The Price of Freedom
Have you ever wondered what happened to the fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of Independence? Neither did we, until it became a homework assignment, but then we did some research and were humbled by what we found. As the Fourth of July celebration approaches, remember the terrible price paid by these men for the freedom we now have to choose between presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore.
* Five signers were captured by the British and pickled in brine before being packed off to England, where they had to scrub the royal toilets just to earn enough to buy a few measly scraps of crumpets and scones.
* Twelve signers had their homes ransacked and razed by the British. Worse, their insurance agencies refused to pay even a bent shilling because their homeowner's policies did not cover acts of war.
* Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, only to find them three months after the war ended, working at Wal-Mart with tongue studs and green hair.
* Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War, and yet were never memorialized in an NBC miniseries or PBS special, nor were their descendants showcased with bit parts in Mel Gibson's "The Patriot."
Yet despite these horrors, fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists (which means they pretty much deserved what they got, if not worse). Eleven were merchants who ran double-coupon specials only after raising their standard prices. Nine were farmers and large plantation owners who built their fortunes upon slave labor, after encouraging the original American Indian squatters to head west.
They were men of means, and well-educated, but they signed their names on the Declaration of Independence without reading the fine print because George Washington, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson had assured them that King George III couldn't read Jefferson's writing anyway, especially with those silly flourishes that couldn't decide whether they were S's or F's. Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his boats swept from the seas by the British Navy. He raffled off his home and properties to pay his debts and died wearing bargain-brand clothes he had scrounged from a Dumpster behind Kmart. George Washington, on the other hand, a landowner who had seduced a rich widow, became the first president of the United States.
Thomas McKeam served in the Congress without pay, never realizing how much pork a congressman could funnel before finally getting caught. He was so hounded by the British that he was forced to hide his family in a cemetery plot in southern Virginia to avoid capture. (The ruse was so complete that even history books believed McKeam's family to be deceased.)
British troops looted the summer homes of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton -- forcing them instead to spend all year on their sprawling 400-acre estates, basking on pitiful green lawns with stylish lawn furniture, throwing summer barbecues, and suffering the luscious scents of their imported rose and tulip gardens all year round.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr. noted that the British Gen. Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged Gen. George Washington to open fire, thus permitting his home to be destroyed. (It later turned out that Nelson had instructed Washington to fire upon the house of his neighbor Bob, whose German shepherd Rufus had kept Nelson up many a night.) Almost two centuries later, the family suffered its final humiliation when a half-cousin, Charles Nelson Reilly, became a celebrity on Hollywood Squares.
While Francis Lewis was away from home, his irate wife sold his home and properties to Thomas Nelson Jr.'s now-homeless ex-neighbor Bob. The British destroyed Lewis' estate and jailed his wife, who fell in love with her captor and eloped with him to the Dominican Republic, where their descendants still man the fence separating that country from Haiti. Meanwhile, Bob moved his belongings into a hollow tree in the New Jersey Pinelands, eventually spawning tales of the mysterious Jersey Devil.
John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside by her snoring. After hiding for more than a year in local forests and caves, to reduce his sizeable sleep deficiency, he returned home to find her snoring worse than ever, his children working as unpaid interns for Jefferson's law practice, his fields and property in ruins, and his friend Bob nowhere to be seen. Driven mad by loss, Hart began a career of gorilla warfare that involved dressing in an ape suit and stealing bananas from British troops. Eventually known as "the wild man of the woods," Hart became the basis for Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan of the Apes."
Norris and Livingston and the others suffered similar, equally indescribable fates. (Barring the part about the bananas, of course.)
Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These men were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians (well, none of them, perhaps, except for Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry) but soft-spoken gentlemen who preferred bottled water and non-alchohoic beer. And while they could have possessed a lifetime of free admission to Wimbledon tennis under English rule, they valued holding the reins to power in this country even more. Standing tall, straight and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance upon the protection of divine providence, we [State Our Names] mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our fratboy honor."
These men gave us an America run by rich white men from Washington, D.C., rather than by rich white men across the Atlantic Ocean. The history books don't say much about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't just fight the British. We were British subjects at that time! We were actually fighting against our *own* government.
(Eighty years later, the United States government would whip the South back into line for pulling that same kind of stunt.)
Some of us take our liberties for granted, but we shouldn't. Take a few minutes during your Fourth of July holiday and silently thank these patriots for not being around to draft you for private conscription. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember: Freedom is never free! (Nor are public parking lots, thirty-day trial subscriptions to travel protection services, and free window installation estimates.)
Show your support by sending this to as many people as you can! It's time we get the word out. The Fourth of July has more to it than bottle rockets, hunting rifles and Michelob beer.
