Signers Of The Declaration E-Book

ROBERT G. FERRIS

• Herausgeber: MuhammadUsman
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Most people know the importance of the Declaration of Independence, but few know much about its signers. This reprint of an 1848 original provides a brief biography on each of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration. Learn the virtues of these venerated Americans who helped create the most stable and enviable nation in the world.

Leseprobe

SignersOF THE DECLARATION

ROBERT G. FERRIS

Part OneSigners of the Declaration:Historical Background

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At Philadelphia in the summer of 1776, the Delegates to the Continental Congress courageously signed a document declaring the independence of the Thirteen American Colonies from Great Britain. Not only did the Declaration of Independence create a Nation, but it also pronounced timeless democratic principles. Enshrined today in the National Archives Building at Washington, D.C., it memorializes the founding of the United States and symbolizes the eternal freedom and dignity of Man.

* * * * *

By the time the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration in July 1776, the War for Independence had been underway for more than a year. Failing to obtain satisfactory redress from the mother country for their economic and political grievances during the previous decade, the colonists had finally resorted to armed conflict. These grievances had come to a head shortly after the French and Indian War (1754–63). Long and costly, the war depleted the royal treasury and added the financial burden of administering the vast territory acquired from France. Britain levied new, direct taxes in the Colonies and tightened customs controls.

The colonists, accustomed to considerable economic freedom, resented these measures. A number of Americans also felt that some4 sort of conspiracy existed in England to destroy their liberties and self-government. They believed that the mission of the large force of redcoats assigned to the Colonies actually was internal suppression rather than protection from a nonexistent external threat, especially since the French had been expelled. Particularly aggravating was the realization that the new tax levies supported the force. Some of the discontent was regional in nature. Indebtedness to British creditors irritated Southern planters. Commercial interests in the Middle Colonies disliked the prohibition on manufacturing certain products. Frontier settlers and speculators were irked at restrictions on westward expansion and the Indian trade.

George III, King of England during the War for Independence, was the focus of colonial hatred.

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The Revolutionaries utilized this exaggerated version of the Boston Massacre (1770) by Paul Revere to nourish resentment of British troops.

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“The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man or Tarring & Feathering,” a British cartoon satirizing colonial methods of protest.

In various places, peaceful protest and harassment of tax and customs collectors gave way to rioting and mob violence. In New York and Massachusetts, clashes with British troops culminated in bloodshed. Realizing that some of these disturbances stemmed from agitation in the colonial assemblies, which had enjoyed wide autonomy,7 the Crown tightened its control over them. Disputes between legislators and the King’s officials, once spasmodic, became commonplace. In some instances, notably in Virginia and Massachusetts, the Royal Governors dissolved the assemblies. In these and a few other provinces the Whigs separated from their Tory, or Loyalist, colleagues, met extralegally, and adopted retaliatory measures. Nearly all the Colonies formed special “committees of correspondence” to communicate with each other—the first step toward unified action.

In retaliation for the Boston Tea Party (1773), the Crown imposed rigid limitations on the freedom of Massachusetts citizens.

In May 1774, in retaliation for the “Boston Tea Party,” Parliament closed the port of Boston and virtually abolished provincial self-government in Massachusetts. These actions stimulated resistance across the land. That summer, the Massachusetts lower house, through the committees of correspondence, secretly invited all 138 Colonies to attend a convention. In response, on the fifth of September, 55 Delegates representing 12 Colonies, Georgia excepted, assembled at Philadelphia. They convened at Carpenters’ Hall and organized the First Continental Congress.

A rare contemporary engraving of the British-American clash in 1775 at North Bridge, near Concord, Mass.

Sharing though they did common complaints against the Crown, the Delegates propounded a wide variety of political opinions. Most of them agreed that Parliament had no right to control the internal affairs of the Colonies. Moderates, stressing trade benefits with the mother country, believed Parliament should continue to regulate commerce. Others questioned the extent of its authority. A handful of Delegates felt the answer to the problem lay in parliamentary representation. Most suggested legislative autonomy for the Colonies. Reluctant to sever ties of blood, language, trade, and cultural heritage, none yet openly entertained the idea of complete independence from Great Britain.

After weeks of debate and compromise, Congress adopted two significant measures. The first declared that the American colonists9 were entitled to the same rights as Englishmen everywhere and denounced any infringement of those rights. The second, the Continental Association, provided for an embargo on all trade with Britain. To enforce the embargo and punish violators, at the behest of Congress counties, cities, and towns formed councils, or committees, of safety—many of which later became wartime governing or administrative bodies. When Congress adjourned in late October, the Delegates resolved to reconvene in May 1775 if the Crown had not responded by then.

Headlines of a broadside showing American alarm over the Battle of Concord. The two rows of coffins at the top represent slain militiamen.

In a sense the Continental Congress acted with restraint, for while it was in session the situation in Massachusetts verged on war. In September, just before Congress met, British troops from Boston had seized ordnance supplies at Charlestown and Cambridge and almost clashed with the local militia. The next month, Massachusetts patriots, openly defying royal authority, organized a Revolutionary provincial assembly as well as a military defense committee. Whigs in three other colonies—Maryland, Virginia, and New Hampshire—had earlier that year formed governments. By the end of the year, all the Colonies except Georgia and New York had either set up new ones or taken control of those already in existence. During the winter of 1774–75, while Parliament mulled over conciliatory measures, colonial militia units prepared for war.

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Continental Army recruiting poster.

The crisis came in the spring of 1775, predictably in Massachusetts. Late on the night of April 18 the Royal Governor, Gen. Thomas Gage, alarmed at the militancy of the rebels, dispatched 600 troops from Boston to seize a major supply depot at Concord. Almost simultaneously the Boston council of safety, aware of Gage’s intentions, directed Paul Revere and William Dawes to ride ahead to warn militia units and citizens along the way of the British approach, as well as John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were staying at nearby Lexington. Forewarned, the two men went into hiding.

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Title page of Common Sense, the anonymously written and widely distributed pamphlet that converted thousands of colonists to the Revolutionary cause.

