The Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence
They were lawyers, doctors, career politicians and farmers. Eight of them were immigrants. Gwinnett Button and Robert Morris were born
in England. Francis Lewis was from
Wales, James Wilson and John Witherspoon were from Scotland. George Taylor, Matthew Thornton and James
Smith were born in Ireland. The oldest
was 70-year-old Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. The youngest were South Carolinians Edward
Rutledge and Thomas Lynch, Jr. who were both 26.
They were sent by their
respective states to Philadelphia where they clustered themselves into oppressively
hot quarters, locked the doors and shuttered the windows. They worked alone and without press coverage
because they did not want to be pressured by the emotions of the mob or the
threat of exposure. By creating a
country, they were also committing treason against the King, punishable by
slow, painful and torturous death. Accountability
was all too apparent to them, so they wanted to be accountable for something
that made a difference.
Their final product, a motion for independence
made by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, was made on July 1st; passed
by 12 of the 13 colonies on July 2nd; perfected over the next two
days and officially adopted with Thomas Jefferson’s language on July 4th.
While we have correctly chosen that date
of official adoption as our “Independence” Day, the document was not signed on
the 4th of July.
There was no drama associated with
the delay. It took two weeks for the
document to be “engrossed” (a final writing in clear, legible, grammatically
correct spit-and-polish form). Then the
New York legislature had to give authorization for their delegation to vote for
independence. That occurred on July 9th.
Add to the time line delegates who were
commuting by horse and buggy from their homes, farms, families and state
legislatures. The trip to and from takes
a lot longer when you are, literally, traveling at horse power. The final Declaration was signed on August 2nd,
though several of the signatures were affixed later when those signatories got
back to Philadelphia. [Elbridge Gerry,
Oliver Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean and Matthew Thornton signed
late. John Dickinson and Robert R.
Livingston never signed at all, though they were part of the adoption.]
Ultimately,
five signers of the Declaration of Independence were captured by the British
during the course of the Revolutionary War.
Twelve fought in battles and Thomas Nelson of Virginia ordered the Continental
Army to fire upon his own home, which was being occupied by Gen. Cornwallis, at
the Battle of Yorktown. Many of the
signers saw their homes and property occupied, ransacked, looted and vandalized
by the British. They had, in the words
of the document itself, pledged their “…lives, fortunes, and sacred honor for
the cause of Independence.”
My favorite
signer is Caesar Rodney of Delaware. Rodney
a small man with a giant intellect, was in Dover, Delaware when he received
word that the Delaware commission of three men was deadlocked on the matter of
independence. They needed his vote. Suffering from a painful facial cancer (he
wore a scarf to cover the deformity) he road 70 miles over night through a
drenching thunderstorm and arrived in Philadelphia on July 2nd, in
time to cast Delaware’s deciding vote for Independence.
All of these
men were as imperfect as the rest of us.
But they saw beyond themselves and put it all on the line for a concept
that may or may not have benefited themselves.
They had grit. They had
conscience. They were, as it turns out,
on the right side of history.
Keep the
faith and take a look at the names listed below. You owe them a little attention.
Delaware:
Pennsylvania:
George Clymer |
Benjamin Franklin | Robert Morris |
John Morton | Benjamin Rush |
George Ross |
James Smith |
James Wilson |
George Taylor |
Massachusetts:
New Hampshire:
Rhode Island:
New York:
Georgia:
Virginia:
Richard Henry Lee | Francis Lightfoot Lee | Carter Braxton |
Benjamin Harrison | Thomas Jefferson | George Wythe | Thomas Nelson, Jr. |
North Carolina:
South Carolina:
New Jersey:
Connecticut:
Maryland:
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