The real Price of Freedom | Eastern North Carolina Now

    We seem to be trying to make America into whatever political party you favor. It is about time to consider the real part of July 4, 1776 . . .

    Morning Service or Evening Service?

    A few weeks ago a fine article from Bobby Tony cited the flag that really counts today---the Service Flag. It hung in each church to symbolize young men and women dying in World War II. Others came home alive to resume our DREAM of being a free nation after the defeat of Germany and Japan --- which were both conquering nations, until America entered the fray.

    A child was looking at the flags in his church and whispered to his mother, "What are those flags for?" She answered, "People who died in service." The tiny voice then continued . . . "Was it the morning or evening service?"

    As a Preacher's Kid who had to be at every Baptist church service-Sunday morning / evening / Wednesday night-I know EXACTLY WHAT HE MEANT!!!

    Dream

    THE PRICE THEY PAID

    Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence? What fates befell them for daring to put their names to that document?

    Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.

    Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

    Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.

    Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

    They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

    What kind of men were they?

    Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

    Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

    Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

    Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

    At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

    Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

    John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year, he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

    Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

    Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more.

    Standing talk straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

    They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government!

    Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't.

    So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July Holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember: Freedom is never free!

    It sounds like the stuff of a majestic movie like "How The West Was Won"---in cinemascope, no less! The purpose of Scopes is to separate fact and fiction so you can read the full treatise:

    Scopes goes on to say: Origins: In the waning years of their lengthy lives, former presidents (and Founding Fathers) John Adams and Thomas Jefferson reconciled the political differences that had separated them for many years and carried on a voluminous correspondence. One of the purposes behind their exchange of letters was to set the record straight regarding the events of the American Revolution, for as author (particularly Adams, whom history would not treat nearly as kindly as Jefferson) were keenly aware of the "distinction between history as experienced and history as remembered":

    Adams realized that the act of transforming the American Revolution into history placed a premium on selecting events and heroes that fit neatly into a dramatic formula, thereby distorting the more tangled and incoherent experience that participants actually making the history felt at the time. Jefferson's drafting of the Declaration of Independence was a perfect example of such dramatic distortions. The Revolution in this romantic rendering became one magical moment of inspiration, leading inexorably to the foregone conclusion of American independence.

    Evidently Adams was right: So great is our need for simplified, dramatic events and heroes that even the real-life biographies of the fifty-six men who risked their lives to publicly declare American independence are no longer compelling enough. Through multiple versions of pieces like the one quoted above, their lives have been repeatedly embellished with layers of fanciful fiction to make for a better story. As we often do, we'll try here to strip away those accumulated layers of fiction and get down to whatever kernel of truth may lie underneath . . .

    We should all be more intent over TRUTH than FICTION. In this day of "politics by commercial" and the great divide between "Conservatives" and "Liberals" it is hard to put aside the emotional attempts to "prove I am right and you are wrong." We have a story to be celebrated on July 4, 2015. World War II ended in 1945---and that is 70 years ago! I am a witness to 69 of those years.

    Will it be a fictional one or an attempt at knowing TRUTH?

    You, as an American, must decide for yourself what "the real America" is. At age 69, I am on that very quest in the waning years of my life here on this earth. The conflict of Jefferson and Adams is the real core of America from day one!

    Hope

    If you know the background of the Old World, you should know that things in that land were locked down to social status and wealth. They had, for centuries, made sure the rich stayed rich and the poor stayed poor. The lower classes remained low and the "upper stuppers" ruled whether they earned it or not. There is something about getting to the heights that too often removes from people any sensitivity to those struggling just to survive.

    My Scarborough clan had a big castle to the north of London. Since my ancestors came to the Virginia / North Carolina border and migrated south towards the Athens, Georgia, area, they were searching for opportunity. They were forced to bow down as the King and Tax Collectors went by, but I suspect their lips in the dirt were not saying, "God save the King." The word, "damn," comes to my mind in that terrorism of wealth and power.

    Unfinished

    The real beauty of the Founding signers of that Declaration of Independence was stating some basics they believed. The Constitution was not yet in mind, but much debate and dreaming was going on.

    How could they make something without it being a final form into the future?

    "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 . . ."

    Read the rest for yourself and see if Democrat, Republican, Christian, or other divisions are mentioned.