RISK

RISK

Take a moment away from the gleeful celebration of our rarefied American rights and consider everything you own. Your home, possessions, and family. Ask yourself, "Would I be willing to lose everything in pursuit of an ideal?" Irrespective of your answer, the reality is that most would not. Most would-be American citizens did not. The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence did.

These men were not rag-tag revolutionaries. They were educated, authors, attorneys, wealthy merchants, and members of high society. Yet, in the face of near-impossible odds, each with a stroke of ink signed their lives and fortunes away. Their estates were promptly looted and burned, businesses crushed, and families split apart.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his fleets swept from the seas by the Royal Navy. He sold his interests to pay his debts and died in poverty.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His properties and business were incinerated. For over a year, he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children gone. Weeks later with his life in ruins, Hart, exhausted, and emotionally broken, died.

Lest we forget the tens of thousands who left their homes, families, and livelihoods to struggle over a far-removed idea. The men of Valley Forge sat frozen, shattered, and starving for months only in hopes of another opportunity to fight. It is easy to forget the pain these men endured. Our rights are the baseline of human liberty, yet they are historically unusual. Only because of the risks taken, and sacrifices made 248 years ago to secure those freedoms from the clutches of tyranny are we able to forget their pain today.

Liberty can not survive without a moral and Godly people willing to risk everything in defense of her virtue.