Submitted by Lori
C
Thomas Jefferson tells that on the day of our nations
birth in the little hall in Philadelphia, debate had raged for hours. The men gathered
there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were
willing to obey. Even so, to sign a Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable
act that the walls resounded with the words "treason, the gallows, the headman's
axe," and the issue remained in doubt.
Then a man rose and spoke. Jefferson described him as not a young man, but one who had
to summon all his energy for an impassioned plea. He cited the grievances that had brought
them to this moment and finally, his voice failing, he said, "They may turn every
tree into a gallows, every home into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can
never die.
To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom.
Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that
parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever."
He fell back, exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by his eloquence, rushed forward and
signed a document destined to be as immortal as a work of man can be.
When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could
any be found who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and
guarded doors. Fifty-six men, a little band so unique, we have never seen their like
since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.
-- Ronald Reagan
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