12 About 77 militiamen confronted the redcoats when they plodded into Lexington at dawn. After some tense moments, as the sorely outnumbered colonials were dispersing, blood was shed. More flowed at Concord and much more along the route of the British as they retreated to Boston, harassed most of the way by an aroused citizenry. What had once been merely protest had evolved into open warfare; the War for Independence had begun.

Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense, did not emigrate to America from England until 1774, but he became an ardent patriot.

13

Sir William Howe, British commander in chief in America from 1776 until 1778.

14 The Second Continental Congress convened in the Pennsylvania State House at Philadelphia on May 10, 1775. Burdened by wartime realities and the need to prepare a unified defense, it created a Continental Army, unanimously elected George Washington as commander in chief, appointed other generals, and tackled problems of military finance and supply. Yet, despite these warlike actions, many Delegates still hoped for a peaceful reconciliation.

Robert R. Livingston of New York, the most conservative member of the drafting committee, neither voted on independence nor signed the Declaration.

In July Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition, a final attempt to achieve an understanding with the Crown. The petition appealed directly to King George III to cease hostilities and restore harmony. But, unwilling to challenge the supremacy of Parliament, he refused to acknowledge the plea and proclaimed the Colonies to be in a state of rebellion.

15 During the winter of 1775–76, as the war intensified, all chance for accommodation vanished. Congress, for the first time representing all Thirteen Colonies because Georgia had sent Delegates in the fall, disclaimed allegiance to Parliament, created a navy, and appointed a committee of foreign affairs. Nevertheless the patriots, despite their mounting influence in the provincial assemblies, felt they needed more public support and hesitated to urge a final break with the Crown.

The turning point came in January 1776 with publication in Philadelphia of the pamphlet Common Sense, authored anonymously by the recent English immigrant Thomas Paine. Attacking the “myth” of an evil Parliament and a benevolent King, he denounced George III for creating the Colonies’ miseries, condemned the British constitution as well as monarchy in general, and exhorted his fellow Americans to declare independence immediately. The pamphlet, widely reprinted, was purchased by many thousands of people and read by thousands more. It created a furor. From Georgia to New Hampshire, independence became the major topic of discussion and debate. The Revolutionaries won thousands of converts.

In May Congress took a bold step toward political freedom by authorizing the Colonies to form permanent governments. Those that had not done so began to oust Crown officials and draft constitutions. Independence, though not yet officially declared, was for all practical purposes a reality.

* * * * *

The official movement for independence took root in the provincial assemblies. The North Carolina assembly in April 1776 instructed its congressional Delegates to vote for the issue should it be proposed. The next month, on May 4, Rhode Island announced its independence publicly—the first colony to do so. But it was Virginia that prodded Congress to action. On May 15 a Williamsburg convention declared Virginia independent and authorized its delegation at Philadelphia to propose a similar course for the Colonies. On June 7 the delegation’s leader, Richard Henry Lee, introduced the following resolution:

That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

16 The resolution also incorporated proposals to form foreign alliances; and to devise a plan for confederation, which would be submitted to the Colonies for their approval.

Despite the enthusiastic response of many Delegates, some of them, though they foresaw the inevitability of independence, objected to the timing. They believed the decision should reflect the desires of the people as expressed through the provincial assemblies and pointed out that the Middle Colonies, not yet ripe for freedom, needed more time for deliberation. On June 10 the moderates obtained a postponement of consideration of the Lee resolution until July 1.

On June 11 the Revolutionaries, undaunted by the delay and convinced of their ultimate victory, persuaded Congress to appoint a committee to draft a declaration of independence. Three of its five members, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, were Revolutionaries. Roger Sherman disliked extremism but had recently backed the independence movement. The most unlikely member, Robert R. Livingston, had stood in the front ranks of opposition to Lee’s resolution. Possibly he was appointed to exert a moderating effect on its supporters or, conversely, in the hope that his membership would help swing over the conservative New York delegation.

At the time Lee had introduced his resolution, seven of the Colonies—New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia—favored independence. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, and Maryland were either opposed or undecided. Throughout the month, Revolutionaries in those provinces labored to gain control of the assemblies. Delaware and Pennsylvania, unable to reach a decision, instructed their representatives to vote in their colonies’ “best interests.” New Jersey issued similar directions, but also elected an entirely new and Whig-oriented slate of Delegates. The Maryland assembly, largely through the persuasion of Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and William Paca, voted unanimously for independence and so charged its Delegates. The South Carolinians, though they had been authorized months before to cast their lot with the majority, vacillated. The New Yorkers impatiently awaited instructions.

17

First page of Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration.

18 July 1 was the day of decision. The Revolutionaries, overconfident from their progress of the preceding month, anticipated an almost unanimous vote for independence. They were disappointed. Following congressional procedure, each colony balloted as a unit, determined by the majority of Delegate opinion. Only nine of the Colonies voted affirmatively; Pennsylvania and South Carolina, negatively; New York abstained; and the two Delegates present from Delaware deadlocked. Technically the resolution had carried, but the solidarity desirable for such a vital decision was missing. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, hinting his colony might change sides, moved that the vote be retaken the next day.

That day proved to be one of the most dramatic in the history of the Continental Congress. John Adams of Massachusetts exerted an overwhelming influence. South Carolina, its Delegates swayed by Rutledge, reversed its position. Two conservatives among the seven Pennsylvanians, Robert Morris and John Dickinson, though unwilling to make a personal commitment to independence, cooperated by purposely absenting themselves; the remaining Delegates voted three to two in favor. The most exciting moment of the day occurred when Caesar Rodney, Delaware’s third Delegate, galloped up to the statehouse after a harrowing 80-mile night ride from Dover through a thunderstorm and broke the Delaware tie. Home on a military assignment, the evening before he had received an urgent plea from Thomas McKean, the Delawarean who had voted for independence, to rush to Philadelphia. In the final vote, 12 Colonies approved Lee’s resolution, New York again abstaining. Congress declared the resolution to be in effect.

