Page 56 - ASM Book 9/2020

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“For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge
to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
- Declaration of Independence
Signers Suffered Consequences for Supporting the Declaration
Everyone who signed the Declaration understood the risk they were taking. The British government had announced that each man who supported the Declaration of Independence was a traitor, and the penalty was hanging.
“We must all hang together,” said Benjamin Franklin jokingly as he signed the Declaration, “or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
Their signatures were confirming the
last sentence in the Declaration: “And
for the support of this declaration, with a
firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
Many signers suffered from British persecution in the months and years that followed. Their family members were seized and imprisoned, and some even died as a result of the experience; homes and estates were invaded, looted and burned; livestock and farm equipment were stolen; crops and timberland were burned; and one delegate’s wife died while he was in hiding and he never saw any of his 13 children again.
Captain Jack Jouett
of the Virginia militia saved Thomas Jefferson and his household on June 3, 1781, from being captured by Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s Loyalist Dragoons.
A Focus of War changed
fter the Declaration of Independence was approved, the war became a battle for American independence.
Before the Declaration of Independence, the purpose was to:
F Defend the colonies against the British military;
F Restore rights King George III and Parliament had taken from the colonists; and F Find ways to make peace with the British government.