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The year of our 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is as good a time as any to remember that there were a total of fifty-six signers of that historic document. We all, or most of us anyway, know the top guys; Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and Patrick Henry. But what about the other fifty-one Founding Fathers? No one ever mentions them. So it falls on me, your favorite columnist, to finally give a little credit to some of those lesser known names. I can't focus on all of them, but here are a few that you might not know, but who deserve our acknowledgement and appreciation.
The first man on the list should definitely be Samuel Adams, cousin of John, and who Jefferson later called, "Truly the man of the Revolution," and said "For depth of purpose, zeal, and sagacity, no man in Congress exceeded, if any equalled, Sam. Adams." I'm currently reading a terrific biography of Samuel Adams by Ira Stoll, who writes that Adams played a pivotal role in the events leading up to the confrontation with the British, the first among the patriot leaders to call for independence from England.
He was a man of action and a man of G od, who believed that G od Almighty had willed a free American nation. He was a newspaper editor who railed constantly against "taxation without representation." A life-long journalist and a raging radical who, through his passions and writings, lit the fire that jumpstarted our independence.
He was introduced to the writings of John Locke at Harvard College after first going to Boston Latin School. He was the local leader of The Sons of Liberty and assisted in planning the Boston Tea Party. He was elected to the house of representatives of Massachusetts and served for nine years. After the revolution, he became president of the Massachusetts Senate, then lieutenant Governor, and finally Governor of the state. Many historians believe that without Samuel Adams, the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence would never have happened. An ardent patriot, he certainly deserves to be on the first tier of founding fathers.
Another signer, James Wilson, was a successful lawyer and esteemed judge by the time he became a congressional delegate for Pennsylvania. He possessed a practical sensibility to the revolution with his 1774 pamphlet "Considerations of the Nature and Extent of Legislative Authority in British Parliament" which argued that parliament had no authority to write laws for the colonies.
Richard Henry Lee, born into an aristocratic family, was a planter and a politician and a bit of a rabble-rouser as the revolution came about. He had poor financial skills and often struggled to make ends meet. In 1757, he was appointed a justice of the peace and, shortly thereafter, to the Virginia House of Burgesses. An excellent orator, Lee was elected to attend the first Continental Congress and served on many committees. He offered the Resolutions for Independence to the committee of the whole in 1776, including introducing the resolution that would lead to independence. He is considered one of the most instrumental and essential supporters of the Declaration of Independence and the United States.
Samuel Chase was a lawyer and political activist from Maryland who strongly opposed the British Stamp Act. A founder of the county chapter of the Sons of Liberty in Maryland, he was first elected as a Representative to the Maryland House of Delegates. In 1774, he was selected as a representative to the first Continental Congress and served as a Maryland delegate to the second Continental Congress in 1775 and vote for the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776, signing it two days later. Chase was well known as a leader in the fight to make paper currency legal tender for payment of all debts.
Another signer of the Declaration of Independence was Robert Treat Paine, who also was a graduate of Harvard Law. Before entering politics, Paine was involved in teaching and the ministry. He served as Chaplain during the French and Indian War, after which he returned to Massachusetts to practice law. He stood as counsel for the prosecution in the Boston Massacre Trials and the Shay's Rebellion treason trials.
Paine was a Massachusetts delegate to the first Continental Congress and served as first Attorney General of the state before being appointed as a justice for the Massachusetts State Supreme Court by John Hancock.
There were another forty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence and perhaps at another occasion we can review those patriots as well. They were all brave men who put their lives at risk by putting their names on that glorious document of liberty. We thank them one and all.
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