Signing would have been a tough choice to make.
When you consider the fact that England was the most powerful and largest empire the world had ever see. When you consider all the territories that England controlled around the world, it dwarfed the size and influence of the Roman Empire.
Signing the document put you and your families well being in jeopardy of death, or imprisonment. Back then there were no Ivy league type federal prisons either.
The odds of winning the war against King George was about 1,000,000,000 to 1. Especially when you consider that 1/3 of the population living in the Colonies supported King George, and 1/3 couldn’t care less. That left only 1/3 of the Colonists supporting them, and 80% of them had no means to put up a decent fight.
It took a lot of courage to sign that document. Courage that few, if any, Americans have today.