* * * * *

For the remainder of July 2 and continuing until the 4th, Congress weighed and debated the content of the Declaration of Independence, which the drafting committee had submitted on June 28. Its author was young Thomas Jefferson, who had been in Congress about a year. The committee had chosen him for the task because he was from Virginia, the colony responsible for the independence resolution, and because of his reputation as an excellent writer and man of talent and action.

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Facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, engraved in 1823 while the document was still in relatively good condition.

20 Laboring in his rented rooms on the second floor of a private home at the corner of Seventh and Market Streets, Jefferson had completed a rough draft in about 2 weeks. Apparently Franklin and Adams made some minor changes, and Livingston and Sherman expressed no reservations so far as is known. To Jefferson’s irritation, however, Congress altered the final draft considerably. Most of the changes consisted of refinements in phraseology. Two major passages, however, were deleted. The first, a censure of the people of Great Britain, seemed harsh and needless to most of the Delegates. The second, an impassioned condemnation of the slave trade, offended Southern planters as well as New England shippers, many of whom were as culpable as the British in the trade.

* * * * *

The first official document of the American Republic and one of the most influential in human history, the Declaration expressed the spirit of human freedom and affirmed Man’s universal rights. Jefferson’s goal in drafting it was not, he said, to invent “new ideas” but to compose “an expression of the American mind” in a tone and spirit suitable for the momentous occasion. Stylistically, the Declaration resembled his own preamble to the Virginia constitution and contained an almost identical list of grievances. Its political philosophy, reflecting the Lockean concepts espoused by many intellectuals of the day, was certainly not new. Jefferson himself had touched on the basic points in previous writings, and in essence he echoed George Mason’s “Declaration of Rights,” which some of the Philadelphia newspapers had published early in June. In other words, the Declaration assimilated existing concepts into a concise statement of national doctrine.

Jefferson began the preamble with the oft-quoted and stirring words, “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another....” He then listed a series of “self-evident” truths—that “all men are created equal” and that they are “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,” particularly “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Governments, “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” are instituted by men to insure these rights. When they fail to do so, it is the “right of the people to alter or to abolish” them and to institute new governments. Men should not carelessly change governments, but should only take such action after a long series of abuses and usurpations lead to “absolute despotism.” Then it becomes their duty to do so. The longest portion of the Declaration is a list of colonial grievances and examples of the King’s tyranny. The final section includes a restatement of Lee’s resolution and a pledge by the signers of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of independence.

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The Declaration first appeared in newspapers on July 9, the day after the official announcement in Philadelphia.

(larger)

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The New York City Sons of Liberty celebrated independence by pulling down a statue of George III, which they later melted and molded into bullets.

* * * * *

On July 4 all the Colonies except New York voted to adopt the Declaration. Congress ordered it printed and distributed to colonial officials, military units, and the press. John Hancock and Charles Thomson, President and Secretary of Congress respectively, were the only signers of this broadside copy. On July 8, outside the Pennsylvania State House, the document was first read to the public. During the ensuing celebration, people cheered, bells rang out, and soldiers paraded. At other cities, similar celebrations soon took place. Yet many citizens—the Loyalists, or Tories—could not accept independence now that it had been declared any more than previously when23 it had been merely a concept. Some of them would continue to dream of reconciliation. Others would flee from or be driven out of the country. In addition, another sizable group of citizens remained noncommittal, neither supporting nor opposing independe

Artist’s rendition of the Battle of Germantown (October 1777).

Four days after obtaining New York’s approval of the Declaration on July 15, Congress ordered it engrossed on parchment for signature. At this time, indicative of unanimity, the title was changed from “A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in General Congress Assembled” to “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.”

* * * * *

Contrary to a widespread misconception, the 56 signers did not sign as a group and did not do so on July 4, 1776. The official event occurred on August 2, 1776, when 50 men probably took part. Later that year, five more apparently signed separately and one added his name in a subsequent year. Not until January 18, 1777, in the wake of Washington’s victories at Trenton and Princeton, did Congress,24 which had sought to protect the signers from British retaliation for as long as possible, authorize printing of the Declaration with all their names listed. At this time, Thomas McKean had not yet penned his name.

The most impressive signature is that of John Hancock, President of Congress, centered over the others. According to tradition, Hancock wrote boldly and defiantly so that King George III would not need spectacles to identify him as a “traitor” and double the reward for his head. The other Delegates signed in six columns, which ran from right to left. They utilized the standard congressional voting order, by colony generally from north to south: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Those who signed on August 2 undoubtedly did not realize that others would follow them and thus allowed no room to accommodate the signatures of the later six men. Two of them, George Wythe and Richard Henry Lee, found ample room above their fellow Virginians. One, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, crowded his name into the space between the Massachusetts and Rhode Island groups. Two of the others—Thomas McKean and Oliver Wolcott—signed at the bottom of columns following their State delegations. Only Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire needed to add his name separately from his colleagues—at the bottom of the first column on the right at the end of the Connecticut group.

* * * * *

Independence had been declared; it still had to be won on the field of battle. The War for Independence was already underway, but 5 more years of struggle and bloody campaigning lay ahead. In 1781 the Colonies achieved military victory, and 2 years later Britain in the Treaty of Paris officially recognized the independence they had proclaimed in 1776. The building of the Nation could begin.

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Part TwoSigners of the Declaration:Biographical Sketches

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Liberally endowed as a whole with courage and sense of purpose, the signers consisted of a distinguished group of individuals. Although heterogeneous in background, education, experience, and accomplishments, at the time of the signing they were practically all men of means and represented an elite cross section of 18th-century American leadership. Every one of them had achieved prominence in his colony, but only a few enjoyed a national reputation.

The signers were those individuals who happened to be Delegates to Congress at the time. Such men of stature in the Nation as George Washington and Patrick Henry were not then even serving in the body. On the other hand, Jefferson, the two Adamses, Richard Henry Lee, and Benjamin Rush ranked among the outstanding people in the Colonies; and Franklin had already acquired international fame. Some of the signers had not taken a stand for or against independence in the final vote on July 2. For example, Robert Morris of Pennsylvania had purposely absented himself. Others had not yet been elected to Congress or were away on business or military matters. Some were last-minute replacements for opponents of independence. The only signer who actually voted negatively on July 2 was George Read of Delaware.

