Humility is a Necessary Part of History

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 1^st; passed by 12 of the 13 colonies on July 2^nd; perfected over the next two days and officially adopted with Thomas Jefferson’s language on July 4^th. While we have correctly chosen that date of official adoption as our “Independence” Day, the document was not signed on the 4^th 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 9^th. Add to the timeline 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 horsepower. The final Declaration was signed on August 2^nd, 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 2^nd, 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.
           Today there are some who choose to criticize these men because some owned slaves. Those who wanted to abolish slavery finally realized they would have to defer that dream or lose the entire concept of separation from England. They are being criticized by the Monday morning quarterbacks for giving in. These people want to condemn our founding fathers for not being right enough but they offer no viable alternative for what the founding fathers did. Talk, it seems, is cheap.
          Human societies evolve slowly. Hopefully they move in the right direction. Sometimes not. The Nazi's were an obvious step back. But as a rule societies become better over time. To allow ourselves to get bogged down in blaming men of the past for not conforming to our standard of conduct assumes that we have it right. We don't. Imagine a time a hundred years from now if disease or mutation have made child bearing a rare occurrence and mankind a threatened species. The people of the future might look back on those who champion abortion on demand as monsters and short-sighted, opportunistic, self-serving fools. But those same people, by today's standards, are using the best judgement and justice that they know and making decisions based on common norms for conduct.
        Those who take inordinate pleasure in blaming the United States for not being founded as a perfect union are petulant and childish. They are also trying to use history as a leverage for their own goals without questioning if those goals are noble or ignoble. If you want purity, look to God. For all other evaluations of man kind, show a little humility and realize that you, too, are the captive of evolution and, no, you do not yet have it right.

Take a look at the names listed below. You owe them a little attention. They did not get it all right. They did not have 21st Century vision. But they did the best they could, set us on the right path and got us to where we can ask for better, do better, hope for more and, amazingly, have the resources to accomplish what they could not.
Humbly, keep the faith.

Delaware:

George Read | Caesar Rodney | Thomas McKean |

Pennsylvania: