HAVE A GREAT 4TH OF JULY!!!

IT IS CLAIMED THAT SOME OF THIS MAY NOT BE AS ACCURATE AS IT SHOULD BUT GIVES YOU AN IDEA OF WHAT THESE MEN DID FOR THEIR COUNTRY...Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 menwho signed the Declaration ofIndependence ?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 serving in the Revolutionary Army;another had two sons captured.Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds orhardships 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 Independenceknowing full well that the penalty would be death ifthey were captured.Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter andtrader, saw his ships swept from the seas by theBritish Navy.. He sold his home and properties topay his debts, and died in rags.Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the Britishthat he was forced to move his family almost constantly.He served in the Congress without pay, and his familywas kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him,and poverty was his reward.Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer,Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.At the battle of Yorktown , Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted thatthe British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelsonhome for his headquarters. He quietly urged GeneralGeorge Washington 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 gristmillwere laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forestsand caves, returning home to find his wife dead and hischildren vanished.So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday andsilently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid.Remember: freedom is never free!

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of AmericaWhen in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one peopleto dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equalstation to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, adecent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they shoulddeclare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That tosecure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, derivingtheir just Powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever anyForm of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right ofthe People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers insuch form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety andHappiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments longestablished should not be changed for light and transient causes; andaccordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed tosuffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves byabolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long trainof abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces adesign to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it istheir duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards fortheir future security - Such has been the patient sufferance of theseColonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to altertheir former Systems of Government. - The history of the present King ofGreat Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, allhaving in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny overthese States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary forthe public good.He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressingimportance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent shouldbe obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attendto them.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of largedistricts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right ofRepresentation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them andformidable to tyrants only.He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records,for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with hismeasures.He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing withmanly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause othersto be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable ofAnnihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise;the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers ofinvasion from without, and convulsions within.He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for thatpurpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusingto pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising theconditions of new Appropriations of Lands.He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assentto Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of theiroffices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms ofOfficers to harrass our People, and eat out their substance.He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without theConsent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior tothe Civil Power.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign toour constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent totheir Acts of pretended Legislation:For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murderswhich they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:For abolishing the free system of English Laws in a neighbouringProvince, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlargingits Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrumentfor introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, andaltering fundamentally the forms of our Governments:For suspending our own Legislature, and declaring themselves investedwith power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protectionand waging War against us.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, anddestroyed the lives of our people.He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries tocompleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun withcircumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the mostbarbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas tobear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of theirfriends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured tobring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages,whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of allages, sexes and conditions.In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress inthe most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only byrepeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every actwhich may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.Nor have we been wanting in attention to our Brittish brethren. We havewarned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extendan unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of thecircumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed totheir native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by theties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, wouldinevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too havebeen deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must,therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation,and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in PeaceFriends.We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, inGeneral Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the worldfor the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authorityof the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, Thatthese United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and IndependentStates; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown,and that all political connection between them and the State of GreatBritain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free andIndependent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace,contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts andThings which Independent States may of right do.And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on theprotection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other ourLives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
John Hancock
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
Geo. Walton

Wm. Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thos. Heyward, Junr.
Thomas Lynch, Junr.
Arthur Middleton

Samuel Chase
Wm. Paca
Thos. Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Th.. Jefferson
Benja. Harrison
Thos. Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Robt. Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benja. Franklin
John Morton
Geo. Clymer
Jas. Smith
Geo. Taylor
James Wilson
Geo. Ross
Caesar Rodney
Geo. Read
Tho. Mckean

Wm. Floyd
Phil. Livingston
Frans. Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richd. Stockton
Jno. Witherspoon
Fras. Hopkinson
John Hart
Abra. Clark

Josiah Bartlett
Wm. Whipple
Saml. Adams
John Adams
Robt. Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Step. Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
Wm. Williams
Oliver Wolcott
Matthew Thornton