* * * * *

The signers possessed many basic similarities. Most were American-born and of Anglo-Saxon origin. The eight foreign-born—Button28 Gwinnett, Francis Lewis, Robert Morris, James Smith, George Taylor, Matthew Thornton, James Wilson, and John Witherspoon—were all natives of the British Isles. Except for Charles Carroll, a Roman Catholic, and a few Deists, every one subscribed to Protestantism. For the most part basically political nonextremists, many at first had hesitated at separation let alone rebellion. A few signed only reluctantly.

Fervid Revolutionary Patrick Henry numbered among those patriots of national reputation who were not Members of Congress at the time of the signing of the Declaration.

The majority were well educated and prosperous. More than half the southerners belonged to the planter class and owned slaves, though Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and others heartily opposed the institution of slavery, as did also several of the signers from the North. On the other hand, William Whipple, as a sea captain early in his career, had likely sometimes carried slaves on his ship.

Although the signers ranged in age at the time from 26 (Edward Rutledge) to 70 (Benjamin Franklin), the bulk of them were in their thirties or forties. Probably as a result of their favored economic29 position, an amazingly large number attained an age that far exceeded the life expectancy of their time; 38 of the 56 lived into their sixties or beyond and 14 into the eighties and nineties.

George Washington inspecting his troops at Valley Forge. Busy serving as commander in chief of the Continental Army, he did not sign the Declaration.

With few exceptions, those who subscribed to the Declaration continued in public service under the new Federal and State Governments. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson became President; they and Elbridge Gerry, Vice President. Samuel Chase and James Wilson won appointment to the Supreme Court. Others served as Congressmen, diplomats, Governors, and judges. Six of the signers—George Clymer, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, George Read, Roger Sherman, and James Wilson—also signed the Constitution. Sixteen of them underwrote the Articles of Confederation. Only two, Roger Sherman and Robert Morris, affixed their signatures to the Declaration, Constitution, and Articles.

Caesar Rodney and Joseph Hewes were the only bachelors in the group. All but five fathered children. Carter Braxton sired no fewer than 18, but 10 others each had at least 10 offspring. The average30 number was about six. Some of the sons of the signers attained national distinction. John Adams’ son John Quincy became President; the son of Benjamin Harrison, William Henry, won the same office, as did also Benjamin’s great-grandson with the same name. Other male progeny of the signers served as U.S. Congressmen, Governors, and State legislators.

* * * * *

Yet the group manifested diversity. Each man tended to reflect the particular attitudes and interests of his own region and colony. Fourteen represented New England; 21, the Middle Colonies; and 21, the South. The largest number, nine, came from Pennsylvania; the least, two, from Rhode Island. All those from three Colonies (Georgia, New Hampshire, and North Carolina) were born elsewhere. About half of the men received their higher education in colonial colleges or abroad; most of the others studied at home, in local schools or private academies, or with tutors. A few were almost entirely self-taught.

Harvard College, about 1725. Indicative of the favored economic circumstances of the signers, about half of them enjoyed a higher education. Eight, including all five from Massachusetts, attended Harvard.

31 In wealth, the signers ranged from Charles Carroll, one of the wealthiest men in the Colonies, to Samuel Adams, whose friends supplied money and clothes so he could attend Congress. About one-third were born into wealth; most of the others acquired it on their own. Some were self-made men. A few were of humble origin; one, George Taylor, had come to America as an indentured servant.

Many pursued more than one vocation. More than half were trained in the law, but not all of them practiced it. Some won a livelihood as merchants and shippers. Roughly a quarter of the group earned their living from agriculture, usually as wealthy planters or landed gentry, but just a few could be called farmers. Four—Josiah Bartlett, Benjamin Rush, Lyman Hall, and Matthew Thornton—were doctors. Oliver Wolcott also studied medicine for awhile, but never entered the profession. George Taylor’s occupation was ironmaster. Of the four trained as ministers—Lyman Hall, William Hooper, Robert Treat Paine, and John Witherspoon—only the latter made it his lifetime vocation. William Williams received some theological training. Samuel Adams followed no real occupation other than politics.

* * * * *

For their dedication to the cause of independence, the signers risked loss of fortune, imprisonment, and death for treason. Although none died directly at the hands of the British, the wife of one, Mrs. Francis Lewis, succumbed as a result of harsh prison treatment. About one-third of the group served as militia officers, most seeing wartime action. Four of these men (Thomas Heyward, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Edward Rutledge, and George Walton), as well as Richard Stockton, were taken captive. The homes of nearly one-third of the signers were destroyed or damaged, and the families of a few were scattered when the British pillaged or confiscated their estates.

Nearly all of the group emerged poorer for their years of public service and neglect of personal affairs. Although a couple of the merchants and shippers among them profited from the war, the businesses of most of them deteriorated as a result of embargoes on trade with Britain and heavy financial losses when their ships were confiscated or destroyed at sea. Several forfeited to the Government precious specie for virtually worthless Continental currency or made donations or loans, usually unrepaid, to their colonies or the Government. Some even sold their personal property to help finance the war.

32 Certainly most of the signers had little or nothing to gain materially and practically all to lose when they subscribed to the Declaration of Independence. By doing so, they earned a niche of honor in the annals of the United States. Whatever other heights they reached or whatever else they contributed to history, the act of signing insured them immortality.

* * * * *

The following biographical sketches are arranged alphabetically by last name. Readers interested in signers for a certain State should consult the Index under the appropriate State.

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John Adams

MASSACHUSETTS

Few men contributed more to U.S. Independence than John Adams, the “Atlas of American Independence” in the eyes of fellow signer Richard Stockton. A giant among the Founding Fathers, Adams was one of the coterie of leaders who generated the American Revolution, for which his prolific writings provided many of the politico-philosophical foundations. Not only did he help draft the Declaration, but he also steered it through the Continental Congress.

