This is the "official" unabridged version of the famous speech given by Rush Limbaugh’s father. It was obtained from the Rush Limbaugh website.
It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind was from the
southeast. Up especially early, a tall bony, redheaded young Virginian found time to buy a
new thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen shillings. He also bought gloves
for Martha, his wife, who has ill at home.
Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The temperature was 72.5 degrees and
the horseflies weren’t nearly so bad at that hour. It was a lovely room, very large, with
gleaming white walls. The chairs were comfortable. Facing the single door were two brass
fireplaces, but they would not be used today.
The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room became an oven.
The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling voices could not be heard by
passersby. Small openings atop the windows allowed a slight stir of air, and also a large
number of horseflies. Jefferson records that "the horseflies were dexterous in
finding necks, and the silk of stocking was nothing to them." All discussion was
punctuated by the slap of hands on necks.
On the wall at the back, facing the President’s desk, was a panoply-consisting of a
drum, swords, and banners seized from Fort Ticonderoga the previous year. Ethan Allen and
Benedict Arnold had captured the place, shouting that they were taking it "in the
name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!"
Now Congress got to work, promptly taking up an emergency measure about which there was
discussion but no dissention”. "Resolved: That an application be made to the Committee
of Safety of Pennsylvania for a supply of flints for the troops at New York."
Then Congress transformed itself into a committee of the whole. The Declaration of
Independence was read aloud once more, and debate resumed. Though Jefferson was the best
writer of all of them, he had been somewhat verbose. Congress hacked the excess away. They
did a good job, as a side-by-side comparison of the rough draft and the final text shows.
They cut the phrase "by a self-assumed power." "Climb" was replaced by
"must read," then "must" was eliminated, then the whole sentence, and
soon the whole paragraph was cut. Jefferson groaned as they continued what he later called
"their depredations." "Inherent and inalienable rights" came out
"certain unalienable rights," and to this day no one knows who suggested the
elegant change.
A total of 86 alterations were made. Almost 500 words were eliminated, leaving 1,337.
At last, after three days of wrangling, the document was put to a vote.
Here in this hall Patrick Henry had once thundered: " I am no longer a Virginian,
Sir, but an American." But today the loud, sometimes bitter argument stilled, and
without fanfare the vote was taken from north to south by colonies, as was the custom. On
July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
There were no trumpets blown. No one stood on his chair and cheered. The afternoon was
waning and Congress had no thought of delaying the full calendar of routine business on
its hands. For several hours they worked on many other problems before adjourning for the
day.
Much To Lose What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of
Independence and who, by their signing, committed an act of treason against the crown? To
each of you the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock, and Jefferson are almost as familiar as
household words. Most of us, however, know nothing of the other signers. Who were they?
What happened to them?
I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the names not there: George
Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry. All were elsewhere.
Ben Franklin was the only really old man. Eighteen were under 40; three were in their
20s. Of the 56 almost half -24- were judges and lawyers. Eleven were merchants, 9 were
landowners and farmers, and the remaining 12 were doctors, ministers, and politicians.
With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these were men of
substantial property. All but two had families. The vast majority were men of education
and standing in their communities. They had economic security as few men had in the 18th
century.
Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it. John Hancock, one of
the richest men in America, already had a price of 500 pounds on his head. He signed in
enormous letters so "that his Majesty could now read his name without glasses and
could now double the reward." Ben Franklin wryly noted: "Indeed we must all hang
together, otherwise we shall most assuredly hang separately." Fat Benjamin Harrison
of Virginia told tiny Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts: "With me it will all be over
in a minute, but you , you will be dancing on air an hour after I am gone.
These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by hanging. And
remember: a great British fleet was already at anchor in New York Harbor.
They were sober men. There were no dreamy-eyed intellectuals or draft card burners
here. They were far from hot-eyed fanatics, yammering for an explosion. They simply asked
for the status quo. It was change they resisted. It was equality with the mother country
they desired. It was taxation with representation they sought. They were all
conservatives, yet they rebelled.
It was principle, not property, that had brought these men to Philadelphia. Two of them
became presidents of the United States. Seven of them became state governors. One died in
office as vice president of the United States. Several would go on to be U.S. Senators.
One, the richest man in America, in 1828 founded the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. One, a
delegate from Philadelphia, was the only real poet, musician and philosopher of the
signers (it was he, Francis Hopkinson - not Betsy Ross who designed the United States
flag).
