From: We_The_People_@webtv.net (Patriots) Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 12:57:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: What happened to the 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence? 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 serving 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 Dillery, 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 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 gristmill were laid to waste.=A0 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 me 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! Some of us take these liberties so much for granted... We shouldn't. So, take a couple of minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid.............. ----------------------------- "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure." --- Thomas Jefferson, 1787 ----------------------------- "But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take [any] person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand." ---Ezekial 33-6 ---------------------------- Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness [which] they have prescribed; To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and [that] they may rob the fatherless! ---- Isaiah 10 vs 1-2 ---------------------------- MAY ALMIGHTY GOD FORGIVE THOSE WHO ELECTED BILL CLINTON! --- Peter L. Sroufe -------------------------- "Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?" Doug Quirmbach, Moderator The Awakening Lions List The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism', they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. --- Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Presidential candidate ------------------ Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right. --- Mohandas Gandhi ------------------ "ONLY IN AMERICA - can a veteran live in a cardboard box, while a draft-dodger lives in our White House". --------------------------------------------------- "If our culture is going to be conserved, we need to dethrone the dominant authorities that threaten it." --- Samuel Francis "A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague." --- Cicero in a speech to the Roman Senate, as recorded by Sallust ---------------------------------------------- Just remember Folks! After you celebrate the "benefits" showered on you by your Masters, you'll have to continue paying for those "benefits". Half of what you earn is going to the thugs! [Tax Poor America ] WE_MUST_RESIST. Sons of Liberty Militia Tim Stine 312 S. Wyomissing Ave. Shillington, Pa. 19607 U.S.A. 1-610-775-0497 We_The_People_@webtv.net What is a Militia ? Defenders of Liberty & Freedom, and the Constitutional Republic. Against Tyrants ! Foreign and Domestic ! Death to the United Nations New World Order, and it's Global Socialism, actually a Evil Oligarchy of the Superrich. We must Declare our Independence from the U.N. New World Order ! Or forever lose our freedom. We Must Resist.