The subsequent career of Adams—as a diplomat and first Vice President and second President of the United States—overshadows those of all the other signers except Jefferson. Adams was also the progenitor of a distinguished family. His son John Quincy gained renown as diplomat, Congressman, Secretary of State, and President. John’s grandson Charles Francis and great-grandsons John Quincy II, Charles Francis, Jr., Henry, and Brooks excelled in politics, diplomacy, literature, historiography, and public service.

Adams, descended from a long line of yeomen farmers, was born in 1735 at Braintree (later Quincy), Mass. He graduated from Harvard College in 1755, and for a short time taught school at Worcester, Mass. At that time, he considered entering the ministry, but decided instead to follow the law and began its study with a local lawyer. Adams was admitted to the bar at Boston in 1758 and began34 to practice in his hometown. Six years later, he married Abigail Smith, who was to bear three sons and a daughter. She was also the first mistress of the White House and the only woman in U.S. history to be the wife of one President and the mother of another.

Adams, like many others, was propelled into the Revolutionary camp by the Stamp Act. In 1765 he wrote a protest for Braintree that scores of other Massachusetts towns adopted. Three years later, he temporarily left his family behind and moved to Boston. He advanced in the law, but devoted more and more of his time to the patriot cause. In 1768 he achieved recognition throughout the Colonies for his defense of John Hancock, whom British customs officials had charged with smuggling. Adams later yielded to a stern sense of legal duty but incurred some public hostility by representing the British soldiers charged with murder in the Boston Massacre (1770). Ill health forced him to return to Braintree following a term in the colonial legislature (1770–71), and for the next few years he divided his time between there and Boston.

A 3-year stint in the Continental Congress (1774–77), punctuated by short recuperative leaves and service in the colonial legislature in 1774–75, brought Adams national fame. Because he was sharply attuned to the temper of Congress and aware that many Members resented Massachusetts extremism, he at first acceded to conciliatory efforts with Britain and restrained himself publicly. When Congress opted for independence, he became its foremost advocate, eschewing conciliation and urging a colonial confederation.

Adams was a master of workable compromise and meaningful debate, though he was sometimes impatient. He chaired 25 of the more than 90 committees on which he sat, the most important of which dealt with military and naval affairs. He played an instrumental part in obtaining Washington’s appointment as commander in chief of the Continental Army. Adams was a member of the five-man committee charged with drafting the Declaration in June of 1776, though he probably made no major changes in Jefferson’s draft. But, more directly involved, he defended it from its congressional detractors, advocated it to the wavering, and guided it to passage.

The independence battle won, exhausted by the incessant toil and strain and worried about his finances and family, Adams in November 1777 retired from Congress—never to return. He headed back to Braintree intending to resume his law practice. But, before the month35 expired, Congress appointed him to a diplomatic post in Europe—a phase of his career that consumed more than a decade (1777–88).

Adams served in France during the period 1778–85, interrupted only by a visit to the United States in the summer of 1779, during which he attended the Massachusetts constitutional convention. Independent-minded and forthright, as well as somewhat jealous of the fame and accomplishments of others, he frequently found himself at odds with fellow diplomats Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, as well as French officials, whose policies toward the Colonies he mistrusted. He joined Franklin and John Jay, however, in negotiating the Treaty of Paris (1783), by which Britain recognized the independence of the United States.

Meanwhile, during the preceding 3 years, Adams had persuaded the Dutch to recognize the Colonies as an independent Nation, grant a series of loans, and negotiate a treaty of alliance. As the first American Envoy to Great Britain (1785–88), he strove to resolve questions arising from the Treaty of Paris and to calm the harsh feelings between the two countries.

Back in the United States, Adams was soon elected as the first Vice President (1789–97), an office he considered insignificant but in which he emerged as a leader of the Federalist Party. During his stormy but statesmanlike Presidency (1797–1801), he inherited the deep political discord between the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians that had taken root during Washington’s administration. Adams pursued a neutral course without abandoning his principles. He kept the United States out of a declared war with France and achieved an amicable peace. But he proved unable to unite his party, divided by Hamilton’s machinations and the ramifications of the French Revolution.

The Jeffersonians drove the Federalists out of office in 1800, and Adams retired to Quincy, where he spent his later years quietly. The death of his wife in 1818 saddened him, but he never lost interest in public affairs and lived to see his son John Quincy become President. John died at the age of 90 just a few hours after Jefferson, on July 4, 1826—dramatically enough the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration. Except for Charles Carroll, who was to live until 1832, Adams and Jefferson were the last two surviving signers. The remains of John and Abigail Adams are interred in a basement crypt at the United First Parish Church in Quincy.

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Samuel Adams

MASSACHUSETTS

“Firebrand of the Revolution,” Samuel Adams probably more than almost any other individual instigated and organized colonial resistance to the Crown. A talented polemicist and agitator-propagandist who relied more on his facile pen than the podium in behind-the-scenes manipulation of men and events, he religiously believed in the righteousness of his political causes, to which he persistently tried to convert others. He failed in business, neglected his family, gained a reputation as an eccentric, and demonstrated as much indifference to his own welfare as he did solicitousness for that of the public. His second cousin John Adams, more of a statesman, eclipsed him in the Continental Congress, though Samuel signed both the Declaration and the Articles of Confederation. In his later years, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts bestowed on him many high offices, capped by the governorship.

Adams was one of 12 offspring of a prosperous and politically active brewer and landowner. He was born at Boston in 1722 and enjoyed an excellent education at the Boston Latin School and Harvard College. Upon his graduation in 1740, he first demonstrated his lifelong aversion to normal employment. He studied law for awhile and then skipped from job to job, working for a time in his father’s brewery as well as in a counting house and dissipating a paternal loan in an unsuccessful business venture.

When his father died in 1748 and his mother soon afterwards, Adams inherited a sizable estate, including the family home and brewery. By 1764, when the colonial quarrel with Britain began, he had long since lost the latter. And, during the previous 8 years as city tax collector, he had fallen in arrears about £8,000 in his collections.37 At the age of 42, unable to support a new wife and two children from his first marriage and residing in his rundown birthplace, he was destitute and besieged by creditors. He subsisted mainly on gifts and donations from loyal friends and neighbors.