Richard Henry Lee, A delegate from Virginia, had introduced the resolution to adopt the
Declaration of Independence in June of 1776. He was prophetic in his concluding remarks:
"Why then sir, why do we longer delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day
give birth to an American Republic. Let her arise not to devastate and to conquer but to
reestablish the reign of peace and law. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us. She demands
of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the
citizen to the ever increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us
to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repost. If we
are not this day wanting in our duty, the names of the American Legislatures of 1776 will
be placed by posterity at the side of all of those whose memory has been and ever will be
dear to virtuous men and good citizens."
Though the resolution was formally adopted July 4, it was not until July 8 that two of
the states authorized their delegates to sign, and it was not until August 2 that the
signers met at Philadelphia to actually put their names to the Declaration.
William Ellery, delegate from Rhode Island, was curious to see the signers’ faces as
they committed this supreme act of personal courage. He saw some men sign quickly,
"but in no face was he able to discern real fear." Stephan Hopkins, Ellery’s
colleague from Rhode Island, was a man past 60. As he signed with a shaking pen, he
declared: "My hand trembles, but my heart does not."
"Most glorious service" Even before the list was published, the British
marked down every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to treason. All of
them became the objects of vicious manhunts. Some were taken. Some, like Jefferson, had
narrow escapes. All who had property or families near British strongholds suffered.
- Francis Lewis, New York delegate saw his home plundered and his estates in what is
now Harlem, completely destroyed by British soldiers. Mrs. Lewis was captured and treated
with great brutality. Though she was later exchanged for two British prisoners though the
efforts of Congress she died from the effects of her abuse.
- William Floyd, another New York delegate, was able to escape with his wife and
children across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, where they lived as refugees without
income for seven years. When they came home they found a devastated ruin.
- Philips Livingstone had all his great holdings in New York confiscated and his family
driven out of their home. Livingstone died in 1778 still working in Congress for the
cause.
- Louis Morris, the fourth New York delegate, saw all his timber, crops, and livestock
taken. For seven years he was barred from his home and family.
- John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his dying
wife. Hessian soldiers rode after him, and he escaped in the woods. While his wife lay on
her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked his homestead. Hart, 65, slept in
caves and woods as he was hunted across the countryside. When at long last, emaciated by
hardship, he was able to sneak home, he found his wife had already been buried, and his 13
children taken away. He never saw them again. He died a broken man in 1779, without ever
finding his family.
- Dr. John Witherspoon, signer, was president of the College of New Jersey, later
called Princeton. The British occupied the town of Princeton, and billeted troops in the
college. They trampled and burned the finest college library in the country.
- Judge Richard Stockton, another New Jersey delegate signer, had rushed back to his
estate in an effort to evacuate his wife and children. The family found refuge with
friends, but a Tory sympathizer betrayed them. Judge Stockton was pulled from bed in the
night and brutally beaten by the arresting soldiers. Thrown into a common jail, he was
deliberately starved. Congress finally arranged for Stockton’s parole, but his health was
ruined. The judge was released as an invalid, when he could no longer harm the British
cause. He returned home to find his estate looted and did not live to see the triumph of
the revolution. His family was forced to live off charity.
- Robert Morris, merchant prince of Philadelphia, delegate and signer, met Washington’s
appeals and pleas for money year after year. He made and raised arms and provisions which
made it possible for Washington to cross the Delaware at Trenton. In the process he lost
150 ships at sea, bleeding his own fortune and credit almost dry.
- George Clymer, Pennsylvania signer, escaped with his family from their home, but
their property was completely destroyed by the British in the Germantown and Brandywine
campaigns.
- Dr. Benjamin Rush, also from Pennsylvania, was forced to flee to Maryland. As a
heroic surgeon with the army, Rush had several narrow escapes.
- John Martin, a Tory in his views previous to the debate, lived in a strongly loyalist
area of Pennsylvania. When he came out for independence, most of his neighbors and even
some of his relatives ostracized him. He was a sensitive and troubled man, and many
believed this action killed him. When he died in 1777, his last words to his tormentors
were: "Tell them that they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it
[the signing] to have been the most glorious service that I have ever rendered to my
country."
- William Ellery, Rhode Island delegate, saw his property and home burned to the
ground.
- Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina delegate, had his health broken from privation and
exposures while serving as a company commander in the military. His doctors ordered him to
seek a cure in the West Indies and on the voyage he and his young bride were drowned at
sea.
- Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., the other three South
Carolina signers, were taken by the British in the siege of Charleston. They were carried
as prisoners of war to St. Augustine, Florida, where they were singled out for
indignities. They were exchanged at the end of the war, the British in the meantime having
completely devastated their large landholdings and estates.
