perished races, and gazed in wordless rapture over the far expanse."

Though she insisted "the sublimity of the Rockies smote my pencil with despair", she was not "wordless" for long. "It was then and there, as I was looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies, that the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind":

Oh beautiful for spacious skies

For amber waves of grain

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

She put them down on paper that evening in her room at the Antlers Hotel. Today you'd be hard put to find a quatrain known to more Americans. Whether it's Gary Larson's "Far Side" cartoon of Columbus approaching land and saying, "Look! Purple mountains! Spacious skies! ...Is someone writing this down?" or Rush Limbaugh at noon eastern welcoming listeners "across the fruited plain" to his daily radio show, every anchorman, cartoonist, comedian or advertising copywriter who evokes those words is assured that they're as instantly familiar to his audience as any lines ever written in American English.

Though they were born that day on Pikes Peak, they were not given to the world until the Fourth of July 1895, when they appeared in a weekly church publication in Boston called The Congregationalist. Whether or not Katharine Lee Bates could see actual amber waves or purple mountains in that thin air, she captured precisely the scale of America as no-one had done before: As the anonymous author of a long-ago booklet on patriotic music published by the John Hancock Insurance Company wrote: "Among our American songs, none surpasses in nationalistic idealism 'America, the Beautiful.' In it Katharine Lee Bates has caught the beauty, majesty, and immensity of this country of ours." The words have a humility before that beauty and majesty and immensity, yet they rise to the task and do them justice. In The Congregationalist, the editor's introductory note read:

Miss Bates's poem has the true patriotic ring pertinent to Fourth of July.

And over 125 Fourths later, those words are not just the accompaniment to the celebration but part of the fabric and foundation of it.

Mark’s full column is here.  Happy Independence Day to everyone across the fruited plain.

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Sunday, July 3, 2022

Celebrating Independence Day

 


Gary Bauer at PatriotPost has a message for all of us on this Fourth of July weekend:

Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays – celebrating patriotism, our history and the tremendous courage, faith and sacrifices of our Founding Fathers. As the 246th birthday of America approaches, by all means, enjoy the day! Celebrate America and our freedoms!

But please take a moment to remind your children and grandchildren about America’s exceptionalism and the significance of Independence Day.

Remind them about the sacrifices at Bunker Hill and Concord Bridge that were necessary to create this nation and secure our freedoms. Tell them about the courage of George Washington crossing the Delaware River on Christmas night.

Most importantly, tell them about America’s “mission statement.” It can be found in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

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…

Yes, the right to life is a God-given human right. It is the first right without which all others are meaningless!

Those were radical ideas in 1776, and they are still radical concepts in many parts of the world today.

Of course, we have struggled at times to live up to that standard, but there is a reason millions of people from all over the world want to come to America – and it’s not because we are a “systemically racist nation.” We are not!

There is a reason that courageous Chinese dissidents wave the American flag, and not the Canadian flag or the Iranian flag or the Swedish flag.

Sadly, in 21st century America it seems we are struggling with the concept of “truth” and the notion that our rights come from God, not government. As Ronald Reagan famously warned, freedom is not guaranteed. Reagan said:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

That warning has never seemed more dire than today as radical Marxists are attacking our history and demanding a “fundamental transformation of America.” Into what exactly?

They are not seeking to create “a more perfect union.” They are seeking to divide us in order to impose their will on us. The future of our liberty depends on whether folks like you and me can muster the courage to overcome this radical impulse to rule or ruin.

. . .

God bless you, my friends, and may God bless the United States of America!

Read the rest here. And Happy Independence Day.

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Saturday, July 3, 2021

Happy Independence Day

 



At Front Page, Don Feder offers 17 ways to celebrate America’s birthday.  Here’s his closing:

Never give up! – America wasn’t started or safeguarded over the course of 245 years by quitters. Think of Valley Forge, the string of defeats the Union Army suffered in 1861-62, Belleau Wood and Bastogne. To pledge allegiance to the flag means that you will fight to keep it waving, regardless of the odds.

We are in a war for America’s survival, every bit as desperate as the Revolution, the Civil War or the Cold War.  It includes the metaphorical equivalent of house-to-house fighting.

We are fighting for the preservation of free speech, religious liberty, private property, limited government and public safety. If the Founding Fathers could pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, the least we can do is to risk our reputations and jobs to stand up to the cancel culture and other types of leftist tyranny.

Happy Fourth of July.