Adams was a failure by most standards, but he had long before found the only meaningful “occupation” he ever pursued. For almost two decades he had been active in local political clubs, where he earned a reputation as a writer and emerged as leader of the “popular” party that opposed the powerful conservative aristocracy controlling the Massachusetts government. As clerk in the colonial legislature (1765–74), he drafted most of the body’s official papers and quickly seized the tools of power. He pounced on the taxation issue raised by the Sugar and Stamp Acts (1764–65), and within a year he and his party fanned popular hatred of the conservatives and gained control of the legislature. He also spurred organization of the militant Boston Sons of Liberty, a secret society. As time went on, the stridency of his anti-British harangues escalated and sometimes became shrill enough to distress John Hancock and John Adams.

The Townshend Acts (1767), imposing a series of taxes on imports, provided Adams with a new cause for dissent. He urged merchants not to purchase goods from Britain, fomented opposition toward customs officials, inflamed the resentment toward British troops stationed in the colony that led to the Boston Massacre (1770), and humiliated the Royal Governor so much that he was recalled. Adams also authored a circular letter protesting British taxation and advocating united opposition. When, in 1768, the Massachusetts legislature sent it to the 12 other colonial assemblies, the Royal Governor dissolved the legislature, soon a common British practice in America. All these activities, coupled with authorship of scores of newspaper articles and extensive correspondence with prominent persons in the Colonies and England, brought Adams fame.

The conservative reaction on the part of merchants, the legislature, and the populace that surfaced after the repeal of practically all the Townshend Acts in 1770 failed to stifle Adams, though his popularity and influence declined. Relentlessly, in perhaps his chief contribution to the Revolution, he kept the controversy alive by filling the columns of the Boston newspapers with reports of British transgressions and warnings of more to come. Furthermore, in 1772 he began constructing the framework of a Revolutionary organization in Massachusetts.38 Drawing on a similar scheme he had proposed for all the Colonies 2 years earlier but which had come to naught, he convinced Boston and other towns to create committees of correspondence. The next year, he was appointed to the Massachusetts committee, formed in response to a call from the Virginia House of Burgesses.

Passage of the Tea Act (1773) provided the spark Adams was seeking to rekindle the flame of rebellion. He helped to incite and probably participated in the “Boston Tea Party,” which engendered a series of rebellious incidents throughout the Colonies and pushed them closer to war. Parliament retaliated the next spring by passing a series of acts designed to punish Massachusetts.

Adams, recognizing that the other Colonies would only adopt non-intercourse measures in concert, urged an intercolonial congress to discuss mutual grievances and plan a united course of action. Subsequently, in June, the Massachusetts house of representatives, meeting behind locked doors to prevent interference by the Royal Governor, resolved to invite the other 12 Colonies to send representatives to Philadelphia in September and also appointed five Delegates, including Adams. That same day, the Royal Governor disbanded the legislature for the last time. Before heading for Philadelphia, outfitted in new clothes supplied by friends, Adams helped organize the convention that adopted the Suffolk Resolves, which in effect declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion.

Adams served in the Continental Congress until 1781, longer than most other Delegates, but his role was less conspicuous than his preceding career augured. In the early sessions, most of the time he shrewdly stayed in the background with his fellow Massachusetts Delegates, whose radicalism offended most of their colleagues. And, throughout the Congress, he walked in the shadow of John Adams, who dominated the proceedings.

But nothing in the latter’s career could match the drama of an episode involving Samuel in the interim between the First and Second Continental Congresses. Back at Lexington, Mass., one night in April 1775, he and Hancock had barely escaped the British force seeking to capture the colonial supply depot at Concord. The outbreak of armed conflict the next dawn—a “glorious morning” for Adams—marked the beginning of the War for Independence.

While still in Congress, in 1779–80 Adams participated in the Massachusetts constitutional convention. He returned to Boston for39 good the next year and entered the State senate (1781–88), over which he presided. He refused to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787 because of his objection to a stronger National Government, and the following year unenthusiastically took part in the Massachusetts ratifying convention. A lifetime of public service culminated in his election as Lieutenant Governor (1789–93), interim Governor in the latter year upon Hancock’s death, and Governor (1794–97). Still living in “honest poverty,” he died at Boston in 1803 at the age of 81 and was buried in the Old Granary Burying Ground.

Josiah Bartlett

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Thanks to the voting order in the Continental Congress, Josiah Bartlett of New Hampshire was probably the first Delegate to vote for independence, the second to sign the Declaration (after President John Hancock), and the first to ballot for and pen his name to the Articles of Confederation. He also has the distinction of being one of several physician signers. His State service, more extensive than the National, included the governorship.

Bartlett was born in 1729 at Amesbury, Mass. At the age of 16, equipped with a common school education and some knowledge of Latin and Greek, he began to study medicine in the office of a relative. Five years later, in 1750, he hung out his shingle at nearby Kingston, N.H. He quickly won a name not only as a general practitioner40 but also as an experimenter and innovator in diagnosis and treatment. Marrying in 1754, he fathered 12 children.

During the decade or so preceding the outbreak of the War for Independence, Bartlett held the offices of justice of the peace, militia colonel, and legislator. In 1774 he cast his lot with the Revolutionaries. He became a member of the New Hampshire committee of correspondence and the first provincial congress, which came into being when the Royal Governor disbanded the colonial assembly. Bartlett was elected that same year to the Continental Congress, but tragedy intervened and kept him at home. Arsonists, possibly Loyalists, burned his house to the ground. Discouraged but undeterred, he immediately constructed a new one on the very same site.

While in Congress (1775–76), Bartlett also served on the New Hampshire council of safety. Although he rarely participated in congressional debates, whose seeming futility vexed him, he sat on various committees. He was reelected in 1777, but was too exhausted to attend. He nevertheless managed in August to lend his medical skills to Gen. John Stark’s force of New Hampshire militia and Continental troops. They defeated a predominantly German element of Gen. John Burgoyne’s command in the Battle of Bennington, N.Y.—one of the reverses that helped force him to surrender 2 months later at Saratoga, N.Y. Bartlett’s last tour in Congress was in 1778–79, after which he refused reelection because of fatigue.

