Faith Of Our Signers P13

Last week I ended where Benjamin Rush was reminiscing to fellow signer John Adams about what took place on the day they signed that document, and the fact that they all understood they might hang for what they were doing. Rush reminded Adams:

Do you recollect the pensive and awful (deep and somber) silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe to (sign our names to) what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants?

The silence and the gloom of the morning was interrupted, I well recollect, only for a moment by Colonel Harrison of Virginia (a very strong and large man), who said to Mr. Gerry (a very small man) at the table: “I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr. Gerry, when we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead!”

The speech procured a transient (temporary) smile, but it was soon succeeded by the solemnity (seriousness) with which the whole business was conducted.

While Harrison’s comment momentarily lightened the somber mood of the day, they all recognized that death was a very real likelihood for each of them. More on this next week for another American Moment.

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