Read all 17 ways to celebrate here.

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Monday, March 15, 2021

Independence Day planning

 


 

The headline over Catherine Smith’s report at AmericanGreatness:

Fauci Warns States to Keep Restrictions
or July 4th Could Be Cancelled


My take-away:  Plan your block parties now.

 


RELATED headline at Epoch Times

Biden Administration Denies Request
to Hold July 4 Fireworks at Mount Rushmore

Sad. (Photo from President Trump's speech and celebration at Mount Rushmore.)

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Saturday, July 4, 2020

Happy Independence Day weekend

President Trump celebrated the Independence Day weekend at Mount Rushmore.  Sundance at Treehouse posted this photo


and linked to the livestreams of the event.  
Happy Independence Day!
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Friday, July 5, 2019

Fake News misreports Salute to America





The headline: FAKE NEWS Caught AGAIN As They Attempt To Spin Yesterday’s D.C. Celebration As “Small”. DCWhispers reports -- and has photographic proof of Fake News (read: outright lies):

Despite a bit of damp and humid weather, tens of thousands cheered the President Trump-led Fourth of July celebration in Washington D.C. yesterday. It was a patriotic event enjoyed by young and old alike but clearly out of favor with the Trump-hating/America-hating, far-left media which is now once again spreading their own altered version of reality:


Many networks refused to cover the live event. Clearly, that makes lying about it to the American people even easier.

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Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Salute To America

photo credit: breitbart.com


Leslie Eastman at Legal Insurrection reports on tomorrow's "Salute To America":
President Donald Trump is certainly shaking things up in Washington, DC, on all levels, including its annual Independence Day celebration.

Before Trump, the festivities consisted mainly of music and fireworks. After Trump, the “Salute to America” will include tanks, fighter jets…and an extravaganza of fireworks.

“Big 4th of July in D.C. ‘Salute to America.’ The Pentagon & our great Military Leaders are thrilled to be doing this & showing to the American people, among other things, the strongest and most advanced Military anywhere in the World. Incredible Flyovers & biggest ever Fireworks!” the president tweeted Tuesday morning.

Mr. Trump confirmed to reporters Monday there will be tanks “stationed outside,” too.

“You’ve got to be pretty careful with the tanks because the roads have a tendency not to like to carry heavy tanks,” he told reporters Monday.
. . .

The event will also feature marching bands, fife and drum corps, floats, military units, giant balloons, and equestrian drill teams. The Blue Angels will be doing the flyover, and the fireworks (donated by Phantom Fireworks” and “Fireworks by Grucci”) will be one of the most spectacular sets the nation’s capital has seen.

Full report is here. The Independence Day parade and celebrations in DC will be broadcast on C-Span, and I will update with live stream links as soon as they are available. (The Hill reports that “MSNBC will not air the entirety of President Trump's planned "Salute to America" on July Fourth, instead opting to carry on with regularly scheduled news programming that may include clips of the event.”)
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Monday, July 1, 2019

Independence Day: on strike against Big Tech

image credit; economist.com



Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, was on Tucker Carlson this evening to propose something all Big Tech users can do to start to chip away at the out-of-control companies.

On July 4 and 5, Sanger's designated days to make your statement, you can refrain from using your Facebook or Twitter or What’s App, etc. EXCEPT to share your displeasure with Big Tech on your social media.

You can also sign the Declaration of Digital Independence here (I had to try several times to access; traffic was heavy, so just wait a few minutes and try again). Since President Trump indicated to Tucker that his administration may be looking at potential action to rein in Big Tech, perhaps a strong showing on this Declaration will give President Trump additional leverage.

I’ll have more on this topic later this week.
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Monday, July 2, 2018

Cleveland Terror plot foiled

photo credit: myajc.com


Fox News at cleveland.com reports:

A man who pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda sought to kill members of the military and conducted reconnaissance in downtown Cleveland for a planned attack on July 4 -- but the Independence Day plot was foiled after a months-long investigation, federal officials said Monday.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Stephen Anthony said Demetrius Pitts, also known as Abdur Raheem Rahfeeq, was arrested at 10 a.m. Sunday by the joint terrorism task force. Authorities were initially notified about Pitts in 2017, when he lived in Cincinnati and allegedly made statements supporting Al Qaeda and advocating violence against U.S. military members.
. . .
Besides the alleged plan to attack on July 4, officials said Pitts wanted to also harm military members and families of service members. Herdman said Pitts discussed giving remote control cars packed with shrapnel to children of military members. 