Pit of shame
Read the original version of "The Price of Freedom."
* Five signers were captured by the British and pickled in brine before being packed off to England, where they had to scrub the royal toilets just to earn enough to buy a few measly scraps of crumpets and scones.
* Twelve signers had their homes ransacked and razed by the British. Worse, their insurance agencies refused to pay even a bent shilling because their homeowner's policies did not cover acts of war.
* Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, only to find them three months after the war ended, working at Wal-Mart with tongue studs and green hair.
* Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War, and yet were never memorialized in an NBC miniseries or PBS special, nor were their descendants showcased with bit parts in Mel Gibson's "The Patriot."
Yet despite these horrors, fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists (which means they pretty much deserved what they got, if not worse). Eleven were merchants who ran double-coupon specials only after raising their standard prices. Nine were farmers and large plantation owners who built their fortunes upon slave labor, after encouraging the original American Indian squatters to head west.
They were men of means, and well-educated, but they signed their names on the Declaration of Independence without reading the fine print because George Washington, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson had assured them that King George III couldn't read Jefferson's writing anyway, especially with those silly flourishes that couldn't decide whether they were S's or F's. Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his boats swept from the seas by the British Navy. He raffled off his home and properties to pay his debts and died wearing bargain-brand clothes he had scrounged from a Dumpster behind Kmart. George Washington, on the other hand, a landowner who had seduced a rich widow, became the first president of the United States.
Thomas McKeam served in the Congress without pay, never realizing how much pork a congressman could funnel before finally getting caught. He was so hounded by the British that he was forced to hide his family in a cemetery plot in southern Virginia to avoid capture. (The ruse was so complete that even history books believed McKeam's family to be deceased.)
British troops looted the summer homes of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton -- forcing them instead to spend all year on their sprawling 400-acre estates, basking on pitiful green lawns with stylish lawn furniture, throwing summer barbecues, and suffering the luscious scents of their imported rose and tulip gardens all year round.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr. noted that the British Gen. Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged Gen. George Washington to open fire, thus permitting his home to be destroyed. (It later turned out that Nelson had instructed Washington to fire upon the house of his neighbor Bob, whose German shepherd Rufus had kept Nelson up many a night.) Almost two centuries later, the family suffered its final humiliation when a half-cousin, Charles Nelson Reilly, became a celebrity on Hollywood Squares.
While Francis Lewis was away from home, his irate wife sold his home and properties to Thomas Nelson Jr.'s now-homeless ex-neighbor Bob. The British destroyed Lewis' estate and jailed his wife, who fell in love with her captor and eloped with him to the Dominican Republic, where their descendants still man the fence separating that country from Haiti. Meanwhile, Bob moved his belongings into a hollow tree in the New Jersey Pinelands, eventually spawning tales of the mysterious Jersey Devil.
John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside by her snoring. After hiding for more than a year in local forests and caves, to reduce his sizeable sleep deficiency, he returned home to find her snoring worse than ever, his children working as unpaid interns for Jefferson's law practice, his fields and property in ruins, and his friend Bob nowhere to be seen. Driven mad by loss, Hart began a career of gorilla warfare that involved dressing in an ape suit and stealing bananas from British troops. Eventually known as "the wild man of the woods," Hart became the basis for Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan of the Apes."
Norris and Livingston and the others suffered similar, equally indescribable fates. (Barring the part about the bananas, of course.)
Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These men were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians (well, none of them, perhaps, except for Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry) but soft-spoken gentlemen who preferred bottled water and non-alchohoic beer. And while they could have possessed a lifetime of free admission to Wimbledon tennis under English rule, they valued holding the reins to power in this country even more. Standing tall, straight and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance upon the protection of divine providence, we [State Our Names] mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our fratboy honor."
These men gave us an America run by rich white men from Washington, D.C., rather than by rich white men across the Atlantic Ocean. The history books don't say much about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't just fight the British. We were British subjects at that time! We were actually fighting against our *own* government.
(Eighty years later, the United States government would whip the South back into line for pulling that same kind of stunt.)
Some of us take our liberties for granted, but we shouldn't. Take a few minutes during your Fourth of July holiday and silently thank these patriots for not being around to draft you for private conscription. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember: Freedom is never free! (Nor are public parking lots, thirty-day trial subscriptions to travel protection services, and free window installation estimates.)
Show your support by sending this to as many people as you can! It's time we get the word out. The Fourth of July has more to it than bottle rockets, hunting rifles and Michelob beer.
Pit of shame
Read the original version of "The Price of Freedom."
Labels: Chicken Soup for the Soulless
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