Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
Courtesy Craig Fildes via Flickr)
The Pennsylvanians who signed the Declaration of Independence
When in the course of human events...
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Russ Walker
Courtesy Craig Fildes via Flickr)
Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
Courtesy Craig Fildes via Flickr)
Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
Tomorrow is the Fourth of July, the annual celebration of the seminal moment in our nation’s founding.
As Pennsylvanians, we can take pride that the Declaration of Independence — a fiery missive for the ages — was written and approved in Philadelphia.
Nine Pennsylvania citizens signed the declaration. One, of course, is Benjamin Franklin, perhaps our commonwealth’s most preeminent statesman, journalist, inventor and entrepreneur.
Can you name the others? I certainly couldn’t until I decided to look it up this week. They are:
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George Clymer, a Philadelphia businessman who helped organize and finance the Continental Congress and Army. Indiana, Pa., sits on land granted by Clymer.
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Robert Morris, another Philadelphia businessman whose deep pockets were critical to the success of the Continental Army. Morris originally opposed the Declaration, but didn’t stand in its way and went on to organize the finances of the Revolutionary government. A book about him calls Morris the “financier of the American Revolution.” And yes, the university in Moon Township is named for him, though he had nothing to do with its founding.
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John Morton, a Chester County farmer and surveyor who played a pivotal role in affirming Pennsylvania’s endorsement of the Declaration.
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George Ross, a lawyer who lived for a time in Lancaster and served Pennsylvania and the Continental Congress in several capacities. Ross died in 1779, before the Revolutionary War was over.
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Benjamin Rush, a Philadelphia physician who went on to found a free hospital in the city and to help found Dickinson College in Carlisle. Rush helped reconcile John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the two Founding Fathers whose political differences led to the creation of the new nation’s first political parties.
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James Smith, the York County lawyer and businessman who rose to become a brigadier general in the militia.
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George Taylor, the Easton man who worked in the iron industry and, like Smith, was born in Ireland before immigrating to the colonies. Taylor died before the Revolutionary War ended.
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James Wilson, a lawyer and businessman who was originally born in Scotland and lived at times in Reading, Carlisle and Philadelphia. Well after the Revolutionary War, he was a leading voice at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and helped secure Pennsylvania’s ratification.
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As for Benjamin Franklin, the story of his life is better known than the others, thanks in no small part to the thousands of pages he wrote during his lifetime. Much of that writing is free and easy to access online, including his Autobiography.
Take a moment to think about these men and the many nameless who joined their cause. As flawed as some of them were, they risked everything — “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” — for the principle of representative democracy.
They declared, in writing and by signature, open rebellion against one of the world’s then-great military and political powers, Great Britain. They had everything to lose.
The result was the creation of the greatest force for good in world history, the United States of America.
And it all started in Philadelphia, 244 years ago tomorrow.
Happy Fourth!
Matt Rourke
In this Monday, June 17, 2019 photo, shown is Holly Metcalf Kinyon’s 1776 broadside printing of the Declaration of Independence at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.
In Congress, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to 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 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, –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 which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny 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 mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and 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 harrass 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 offences
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 Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
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, ravaged 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 & 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, whose 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 whose 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 wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them 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 Great Britain, 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.