When he was asked by the undercover FBI agent if he was worried about injuring children, Pitts said, "I don’t care and I have no regrets," according to Herdman.

Anthony said the arrest came after multiple conversations showed that Pitts had a desire to do harm. Pitts was born and "radicalized" in the U.S., and wanted to commit violence in the name of Al Qaeda, he added. Pitts faces up to 20 years in prison.

Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said while the alleged plot was foiled, the public should still contact authorities if they notice anything suspicious.

See the rest of the report here.
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Sunday, July 1, 2018

Steve Hilton on the genius of America's founders

image credit: floridatoday.com


We celebrate our Independence Day this coming Wednesday. Steve Hilton published a thoughtful piece on what we love about America entitled “I didn’t get the true genius of America’s founders till I moved here. Here’s what worries me now.” The full article is here, but below are a few excerpts:

It wasn’t until I actually lived in the U.S. that I started to understand the true genius of America’s founders and what they put in place two-and-a-half centuries ago. I saw it in the way that contemporary political debates are conducted with reference to the framers’ intent. I saw it in the huge importance of Supreme Court rulings – reported and debated with a prominence commensurate with the judiciary’s status as a co-equal branch of government – but totally alien to someone familiar with the British system.

And I saw the genius of the Founding Fathers most vividly of all in a family visit to Philadelphia a couple of years ago. While there, I took my two sons to the National Constitution Center, a truly wonderful place that all Americans should visit if they can.

The highlight of the Constitution Center is a regular live performance telling the story of the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the years leading up to the Constitutional Convention – and then of the momentous deliberations that produced the U.S. Constitution itself.

That performance literally moved me to tears as it brought to life in the most immediate and powerful way the beautiful idea at the heart of America: liberty under the law, an idea that had never before been expressed and guaranteed by any nation.

From that idea, and from those incomparable founding documents, come all the things that are special about America – things that are so different to (and, frankly, so much better than) what you find where I grew up, in England. And of course vastly better than what my parents experienced where they grew up in Communist Hungary.
. . .
The melting pot; decentralized government; a republic of equals; a Constitution enshrining the precious ideal of people power. It is all under threat this Fourth of July – and we need to fight for it.
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Monday, July 3, 2017

Happy Independence Day

Fourth of July Cleveland fireworks





photo credits: Pat J Dooley Photography

Independence Day thoughts


image credit: The History Place

Scott Powell at the American Thinker blog reminds us:

July 4th, also known as Independence Day, is a much more lighthearted and festive American holiday -- with cookouts, parades, beach and boating parties and fireworks -- than other patriotic holidays such Memorial Day or Veterans Day. Most people forget that when the 56 members of the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, they were in fact signing their death warrants. At the time, Great Britain was the most powerful nation on earth, while the thirteen American colonies were poor and disunited. The British Crown deemed the issuance of a declaration of independence an act of treason, which meant that all signatories would be punishable by death.
. . .
As it turns out, the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate on July 4th, is not just what gave political birth to the United States, with its unique emphasis on limited government and the freedom for its citizens. It was these simple ideas put into practice that also enabled the nation’s ascendance from colonial poverty to global superpower in a little more than 200 years.


However, during the last 50 years, America has increasingly been on a course of surrender and retreat from the principles that made her the envy of the world for generations. May this July 4th be a special time, perhaps a turning point, in renewing those ideas and convictions that brought the Founders together, which embodied a certainty that the rights of the people come from God, and not the state. It’s not about being reactionary or turning the clock back, but rather it’s about aligning our thinking and action with the inclusive ideas, principles, courage, and faith that enabled prior generations of Americans to overcome, advance and prosper more than any other people in human history.


Read the rest here.

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Captain Luis Avila salutes his Commander-in-Chief


www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OVjYRha8a0 

Many Tea Party people watched President Trump’s tribute to our veterans on the weekend run-up to Independence Day. There was one moment during his speech that I had to re-watch, and it was the part when President Trump paid tribute to US Army Captain Luis Avila and his wife Claudia.

Captain Avila served several tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq and lost his leg in an IED attack. This man was not expected to survive. He remains largely paralyzed, he is in a wheelchair, but just watch this short video. He can barely move his body, and yet he struggles mightily to salute, to literally salute, his Commander-in-Chief, President Trump (at about 1:40) and to bow in acknowledgement. It brought tears to my eyes. He is one of many Americans who knows that we have a CiC who loves our country and honors our veterans who defend our way of life.