Bartlett spent the remainder of his life on the State scene. Despite his lack of legal training, he sat first as chief justice of the court of common pleas (1779–82), then as associate (1782–88) and chief (1788–90) justice of the Superior Court. Meantime, in 1788, he had taken part in the State convention that ratified the Federal Constitution, which he strongly favored. The next year, probably on account of his age and the weight of his judicial duties, he declined election to the U.S. Senate. The following year, he became chief executive, or president, of the State. He held that title for 2 years, in 1793–94 being named the first Governor, as the newly amended constitution redesignated the position.

Despite all his political activities, Bartlett had never lost interest in the field of medicine. In 1790 Dartmouth College conferred on him an honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine. The next year, he founded the New Hampshire Medical Society and became its first president.41 In 1794, the year before he died in Kingston at the age of 65, ill health forced his retirement from public life. His remains lie in the yard of the Universalist Church in Kingston.

Carter Braxton

VIRGINIA

Carter Braxton, an aristocratic planter and probably the most conservative of the seven Virginia signers, originally opposed independence but later changed his mind and signed the Declaration. His tour in the Continental Congress lasted less than a year, but he held State office for most of his life. His two wives bore him 18 children, more than any other signer fathered.

Braxton was born in 1736 at Newington Plantation, on the Mattaponi River, in King and Queen County, Va. His father was a wealthy and politically influential planter. His mother, who died at his birth, was the daughter of Robert “King” Carter, a prominent landowner and politician.

In 1755, the same year Braxton graduated from the College of William and Mary, he married. His bride died in childbirth 2 years later. The following year, he left for an extended visit to England. He returned to Virginia in 1760 and moved into Elsing Green, an estate overlooking the Pamunkey River, in King William County, that his brother George had apparently built for him in 1758 during his absence. At the age of 25, in 1761, Carter remarried and entered the House of Burgesses. He served there, except for a term as county42 sheriff in 1772–73, until 1775. Meantime, in 1767, he had erected a new home, Chericoke, a couple of miles northwest of Elsing Green.

When the trouble with Great Britain erupted, Braxton, like many other conservatives, sided with the patriots, though he did not condone violence. In 1769 he signed the Virginia Resolves, a document protesting parliamentary regulation of the colony’s affairs, and the Virginia Association, a nonimportation agreement. During the period 1774–76, he attended various Revolutionary conventions. In 1775, upon dissolution of the royal government, he accepted a position on the council of safety, the temporary governing body.

In the spring of that year, Braxton was instrumental in preventing the outbreak of war in Virginia. On April 20, the day after the clashes at Lexington and Concord, Royal Governor Lord John M. Dunmore seized the gunpowder in the Williamsburg magazine. Several colonial militia units prepared to retaliate, but moderate leaders such as George Washington and Peyton Randolph restrained them. Patrick Henry, however, refusing to be pacified, led a group of the Hanover County militia into Williamsburg and demanded the return of the gunpowder or payment for it. Before any hostilities occurred, Braxton, as spokesman for Henry, met with crown official Richard Corbin, his father-in-law, and convinced him to pay for the powder.

In the fall of 1775 Braxton was selected to fill a vacancy in Congress caused by the death of Peyton Randolph. Arriving at Philadelphia early in 1776, he at first sharply criticized the independence movement, but eventually yielded to the majority and backed the Declaration. That same year, apparently both in writing and in a speech at a Virginia convention, he urged adoption of a conservative form of State government and expressed such a mistrust of popular government that he lost his congressional appointment. The conservatives, however, elected him to the new State legislature, in which he sat for the rest of his life. For many years, he was also a member of the Governor’s executive council.

The War for Independence brought financial hardships to Braxton. At its beginning, he had invested heavily in shipping, but the British captured most of his vessels and ravaged some of his plantations and extensive landholdings. Commercial setbacks in later years ruined him. In 1786, though he retained Chericoke, he moved to Richmond, where he died in 1797 at the age of 61. He was buried in the family cemetery adjacent to Chericoke.

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Charles Carroll

MARYLAND

As one of the wealthiest men in America, Charles Carroll III of Carrollton risked his fortune as well as his life when he joined the Revolutionaries. Possessing one of the most cultivated minds of any of the signers, he achieved remarkable success as planter, businessman, and politician. He was the only Roman Catholic signer, the last to survive, and the longest lived.

Of Irish descent, Carroll was born in 1737 at his father’s townhouse, Carroll Mansion in Annapolis. Jesuits educated him until he reached about 11 years of age. He then voyaged to Europe and studied the liberal arts and civil law at various schools and universities in Paris, elsewhere in France, and in London.

Carroll sailed home in 1765 at the age of 28, and built a home at Carrollton Manor, a 10,000-acre estate in Frederick County newly deeded to him by his father. At that time, he added “of Carrollton” to his name to distinguish himself from relatives of the same name. For most of his life, however, he preferred for his country residence the family ancestral home, Doughoregan Manor, in Howard County; when in Annapolis, he usually resided at his birthplace. For almost a decade after his return from Europe, barred from public life by his religion, he lived quietly. During that time, in 1768, he married. His offspring numbered seven, three of whom lived to maturity.

In 1773 Carroll became a champion of the patriots through his newspaper attacks on the Proprietary Governor. The latter was44 opposing reforms in officers’ fees and stipends for Anglican clergy that the lower house of the legislature had proposed. From then on, Carroll took a prominent part in provincial affairs. In the years 1774–76 he supported nonimportation measures, attended the first Maryland Revolutionary convention, and served on local and provincial committees of correspondence and the council of safety. In 1776 he and his cousin John, a priest—chosen because of their religion and knowledge of French—traveled to Canada with Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Chase on a congressionally appointed committee that sought but failed to obtain a union of Canada with the Colonies.