- Thomas Nelson, signer of Virginia, was at the front in command of the Virginia
military forces. With British General Charles Cornwallis in Yorktown, fire from 70 heavy
American guns began to destroy Yorktown piece by piece. Lord Cornwallis and his staff
moved their headquarters into Nelson’s palatial home. While American cannonballs were
making a shambles of the town, the house of Governor Nelson remained untouched. Nelson
turned in rage to the American gunners and asked, "Why do you spare my home?"
They replied, "Sir, out of respect to you." Nelson cried, "Give me the
cannon!" and fired on his magnificent home himself, smashing it to bits. But Nelson’s
sacrifice was not quite over. He had raised $2 million for the Revolutionary cause by
pledging his own estates. When the loans came due, a newer peacetime Congress refused to
honor them, and Nelson’s property was forfeited. He was never reimbursed. He died,
impoverished, a few years later at the age of 50.
Lives, fortunes, honor Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine
died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each
case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13
children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims of
manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned.
Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged
word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact.
And, finally, there is the New Jersey Signer, Abraham Clark.
He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and
sent to that infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor known as the hell ship
"Jersey," where 11,000 American captives were to die. The younger Clarks were
treated with a special brutality because of their father. One was put in solitary and
given no food. With the end almost in sight with the war almost won, no one could have
blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British request when they offered him his sons’
lives if he would recant and come out for the King and Parliament. The utter despair in
this man’s heart, the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each and one of us down
through 200 years with the answer: "No."
The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence proved by their every deed that they
made no idle boast when they composed the most magnificent curtain line in history.
"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."
— Rush H. Limbaugh, Jr
My friends, I know you have a copy of the Declaration of Independence
somewhere around the house - in an old history book (newer ones may well omit it), an
encyclopedia, or one of those artificially aged "parchments" we all got in
school years ago. I suggest that each of you take the time this month to read through the
text of the declaration, one of the most noble and beautiful political documents in human
history.
There is no more profound sentence than this:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness?"
These are far more than mere poetic words. The underlying ideas that infuse every
sentence of this treatise have sustained this nation for more than two centuries. They
were forged in the crucible of great sacrifice. They are living words that spring from and
satisfy the deepest cries for liberty in the human spirit.
"Sacred honor" isn’t a phrase we use much these days, but every American
Life is touched by the bounty of this, the Founders’ legacy. It is freedom, tested by
blood, and watered with tears.
— Rush Limbaugh
As published in "The Limbaugh
Letter" July 1996 edition
Wow, 3 posts in one night after being silent for quite a while. But, Happy Halloween and I hope everyone had a happy and Safe Halloween.
I was having a difficult time coming up with a topic for this 4th of July. I started thinking about what freedom is. And to me freedom is the ability to do whatever I wish, in accordance with the law or course. Now just because I do whatever I wish doesn’t mean that there aren’t consequences to what I do, either financially or otherwise.
!!! Why should I, as a citizen have to give the government my property which I worked hard for if they think it will better serve the public? Is this another case of the government thinking it can spend my money better than I? People work hard for what they have. It’s hard enough to get property without having to worry if the government will find something it wants to do with my property. Also, think of the men and women who have died to protect our constitution, what would their thoughts be on this matter?
Tomorrow is Mother’s day. I was looking for the history behind Mother’s day and found 
Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. It’s a day we give thanks for all our blessings and as a general rule eat WAY more than we should. I thought I would post a little bit of history about the first Thanksgiving dinner along with some thoughts.
Happy Halloween!! Today is the day that all the little ghouls and goblins come out and raid our candy dishes. This year there were a bunch of very cute costumes. I think the best one is a couple of little kids dressed up like Dumbo. Very cute indeed. We didn’t have that big of a crowd this year which is good in a way as we didn’t buy that much candy. But with Halloween I thought it might be good to add a little bit of history about this hallows eve…This is an excerpt from 
I know it’s a little late for a 4th of July post. But I heard this clip today on the radio and thought it relevant to the times.
Well, being as how I’m a Georgia native and I do have quite a few RedNeck tendencies I thought I would post this memo from Santa Claus.
Happy Thanksgiving!!! I’ve upgraded to Notes / Domino 6.5 today on the server and client. We’ll have to see how keithstric.com does on it. I expect no issues. Only time will tell. OK, now it’s time to go eat a ridiculas amount of food and lay around the rest of the day!