God Bless US Army Captain Luis Avila, his wife Claudia, and President Donald J. Trump.

And Happy Independence Day.
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Sunday, July 3, 2016

Independence Day from a British perspective



art credit: en.wikipedia.org

Breitbart UK’s James Delingpole is one of my favorite reporters/commentators, and his Independence Day column is a good example of why:

For me, Independence Day means the birth of the Anglosphere. As an Englishman, I don’t feel at all resentful that you triumphed over George III’s Redcoats, nor do I count it as a defeat. It was a victory for all of us: the settlers in the thirteen colonies got to forge their own destiny; the mother country could focus her attentions elsewhere, notably India; we could all enter a new mature relationship as free traders (bringing both parties massively increased prosperity); and, best of all, it resulted in the U.S. Constitution.

Yes, of course, none of these happened without bitterness, betrayal, and much bloodshed. As happens in civil wars, it pitched friend against friend, father against son, even husbands against wives. In Britain, it became pretty much a replay of the English Civil War with “Roundheads” – Whigs and Low Church Dissenters supporting the Colonists, and Royalists – Catholics and Tories on the Loyalist side. Among the pro-American faction was MP Edmund Burke, representing the key trading port of Bristol. He famously wrote, “The temper and character, which prevail in our colonies, are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. … An Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery.”

Burke was right. He was talking about the impulse for liberty that courses through all our veins, English and American alike. We are far, far more similar than we are different. Certainly, we British have far more in common temperamentally and intellectually with our fellow English-speakers than we do with our neighbours on the continent – which is the true reason, of course, that we British just voted for Brexit in the EU referendum. At heart, you Americans and we British are instinctive patriots: heirs to the traditions established by Magna Carta. We believe in our nations’ exceptionalism, and rightly so. Andrew Roberts once argued that we should see the British Empire and the post-war U.S. as discrete entities, but merely as a benign Anglosphere hegemony which has been making the world a better, freer, safer place for four centuries.

It’s because we understand this that we are prepared to die so readily for our countries. We are part of a tradition that goes back to the birth of democracy at the Battle of Salamis when the Greek city states won their unlikely victory over the Persians. Better to die a free man than live a slave.

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Saturday, July 2, 2016

Happy Fourth of July weekend

art credit: pinterest.com

Commemorating our 
Independence Day
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Friday, July 3, 2015

Thoughts for Independence Day


art credit: dailybail.com

Thoughts to share with family and friends 
over the Independence Day weekend

It’s more than backyard barbecues and fireworks. From military.com
On July 4, 1776, the thirteen colonies claimed their independence from England, an event which eventually led to the formation of the United States. Each year on July 4th, also known as Independence Day, Americans celebrate this historic event.
Conflict between the colonies and England was already a year old when the colonies convened a Continental Congress in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776. In a June 7 session in the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall), Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented a resolution with the famous words: "Resolved: 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."
Lee's words were the impetus for the drafting of a formal Declaration of Independence, although the resolution was not followed up on immediately. On June 11, consideration of the resolution was postponed by a vote of seven colonies to five, with New York abstaining. However, a Committee of Five was appointed to draft a statement presenting to the world the colonies' case for independence. Members of the Committee included John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert R. Livingston of New York and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. The task of drafting the actual document fell on Jefferson.
On July 1, 1776, the Continental Congress reconvened, and on the following day, the Lee Resolution for independence was adopted by 12 of the 13 colonies, New York not voting. Discussions of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence resulted in some minor changes, but the spirit of the document was unchanged. The process of revision continued through all of July 3 and into the late afternoon of July 4, when the Declaration was officially adopted. Of the 13 colonies, nine voted in favor of the Declaration, two -- Pennsylvania and South Carolina -- voted No, Delaware was undecided and New York abstained. John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence. It is said that John Hancock's signed his name "with a great flourish" so England's "King George can read that without spectacles!"
Today, the original copy of the Declaration is housed in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and July 4 has been designated a national holiday to commemorate the day the United States laid down its claim to be a free and independent nation.
From Rush Limbaugh’s father, we learn what our Founding Fathers risked; this extract is always available at Rush’s website:  
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.
[Many harrowing stories of the signers are here.]
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."
Read the rest here.

Happy Independence Day!
art credit: roadtripsforfamilies.com (Roger Mastroianni photog)