Have you ever thought about the men who signed the Declaration? Who were they? What kind of lives did they lead? What did they face for committing high treason?
According to http://www.joyfulministry.com/, 24 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. The web site does state they cannot vouch for the validity of this statement but it certainly rings true.
Why did these men decided to break apart from their country, to commit such a heinous crime, what were their lives like? What condition was the country in? Following are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, with translation into today’s American English. This is a beautifully written document, “people don’t talk like that anymore”…a quote from Nicholas Cage’s character Ben Gates in the movie National Treasure.
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.
Well, that’s pretty self explanatory to me, but let’s breaks it down. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary….when a group of people believes it essential…for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another….for that group of people to break free from its oppressors….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….and to claim man’s God-given rights as human beings,…. a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them separation…requires validation of these God-given rights to all men, even though it means breaking the law and separating from your government.
These men and their families lived lives of severe oppression. They outline some of the atrocities created by the British government under the name of the King within the Declaration. So tired of power-hungry politicians, these men were brilliant enough to create a government system that cannot (should not) allow one branch to become more powerful than another branch. Today’s political system is not what our forefathers envisioned. They didn’t, they couldn’t have imagined that large corporations with bottomless bank accounts could pay off government officials for favors.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by 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 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.
The people of our country during that time lived life under a King who committed terrible crimes against his people. To read the entire Declaration of Independence, go to http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/. The signers of the Declaration faced certain death for the crimes they committed by breaking away from the crown and forming an independent government. By doing so, today we all have freedoms we take for granted. We believe these freedoms are rights, but they aren't rights, they are privileges. They paid a large price for freedom and we should all remember that Freedom Is Never Free.
Until next time.
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