Their Lives, Their Fortunes, and Their Sacred Honor
By Nate - Posted at If You Can Keep It:
Published June 30, 2026
The Great Risk of Declaring IndependenceOne common line of thinking that often crops up around the founding is that the Founding Fathers were elites who rigged the Revolution and the Constitution to secure their own power, wealth, and status. The early 20th century historian Charles Beard fathered this branch of scholarship with his economic interpretation of the Constitution that argued the drafters were motivated not by their ideals but by their financial interests. They won the war, then designed the Constitution to consolidate their position at the top of the new American social ladder.
If this was their intention, the Founding Fathers certainly did a very poor job of it.
Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, many sacrificed and suffered tremendously for the cause in different ways.1 Several like John Hart had their homes destroyed by the British. Many were captured by the British and faced the brutal reality of life as a British prisoner of war. Benjamin Franklin, by far the oldest signer, volunteered to hazard the voyage to France to serve as a diplomat despite his age and health difficulties. Though Francis Lewis Jr. was not captured himself, his wife was. She was released after a year of imprisonment, but she died shortly after due to the conditions she faced. He never remarried. William Hooper lost all he owned to British soldiers and never recovered from the war financially. John Witherspoon, the only clergyman to sign the Declaration, lost his son who was killed in battle. Many of the signers lost their health during the war. Caesar Rodney suffered from cancer but refused to go to England to seek care. Instead, he remained in America fighting at the head of the Delaware militia.
