Heroes of a strong constitution

As the worn-out saying goes, “One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.” The phrase begs the question because acts of violence are acts of violence. Lately, the statement has come to be taken as an excuse by extremists to justify such violence. But all it really means is that one’s perception depends on what side one is on.

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” The words of freedom fighter Benjamin Franklin on signing the Declaration of Independence? Or the words of insurgent, Benjamin Franklin, who wished to overturn the status quo through armed resistance if necessary?

We will be celebrating the 230th anniversary of the signing of that declaration this week. That declaration and the independence from an imperial power that followed are truly miraculous. As are the men who started the movement, acted upon their convictions, and framed those convictions in some truly stirring language.

John Adams: “I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure it will cost us to maintain this declaration and support and defend these states. Yet through all the gloom I see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth all the means. This is our day of deliverance.”

Thomas Jefferson: “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”

Samuel Adams: “The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth.”

Abraham Clark: “It has gone so far that we must now be a free independent State, or a Conquered Country.”

Benjamin Franklin: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Fifty-six men signed the document. Who were they? Twenty-five of them were lawyers or jurists. Nine were farmers or plantation owners. Eleven were merchants. Among their number was a teacher, a printer, a musician, a scientist. All but seven of them were born in America. All but two of them were Protestants. They were men of education and some of great means.

They knew the gravity of their declaration and the perils that it brought. Few of us know, though, what actually happened to them. Five of the signers were captured by the British and were tortured and died. Nine of them died from wounds or severe hardship from fighting in the war. Twelve of them had their homes pillaged and burned.

At the Battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr. saw that Gen. Cornwallis had commandeered his property for use as British headquarters. Nevertheless, Nelson urged Washington to open fire on his own home. It was destroyed and he died penniless.

John Hart and his thirteen children had to flee his home where Hart’s wife lay ill. After the British destroyed his mill and land, he subsisted for more than a year in caves and forests. When he finally returned home, his wife was dead and his children had vanished. Shortly thereafter he died from exposure and, they say, a broken heart.

These are not quaint-looking men in velvet suits and powdered wigs who sipped fine wines while they signed a prettily worded document and made jokes about the king’s ability to read their signature. These were real people who believed in principles and were brave enough to risk all to obtain them for themselves, their countrymen and their posterity.

To learn more about these men, or any of our Founding Fathers, please call the reference desk at the Central Library (717-3800, ext.2.) Or you can access the Biography Resource Center online at www.newportbeachlibrary.org. If you do not possess a Newport Beach Library card, you can now sign up online and use the library’s databases immediately.