What so few people know…what I, Mad Jen, didn’t even know until I visited Mount Vernon and was told by the tour guide there…is that the signing of the Declaration of Independence was a dangerous act for all who participated in it. Because signing that piece of paper, as the founders well knew, was an act of treason against the King of England, punishable by death. Some whose names appear there, like John Hart whose entire family disappeared during his exile, never to be found again, suffered horribly at the hands of the British. Some lost all land and property, some barely escaped with their lives. All lost something and all who signed well knew the risks they were taking by signing the document.
There is no question that these men were the bravest of men. Who among us would risk so much today for this great nation? Would you? Would I? None of us will know that answer until the day that such an occasion arises. But know that one day, if we do not fight for the preservation of the very nation that these men who risked all in order to give us, we may find ourselves faced with the same dilemma. You may want to start now thinking about what you will do if, or when, that time comes.
Learn more about the sacrifices of our great Founding Fathers here and here.
The Top 10 Founding Fathers
- George Washington - ”A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”
- John Adams – ”There are two types of education. One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live.”
- Thomas Jefferson - ”If the children . . . are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences, than it would have done, in their correction, by a good education.”
- James Madison - ”If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.”
- Benjamin Franklin - The American Guesser? - Don’t Tread on Me: “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.”
- Samuel Adams - ”It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.”
- Thomas Paine – “Gratification is not gratitude, and information is not wisdom.”
- Patrick Henry - “It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth — and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
- Alexander Hamilton - “…for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.”
- And one you’ve probably never heard of: Gouverneur Morris - “This magistrate is not the king. The people are the king.”
