Fifty-Six on July 4
July 4th, 2008 by Wiley Cody232 years ago, the Declaration of Independence was voted on and ratified. It was then ordered to the printer, and just under a month later, on August 2 most of the signatures were affixed. When the Declaration of Independence was delivered to the King of England, it had fifty-six signatures.
Each signatory was, for what they knew, signing a warrant for his own death. In the face of tyranny, however, they embodied the words of Patrick Henry: “Give me Liberty, or give me Death.”
Take a few minutes today to read about some of those fifty-six men. Truly, we owe them the willingness to continue in the path that they forged for liberty.
“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.” - Samuel Adams
“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.” - John Adams
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusettes: Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: George Read, Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
“All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should.” - Samuel Adams
