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Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 07:35 PM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

We and the generations to follow must never forget those brave individuals from the Revolution to Iraq, Afghanistan and Fort Hood who risked everything to preserve our God-given freedom. Each year at this time it is instructive to review what happened to the 56 men who stepped forward and risked everything to sign the Declaration of Independence.

Five signers were captured by the British and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well-educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer,Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the Battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.

Should we allow our freedom to be taken away by neglecting to perform our civic duties, our children and grandchildren will be faced with the need to sacrifice as did our founders or forever live as slaves to tyrannical governments.

Truth is becoming a casualty of multiculturalism, political correctness and Agenda 21. These radical agendas are based on deception and falsehoods and cannot survive in the light of truth.

Our republic will not long survive if the President of the United States continues to lie to the people, commanders lie to their troops, husbands lie to their wives, children lie to their parents and adults lie under oath to influence the decisions of juries.

I once worked for a man who was such a successful liar that he could remember months and years later the lie he told each individual. I became a problem for him because I could only remember the truth.

I worked for another individual who became very angry   when I refused to lie under oath to a congressional committee. He advised me that my ethics pertaining to what is truth were “out of date.”  He said my job was to testify to what I was told and if I testified convincingly and the congressmen believed me, then as far as they were concerned what I said became truth. I declined and our relationship deteriorated.

It appears that the new definition of truth has become an important part of government and the Obama Administration can’t survive without it.

May God help us survive the mendacity that surfaced in the Garden of Eden, has now permeated American society and is destroying the precious liberty American heroes have fought and died for.

 

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