My fellow Americans....

[Jester]

On this day of feasting and drinking, celebrating and fireworks, paid days off and sunbathing, I ask that you take a few moments to read. Not just read anything, mind you, but read the document that got us here, the document adopted 234 years ago today, penned by Thomas Jefferson, signed by many men familiar and unfamiliar to us today, that broke our ties to Great Britain and formally announced to the world the birth of the United State...the Declaration of Independence. So many Americans do not know more than a few lines from this historic document, although without it, much that we know and take for granted today simply would not be. And on this day, remember not just this document, but also the men who put their names to it, those names both known and forgotten to us, who in essence committed treason and risked execution because of what they believed. So please, take a few moments away from your carousing and festivities, read, remember, and appreciate what these men did, why they did it, and how much we owe them.

Thank you.

[Red_Dazes]

And let us also take a moment to remember our men and women at arms. Even if we don't agree with the war or think the policies enforcing it are stupid, it doesn't change the fact that they are giving their lives to protect those basic freedoms laid out in that Proud Document!

[RavenStarr]

I did not know they risked execution. I appreciate The Declaration Of Independence even more.

[Nurian]

They were potentially giving up everything. 56 men throwing into a completely ludicrous idea of independence from Great Britain and from under the rule of King George III. I salute you.

John Hancock
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Matthew Thornton
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
George Read
Caesar Rodney
Thomas McKean
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

[Jester]

I did not know they risked execution. I appreciate The Declaration Of Independence even more.

Yep. The punishment for treason was death, usually by hanging, I believe. And no matter how you look at it, what they did was treason against their (at the time) government. Any time you have a revolution, those revolting are committing treason, pretty much by definition.

One interesting example from the American Revolution is Benedict Arnold. He is remembered by Americans as a traitor, but if you look at it from the British perspective, he went from committing treason with the Americans to returning to rightfully serve his King and country. It's all a matter of perspective.

Speaking of the above example, it is a rarely remembered fact that Benedict Arnold was one of the greatest military leaders the Americans had, and his betrayal hurt their cause that much more because of that fact. But American schoolchildren today (or at least in my day) are only taught that he was a traitor.

[dalesys]

Yep. The punishment for treason was death, usually by hanging, I believe...

Erm, a little more than hanging:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawn_and_quartered
...
Until reformed under the Treason Act 1814, the full punishment for the crime of treason was to be hanged, drawn and quartered in that the condemned prisoner would be:
1.Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution. This is the original meaning of drawn.
2.Hanged by the neck for a short time or until almost dead (hanged).
3.The body beheaded, then divided into four parts (quartered).
Typically, the condemned would be disembowelled and emasculated, the severed genitalia and entrails being burned in front of the victim on a nearby pyre, before the final, fatal beheading, after which the resulting five parts (i.e., the four quarters of the body and the head) were gibbeted (put on public display) in different parts of the city, town, or, in famous cases, in the country, to deter would-be traitors who had not seen the execution. After 1814, the convict would be hanged until dead and the mutilation would be performed post-mortem. Gibbeting was later abolished in England in 1843, while drawing and quartering was abolished in 1870.
...

[Jester]

So yeah. They not only risked execution by their actions, they risked a horrible execution! We're not talking lethal injection here, folks. We're talking brutally violent torture leading to a final brutal death. And yet these men, knowing full well the potential consequences for their actions, took their stand anyway. It is worth wondering how many of today's political leaders would go that far for a position they believed in. Hell, it is worth wondering how many people in general, especially in this country, would go that far for a political belief. Patrick Henry espoused it famously when he said, "Give me liberty or give me death," but every signer of the Declaration--indeed, every Colonial that joined the Revolution--was by their action stating that very same thing.

There was a case some years ago--I don't know the specifics--where someone was harrassed and I believe beaten by a crowd in an American city for giving out what many people believed to be anti-American literature on the streets. The literature in question was the Declaration of Independence, but was not identified as such, i.e., it was the text without the title. Makes some serious food for thought.

Since I started this Fourth out so seriously (though ended it with much revelry), I have decided to do something similar for next year's Fourth. Basically handing out copies of the Declaration, though I have not yet decided whether to do the full document with its title for those who want it, or the text without the title to get some people thinking, or the more inflamatory paragraphs that speak of the people's right and responsibility to rebel against a government that no longer is representative of the people, without including the second paragraph, that which most people know ("We hold these truths to be self-evident..."). But I will be handing out some kind of literature from the Declaration next year. Since so few Americans have actually EVER read the full Declaration, I feel that it's something worth doing.

[wolfie]

Speaking of the above example, it is a rarely remembered fact that Benedict Arnold was one of the greatest military leaders the Americans had, and his betrayal hurt their cause that much more because of that fact. But American schoolchildren today (or at least in my day) are only taught that he was a traitor.

One novel dealing with this is "Rabble In Arms" by Kenneth Roberts (Doubleday 1933, republished as a Fawcett paperback 1947). The blurb at the beginning starts "Kenneth Roberts is the novelist who lifted American History out of the scholarly dust and gave it to the world in all its robust splendor". Toward the end of the book, it briefly touches on Arnold's possible motivation.

[Bella_Vixen]

I recently read an excellent biography on John Adams that made me think.