The Founding Fathers who approved the Declaration of Independence in July 1776 knew that they might be signing their own death warrants. But they also knew, and would wish us to remember today, that liberty is more important than safety and requires risks and sacrifices.
Signer of the Declaration Abraham Clark wrote afterwards, “We are now Sir embarked on a most Tempestuous Sea, Life very uncertain, Seeming dangers Scattered thick Around us. … Let us prepare for the Worst. We can Die here but once.” It might sound a little gloomy to Americans eager to set off firecrackers and eat burgers at cheerful parties, but it highlights what a significant and dangerous step those 56 men took in signing the Declaration, in declaring independence from and defiance toward what was then arguably the world’s most powerful empire. But it also reminds us of how we should act in our own day, when modern tyrants are trying to take away our liberties from within America. Courage, boldness, and passionate dedication to liberty are as necessary now as then.
“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, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” the Declaration avows. But now there are many, especially in the Democrat Party, who do not hold these truths to be self-evident, and who are doing their level worst to transform America into a dictatorial, Marxist dystopia.
Benjamin Franklin said at the Declaration’s signing, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Continental Congress president John Hancock agreed, “We must be unanimous.” A large percentage of the colonial population was either opposed to independence or unwilling to join the military conflict. But the Founders were all agreed among themselves that they were committed to independence, and that was vital.
All patriots who love America must come together and work together, instead of passively complaining or pettily bickering. “Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants?” Benjamin Rush asked. But they signed it, and they stuck to their principles, and they won. A new nation was formed. We might not be killed for being patriotic, but we could certainly be sued, censored, and even imprisoned. What is liberty worth to us?
Years after they wrote and signed the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams, “The flames kindled on the 4th of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.” Adams had made a similar remark in 1776 when writing Patrick Henry: “The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established in America.” The question is whether we will dedicate ourselves to carrying on their work, or if we will let America fail and wreck the work of Jefferson and Adams.
“I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it,” former slave and orator Frederick Douglass said earnestly. “The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”
The Declaration of Independence changed not only North American history but world history. As Abraham Lincoln said, it was a “revolutionary document” but with “an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times.” We have been living in a world created by American ideals, however ineptly or improperly applied in various countries, but that is now in danger of ending. Abroad, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and other hostile nations and terrorist groups want to destroy America. At home, leftists are happy to pander to those enemies and import terrorists, criminals, and foreign agents across the southern border.
Are we, like the Founders, willing to pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to saving the American Republic? Let us echo John Adams’ toast, “Independence Forever.”
