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Food
For Thought
Have you ever wondered what
happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by
the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes
ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in
the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died
from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they
pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of
men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and
jurists.
Eleven were merchants, nine
were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated.
But they signed the Declaration
of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they
were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a
wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the
British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died
in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by
the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He
served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His
possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the
properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge,
and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown,
Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken
over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George
Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis
Lewis had his home and properties destroyed.
The enemy
jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his
wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives.
His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he
lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his
children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken
heart.
Norris and Livingston suffered
similar fates.
Such were the stories and
sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild eyed,
rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education.
They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight,
and unwavering, they pledged:
"For the support of this
declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine
providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and
our sacred honor."
They gave you and me a free and
independent America.
The following document was
sweeping through our email systems. The author is unknown!
**Note: On July 4, 2001, in Ann
Landers column, a history buff from Dallas shared further information. He
stated that most of the above was true, but unfortunately, a lot of the
information was incorrect or misleading. He shared the following:
No signer was killed outright
by the British, and only one, Richard Stockton, is said to have been
imprisoned solely for having signed the Declaration of Independence. The
others were captured while fighting in the army and were treated just like
any other prisoner of war (which was fairly harshly), but they were not
tortured. Of the 56 signers, 17 (not nine) held commissions in the army or
did medical duty during the war. Many of those whose property was looted
or destroyed managed to re-establish themselves financially after the war.
Carter Braxton did suffer
financial hardship because of the British, but he retained other holdings.
What ruined him were commercial setbacks after the war. Thomas McKean did
not die in poverty. In fact, he was quite wealthy when he died at the age
of 83 in 1817. No one knows for sure if Thomas Nelson's home was fired
upon (the source of this story is family legend), but he heard the home
was turned into a tourist attraction after the war, and additional
cannonball holes were added for "authenticity."
The other facts are essentially
correct, but they give the impression that these men died as a result of
wounds suffered in the war, or they died in poverty. In reality, the
majority survived the war and rebuilt their fortunes.
The signers of the Declaration
of Independence knew they could have been targeted by the British as
traitors. They showed tremendous courage and bravery by willingly putting
their names on a document that could bring about their deaths. They were
remarkable men. We do not need to embellish the truth.
Note:
It seems there has been some controversy about the author of this
piece.
Some insist the
original piece was written by the father of Rush Limbaugh, Jr.
(Rush, Sr.)
Another said the author was Peter McWilliams, a libertarian
writer. Others say the true author is Gary Hildreth of Erie,
PA.
The Declaration of Independence
of the Thirteen Colonies
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 [George III] 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 benefits 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 and
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 the 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.
Patriotic Word Games
Biography of Uncle Sam
Uncle Sam's Statistics
John Phillips Sousa
Patriotic Music Online
The Liberty Bell
The History Of Fireworks
According to scholars, war rockets and explosives were first made in China
during the 6th century. The first fireworks were probably firecrackers,
also known as Chinese crackers. Firecrackers are still used in China — and
elsewhere — to celebrate weddings, births and Chinese New Year.
In the
14th century, Europeans began using gunpowder for weapons, as well as for
pyrotechnics shows for entertainment; Italians and Germans were recognized
as the masters of the fireworks game.
Some
medieval fireworks featured living people holding sky rockets and other
fireworks. They were called "green men" because they placed leaves and
greenery all over their bodies to ward off burns.
In
England, a fireworks display helped celebrate the 1486 wedding of Henry
VII, and by 1749 fireworks were such the rage that composer George
Friedrich Handel created a symphony called Music for the Royal
Fireworks.
Fireworks finally made a big bang in the U.S. before the Revolutionary War
and fireworks displays have been synonymous with the Fourth of July since
the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The biggest U.S. fireworks
display ever was staged for the centenary of the Statue of Liberty in
1986, which brought together Zambelli, Grucci and Souza, the biggest names
in modern-day American pyrotechnics.
National Council on Fireworks Safety
Zambelli Fireworks
Fireworks Magazine
Physics of Fireworks
Photographing Fireworks
The following sonnet, written
by Emma Lazarus,
is inscribed in bronze
on the base of
The Statue of Liberty and
dated 1903.
THE NEW COLOSSUS
Not like the
brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land:
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
More on the
Statue of Liberty
Be Safe!
Have a Grand Fourth!
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