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Show TTT Mungr-Entrprl- , The price they The following article tells a little more about these remarkable men. No author is listed. Have you ever wondered what happened to those 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 fifty-si- x fought and died from wounds or the hardships of the war. What kind of men were they? were lawyers and Twenty-fou- r were merchants, Eleven jurists. nine were farmers and large owners, men of plantation But they means, of signed the Declaration Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured. They signed and pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. well-educate- d. 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. McKean Thomas 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 or both, looted the properties of Ellery, Declaration of Independence. When President Ronald Reagan of Governor elected was the he quoted California, following account about what happened on July 4, 1776. Thomas Jefferson said that on the day of our nations birth in the little hall in Philadelphia, America was known as British debate had raged that day for colonies. We were under the hours. The men gathered there rule of the English government. d men, were honorable The colonists felt that they were by a king who had being unfairly taxed, without flouted the very laws they were having a say in the matter. Many willing to obey. Even so, to sign of the colonists had migrated to a declaration of independence this country because of religious was such an irretrievable act that beliefs. Many of these people the walls resounded with the look on our land as a way to the words treason!, headmans the practice their own beliefs and gallows!, without The axe!", and the issued remained persecution. colonists were also restricted in in doubt. The a man rose and what they could print in their spoke. Jefferson described him or what could they newspapers as not a young man, but one say in public meetings. The who had to summon all his British soldiers, the redcoats for an impassioned energy would break up their meetings He spoke, and finally, his plea. and arrest people. voice failing, he said They may turn every tree into a gallows, In the 1770s the colonists rebel. wanted every home into a grave, and yet to began to They the words of that parchment can be separate from England. never die. To the mechanic in the Finally, in 1776, the second continental congress wrote a workshop, they will speak of known as the document hope; to the slave in the mines, Declaration of Independence 3 craD yi BYCATHICALL We are celebrating one of my favorite holidays this weekend. Im sure you all know what that is. . . 4th of July, or Walton, Hall, Clymer, is Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, Independence Day remembered because of picnics and Middleton. At the Battle of Yorktown, and parades and fireworks, but Thomas Nelson Jr., noted that do you really know what the British General Cornwallis, Independence Day is? Before our nation came into had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. The owner being no one had the wonderful General freedoms that we enjoy. In 1776 quietly urged Washington to open fire, which was done. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died hard-presse- paid 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 wifes Thursday, July 3, 1986 his bedside as she was dying. Their thirteen children fled for their lives. His fields and grist mill were laid waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home after the war to find his wife dead, his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart. we thought it would be nice to print in this weeks issue of the paper a copy of the Declaration of Independence . There are probably many adults who have never read it. Heres your chance. Sit down and read it with your parents , kids! and Norris Livingston suffered a similar fate. Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eye- d, rabble Pag freedom. Sign that parchment! if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that parchment will be .the textbook of freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever! He fell back exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by his eloquence, rushed forward and signed a document destined to be as immortal as any work of man can be. When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found anywhere, nor could any be found who knew who he was, or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded door. Fifty-si- x men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Sign That special document was rewritten on a parchment is It now (animal skin), displayed in the National archives building and is sealed in bronze-boun- d a helium-filleglass case for protection against the elements and time. d, On the day of the adoption of the final draft of the Declaration in of Independence a Hall Independence great celebration was started. The bell in the tower rang so loudly and b'11 c'acktd That bell is still displayed, with the crack in the side reminding Un ',1' VfJl found about the signing of that special document. Every year since I776 there have been celebrations on juiy 4. and in 1941 the 4th of July was officially holiday. rousing ruffians. These were men of means and education. soft-spok- In They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, .straight, and unwavering, they pledged: For the support of this declaration, with a firm our fortunes, and our sacred honor. They gave us an independent America. Can we keep it? CONGRESS. July 4,1: vjffie lmajttmoifcTecfaraftoit reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, ofrfpr lfjrrfwn. un&b States ofcXntcrtc&, When, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, 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. We hold these Truths to be that all Men are created equal, that they are endow ed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. 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 svhich constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The is a history of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute History of the present King of Great-BritaiTyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable 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 his Measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People. He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their Exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and and-t- t, n The Statue of Liberty One Hundred years ago America received a really special gift to celebrate our Independence day. The official name of this large copper statue is Liberty Enlightening the World but we just call it the Statue of Liberty. This statue is one of the largest in the world, and was given to America from France as a symbol of friendship and of the liberty that citizens enjoy under a free form of government. The people of France donated $250,000 for the construction of the statue, and the people of the United States gave about $280,000 for the pedestal. A smaller version of the Statue of Liberty stands on a bridge in Paris, France. The original was only 49 high. The French historian Edouard de Laboulaye suggested a monument to symbolize liberty. His friend Frederid Auguste Bartholdi designed the statue and chose its site. Alexander Gustave Eiffe, who designed the Eiffel Tower in Paris built the supporting framework. The gift was given to America in Paris on July 4, 1884. It was shipped to the United States in 214 cases on the French ship Isere in May 1885. President Grover Cleveland dedicated the statue on October 28, 1886. A poem written by Emma Lazarus was inscribed on the tablet in the pedestal in 1903. The poem was entitled The New n lines, give me your tired, Colossus, and includes the masses huddled yearning to breathe free, the your poor, your wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door! tempest-tosse- d We should be very thankful for the opportunity to live in this country. Many nations do not have personal freedoms that we enjoy. In fact, the majority of the worlds people do not have our freedoms. In the United States the poor have a chance to upgrade their lives. There is no rule that tells us what we must become, and how we must live. The Statue of Liberty is one of the first things that immigrants of the past saw as they came to America, probably including many of your ancestors! Convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries. He has erected a Multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance. He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent of our Legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us; For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which 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 Offenses: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable I.aws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Government: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our Seas, ravished our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People. He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with Circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, svhose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions. In every Stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, svhose Character is thus marked by every Act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People. Nor have we been svanting in Attention to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded then) of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been 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 Peace, Friends. WE, THEREFORE, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right, ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of is and ought to be totally dissolved: and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. Great-Britai- well-know- fh1 Jv&rf feta's 5 if fli$M4t Otr. N' . fit? This week youll see many programs about the Statue, which is in the final stages of refinishing. As we look at her, remember the price that was paid to make this land free, and the liberties we enjoy because of those sacrifices. sv jn, 1 fiTtWftrn if 3 JdnJttamJ |