Posted on 07/04/2008 6:45:54 AM PDT by angkor
Back in 1961, folks knew the difference between the country and the government.
I question snopes sources for their supposed truths. Unless they can publish prints of the actual news paper articles then those books written by today's writers prove no more truthful to me then Rush's fathers address. Which by the way, I found to be was very moving and wonderfully written.
The story is about the 56 signers. You seem to have an issue with that focus. And what you wrote above has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with embellishment or untruths.
"There is no great body of evidence that the Signers were particularly singled out as a group. It’s highly unlikely that British officers rode around with a deck of cards with the Signers’ names and faces on them."
"Highly unlikely"
What kind of source is that? Your not even a revisionist. You are a "could be," "might not be," "not likely" historian.
Did the British have a price on the heads of the signers? Yes/No?
It’s not just Snopes — there was quite a fuss about this back in 2000 when Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe was suspended for a few months for utilizing another version of this to write a column.
There are many mis-statements of fact in several versions of this story that circulate. The real history is glorious enough without needing to exaggerate it. Let the liberals have the field for inaccuracy!
The signers of the Declaration truly did risk all for our Independence, but there seems to be no evidence that the British in fact did target them specifically and a lot of what circulates on the Internet is not true. This web page has gone over the Limbaugh letter and the Jacoby column in much detail:
http://home.nycap.rr.com/elbrecht/signers/LIMBAUGH.htm
The most important lesson is that these 56 men TOOK A HUGH RISK AND AGAINST THE ODDS got this country started.
Happy Birthday America, God Bless America!
Please see post 8.
I picked one paragraph and did five minutes of research.
This single paragraph contains five or six significant inaccuracies that make the Signer’s life seem more dramatic than it really was.
Which do you think is more likely? That the author of the web page I link to, a gentleman apparently interested only in recounting the life of this particular d about the rumors floating around? Or that Limbaugh, Jr. repeated something he had come across that seemed to fit a point he wanted to make?
You are correct that it is moving and eloquent. Many people consider Obama’s speeches to be moving and eloquent. If we have learned anything over the last few thousand years, it is that eloquence has in itself very little to do with truth. Sometimes they coincide. More often the eloquent person will “touch up” the truth to make it fit his point more precisely.
The Signers make an excellent symbol for all those who fought for the Revolution.
However, that’s is not the argument Rush’s daddy made. His argument was that they were specifically singled out for torment by the British. There is very little evidence of this.
Remember at the time, what we Americans would call patriots, the British viewed them as being rebel insurgents.
I don't know. John Hancock and Sam Adams did, from clear back in the days before Lexington. I don't know about the others.
If they did have a price on their heads, the price was never collected. About a half dozen Signers were captured by the Brits at one point or another during the war. None was executed.
Besides this unsourced document, what is your reason for believing that all of the Signers had a price placed on their heads for the act of signing the Declaration, separate from their other treasonous activities? IOW, were the British that much more anxious to catch Jefferson, who signed, than Patrick Henry, who did not? Both served as governor of VA during the war.
Various and contradictory versions of this document have been floating around for about 50 years. Paul Harvey is one of those sometimes credited as the author, although it is more likely that he merely rephrased the floating meme, as Daddy Limbaugh did.
My point, although better stated.
I was only asking. You seemed to know that there wasn't.
We agree, as I’ve stated above, that it is vitally important to be accurate on this as in anything. However, too much de-bunking can also miss the significance of the overall point, that the signers did in fact accept great personal risks for a glorious cause.
I won’t accept any “fake but accurate” defense, for sure, but there is a large truth that the signers put it all on the line and risked their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” because all sorts of terrible things MIGHT have happened to them for committing treason in the eyes of the British govt.
In some sense any suffering or hardship that individual signers faced because of the WAR of Independence (regardless of which army caused , whether it was accidental or intentional, etc.) can be said to be a consequence of their courageous act in affirming and signing the Declaration.
No War of Independence, no new risks and hardships for them (other than those faced by everyone living in that era).
Thus, even if the signers were not specifically targeted by the British (and there seems to be no reason to believe that most of them were targeted), every misfortune that followed from being willing to pursue independence (rather than accept accommodation on British terms) does follow from their act of declaring independence. In this their fellow-citizens shared the risks and burdens, but that does not mean that the signers did NOT also bear great risks and burdens (which the signers most specifically and publicly embraced by affixing their names to the Declaration of Independence).
Although the stories circulated since Paul Harvey (1956) get much of their emotional ‘kick’ from the
mistaken belief that the signers were widely and specifically persecuted by the British for signing, I do not find that their courage or even the actual risks they ran are at all diminished by the corrections of the historical record. De-bunking can always leave us with a sense of diminishment, yet the signers surely do not deserve to be diminished.
Finally, in a bit of speculation, note that the greatest risks would have arisen if the revolution had turned out to be a losing cause (which certainly seemed possible, even probable to many, in 1776!). If the British had vanquished the colonials many of the signers could THEN have found themselves in great danger indeed (danger of being hung for treason, etc.). That “what if” outcome may not seem to bear upon these email stories, but in fact a decisive British victory (which was a strong possibility at times, at least in the short term) threatened the signers with very great personal risks - and they surely knew that in signing their names. They COULD easily have been persecuted and/or executed even if it turns out that most of them were not harmed specifically for signing the Declaration of Independence.
Are you sure?
"John Hart was a New Jersey farmer. His exact date of birth is not known. His father had moved from Connecticut to a farm near Hopewell New Jersey...."
Sources:
A Biography of John Hart, Signer of the Declaration of Independance (For research and reference) by Cleon E. Hammond. Copyright ©1977, Pioneer Press, Newfane, VT. A tip of the Hat to Glen Valis, who pointed out common inaccuracies in the story of John Hart, and supplied supplimentary information.
John Hart: Representing New Jersey at the Continental Congress
Excellent points. I agree completely.
I would like to point out that the very document in question here shows the unique importance of Truth to the American cause.
It begins, “We hold these truths...”
The Signers were proclaiming their faith in the overriding importance of Truth, not opinion, not point of view.
They were willing to fight and die for what they saw as Truth. We dishonor their example when we show less reverence for that ideal.
I have just never seen any evidence that such a price was placed for the specific act of signing the Declaration. It could have been. As I said earlier, if there was a price, it was never collected. None of the Signers was executed by the British.
I did five minutes of research on the guy. There seems to be some debate whether Pop was from Long Island or CT. Possibly he was born in CT and later moved to LI, then to NJ.
Interestingly, eastern LI was part of CT up to 1674. Long before the period in question, of course.
I’m willing to give Kennedy to benefit of the doubt on this one, although the whole notion is quite fascistic.
Most of those who quote it approvingly, I refuse to give so much credit.
Should have said the second paragraph begins...
This would have paid for 50 to 75 meals in a tavern. Hope it was a nice one.
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