Faith Of Our Signers P15

Last week I ended talking to you about a noted historian calculating the cost of Freedom many of our signers paid. While retrospect establishes the sacrifices of the signers, the high cost of their actions was apparent to them from the very beginning. They talked openly among themselves about the losses suffered by their fellow signers - as when Thomas Nelson of Virginia reported to Thomas Jefferson in 1777:

Our little friend, Francis Hopkinson has suffered greatly by these freebooters (British plunders). They have destroyed all his furniture, cabinet of curiosities, and his fine harpsichord, which I am told was the best that ever came to America (Hopkinson was a noted church musician)…Old Rev. John Witherspoon has not escaped their fury.

They have burnt his library. It grieves him much that he has lost his controversial tracts (writings on theological debates). He would lay aside the cloth (his minister’s robes) to take revenge of them. I believe he would send them to the devil if he could. 

Many of the signers have been forgotten today. Also, overlooked is the high personal price each paid from the liberty we now possess and too often take for granted. As John Adams reminded the younger generation of his day, the sacrifice the Founders made should always be remembered and honored: Prosperity!

You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it. 

More on this next week for another American Moment.

Sourced from The American Story: The Beginnings by David Barton and Tim Barton.