Carroll and Chase arrived back in Philadelphia on June 11 that same year, the day after Congress had postponed the vote on Richard Henry Lee’s independence resolution (June 7) until July 1. Maryland had refused to commit herself. Carroll and Chase rushed to Annapolis, recruited William Paca’s aid, and conducted a whirlwind campaign that persuaded the provincial convention to pass a unanimous independence resolution. It reached Congress just in time to put the colony in the affirmative column on July 1, the day of the first vote. Three days later, Carroll himself became a Delegate and functioned in that capacity until 1778.

Two years before, Carroll had also been elected to the State senate, a seat he retained until just after the turn of the century. Along with fellow signers Chase and Paca, he was a member of the committee that in 1776 drafted Maryland’s constitution. Elected to but not attending the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he nevertheless allied himself with the Federalists and helped bring about his State’s ratification of the Constitution. In the years 1789–92, while also in the State senate, he served as a U.S. Senator, one of Maryland’s first two.

Not reelected to the State senate in 1804, the 67-year-old Carroll retired from public life and concentrated on managing his landholdings, consisting of about 80,000 acres in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York, and his business interests. The latter included investments in the Patowmack (Potowmack) Company, which established a canal system in the Potomac and Shenandoah Valleys, and its successor the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. Carroll was also a member of the first board of directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

45 In his final years, revered by the Nation as the last surviving signer of the Declaration, Carroll spent most of his time at Doughoregan Manor. But he passed the winters in the home of his youngest daughter and her husband in Baltimore. There, in 1832, he died at the age of 95. His body was interred in the family chapel at Doughoregan Manor.

Samuel Chase

MARYLAND

Fervid Revolutionary Samuel Chase led the campaign that crushed conservative opposition and alined his colony with the others in the independence struggle. Labeled the “Demosthenes of Maryland” for his fancy albeit effective oratory, he also demonstrated skill as a writer. But his independent attitude, stormy disposition, and outspokenness diluted his political effectiveness. As an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, he became a controversial figure.

Chase was the son of an Anglican clergyman. He was born in 1741 at the farmhouse of his mother’s parents on Maryland’s Eastern Shore near the city of Princess Anne. His mother had come there from her home at nearby Allen for a visit. She died at or soon after the birth. Likely Chase’s grandparents cared for him at least a few years, until about the time his father took over a parish in Baltimore. The latter provided the youth with his initial education, mainly in the classics.

Between the ages of 18 and 20, Chase read law with an Annapolis firm and joined the bar in 1761. The next year, he married; his wife bore at least two sons and two daughters. Two years after his marriage, he entered the colonial/State legislature and retained membership for two decades. From the beginning, he opposed the royal government. Annapolis officials denounced him for his participation in the violent protests of the Sons of Liberty in 1765 against the Stamp Act. In 1774–75 he took part in the Maryland committee of correspondence, council of safety, and the provincial convention.

In the former year, Chase had joined the Continental Congress.46 He advocated an embargo on trade with Britain, showed special interest in diplomatic matters, early urged a confederation of the Colonies, defended George Washington from his congressional detractors, and in 1776 journeyed to Montreal with a commission that tried but failed to achieve a union with Canada. When he returned to Philadelphia around the middle of June, Congress had just postponed the vote on the Lee independence resolution. Realizing that Maryland was straddling the fence on the issue, Chase rushed home. Along with Charles Carroll of Carrollton and William Paca, he labored for 2 weeks to overcome opposition and won a committal to independence from the convention. The Maryland Delegates registered it in time for the first congressional vote, on July 1. In 1778 Chase lost his office because of adverse publicity generated by the advantage he had taken of knowledge gained in Congress to engage in a profiteering scheme.

In 1783–84 Chase traveled to London as a State emissary on an unfruitful mission to recover Maryland stock in the Bank of England from two fugitive Loyalists. Upon his return apparently, his first wife having died, he remarried; resumed his law practice; and engaged in various unsuccessful business enterprises that led to bankruptcy in 1789. Meantime, he had reentered politics. In 1785 he had represented Maryland at the Mount Vernon (Va.) Conference, forerunner of the Annapolis Convention. The next year, he moved his family from Annapolis to Baltimore, where he soon became chief judge of the Baltimore County criminal court (1788–95). As a delegate to the Maryland ratifying convention in 1788, he strongly opposed the Constitution, though he later became a staunch Federalist. From 1791 until 1794, while still a county judge, he also held the position of chief justice of the Maryland Superior Court.

Chase achieved his greatest fame as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1796–1811). He was one of the ablest jurists in the body prior to Chief Justice John Marshall (1801–35), and delivered many influential opinions. His inability to control his political partisanship while on the bench—a trait he shared with some other judges of his time—led to various judicial improprieties and impeachment proceedings against him in 1805. But Congress acquitted him.

Still a Justice, Chase died in Baltimore 2 months after he celebrated his 70th birthday. His grave is in St. Paul’s Cemetery.

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Abraham Clark

NEW JERSEY

Abraham Clark—farmer, surveyor, self-taught lawyer, and politician—typifies those signers who dedicated most of their lives to public service but never gained national renown.

An only child, Clark was born in 1726 at his father’s farm in what is now Roselle, N.J. In his boyhood, he was too frail for farmwork. He received only a minimum of formal education, but in his independent study demonstrated a bent for mathematics. When he reached manhood, besides farming his father’s land, he took up surveying and informally read law to aid in mediating land disputes. Although probably never admitted to the bar, he gained a reputation as the “poor man’s counselor” for his willingness to dispense free legal advice or accept produce or merchandise in lieu of a fee. He married in 1749, and fathered 10 children.

Clark followed his father’s example by taking an active part in civic affairs. For many years, he served the Crown as high sheriff of Essex County and as clerk in the colonial legislature. The exact date of his entry into the patriot ranks is not known, but in the period 1774–76 he became a member and secretary of the New Jersey council of safety, attended several Revolutionary conventions, and won election to the provincial assembly. In June of the latter year, he and four other men replaced the existing congressional Delegates, who were opposing independence.