Men of Means, Willing to Risk It All

by Shawn Mahaney on Sunday, July 3, 2011 at 10:42am ·

The American revolution was not like others one might witness or read about.  It did not center around bands of guerillas in the jungle.  It did not feature angry peasant mobs with torches and pitchforks.  The American revolution was led by educated men who formed committees and wrote treatises.   These were respected civic leaders, generally wealthy land owners , prosperous merchants, or busy lawyers.   They had it made!

 

I like to point out that the American Independence Day, the Forth of July, is not a military holiday.  Why do I say this?  Because to me it is much more about the original risk taken by the patriots of the day.  These men didn't have an army behind them, there was no military scenario to speak of until late 1775, but they stood up and declared their intention to resist anyway.  They had everything to lose, and faced certain prosecution for their treason.

 

"They were not popular favourites, brought into notice during a season of tumult and violence; nor men chosen in times of tranquillity, when nothing is to be apprehended from a mistaken selection. "But they were men to whom others might cling in times of peril, and look up to in the revolution of empires; men whose countenances in marble, as on canvass, may be dwelt upon by after ages, as the history of the times. "They were legislators and senators by birth, raised up by heaven for the accomplishment of a special and important object""

http://colonialhall.com/hancock/hancock2.php

Source: Rev. Charles A. Goodrich Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence. New York: William Reed & Co., 1856.

 

I've picked out a few of the individual stories to point out just what these men put on the line.

 

Arthur Middleton, delegate from South Carolina, was a wealthy plantation man.  He was educated at Cambridge, and toured England and Europe extensively.  In early 1775 he was already involved in organizing the militia.  He would go on to serve a year as a prisoner of war.  We have to wonder why the British did not put him to trial and hang him!

"The father of Mr. Middleton was, at this time, a man of great wealth, and both by himself and family the approaching controversy between Great Britain and her American colonies might have been viewed with great concern, had not the patriotism with which they were imbued much preferred the welfare of their country, to their private interests. A rupture with the mother country would necessarily put to hazard the wealth which had long been enjoyed by the family, and might abridge that influence, and diminish those comforts, which that wealth naturally gave them. But what were these in comparison with the rights and liberties of a country, destined to embrace millions within its bosom? Between the alternatives presented, there was no room to hesitate. Both father and son, in the spirit which had long characterized the family, stood forth in the defense of the rights of America, and, "left not a hook to hang a doubt on," that they were patriots of the noblest stamp"

http://colonialhall.com/middleton/middleton.php

 

William Hooper, delegate from North Carolina, was a lawyer who, after years of studious service, became the Attorney General of North Carolina.   A strong loyalist until about 1773, he would lose all income leading a fight to re-empower the North Carolina courts, and would be disowned by his own father for becoming a revolutionary.  His home was burned to the ground in 1781.

"That our petitions have been treated with disdain, is now become the smallest part of our complaint: ministerial insolence is lost in ministerial barbarity. It has, by an exertion peculiarly ingenious, procured those very measures, which it laid us under the hard necessity of pursuing, to be stigmatized in parliament as rebellious: it has employed additional fleets and armies for the infamous purpose of compelling us to abandon them: it has plunged us in all the horrors and calamities of a civil war: it has caused the treasure and blood of Britons (formerly shed and expended for far other ends) to be spilt and wasted in the execrable design of spreading slavery over British America: it will not, however, accomplish its aim; in the worst of contingencies, a choice will still be left, which it never can prevent us from making."

http://colonialhall.com/hooper/hooper.php

 

John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, was adopted by his successful merchant uncle, and educated at Harvard.  At age 27 he inherited the business and the largest estate in Massachusetts.  Hancock was a wanted man by the crown for many years before 1776.   In 1770, after the "Boston Massacre", he addressed the assembled funeral.

"The town of Boston, ever faithful to the British crown, has been invested by a British fleet; the troops of George the third have crossed the Atlantic, not to engage an enemy, but to assist a band of traitors in trampling on the rights and liberties of his most loyal subjects; those rights and liberties, which, as a father, he ought ever to regard, and as a king, he is bound in honour to defend from violation, even at the risk of his own life."

http://colonialhall.com/hancock/hancock4.php


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  • Frank Sant Contrast Circa 2010: ''My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.''
    —Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) expressing concern during a congressional hearing that the presence of a large number of American soldiers might upend the island of Guam
  • Shawn Mahaney He shouldn't worry - under Guam there are plenty of soldiers' graves to anchor the place.