* Original: FROM: Gary Steinweg
* Original: TO:   All
* Original: AREA: CIVIL LIBERTIES
* Forwarded by Linda Thompson
* Forwarded Using QuickBBS 2.76 Ovr
* Forwarded at 17:35 on 07-May-95 
                      The Price They Paid
                      -------------------
                       by Garry Hildreth
                       Erie, Pennsylvania
     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 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 Dllery, 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 Washinton 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 I a free and independent America.  The
history books never told you a lot of what happened in the
revolutionary war.  We didn't just fight the British.  We were British
subjects at that time and we fought our own government!  Perhaps
you can now see why our founding fathers had a hatred for standing
armies, and allowed throught the second amendment for everyone to
be armed.
     Frankly, I can't read this without crying.  Some of us take
these liberties so much for granted.  We shouldn't.
___
 X SLMR 2.1a X 
--- FidoPCB v1.5 beta-'j'
---------------