TJ is correct.

Woohoooo! I win! I win the secret prize!

I’ll send my address via e-mail for delivery of my very own PINK PONY! I will be the envy of every insane person on my block! Wooohooooo!

Accord to Thomas Jefferson, “The debates having taken up the greater parts of the 2d 3d & 4th days of July were, in the evening of the last, closed the declaration was reported by the committee, agreed to by the house and signed by every member present except Mr. Dickinson.”

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/timeline.htm

July 1-4 Congress debates and revises the Declaration of Independence.

July 2 Congress declares independence as the British fleet and army arrive at New York.

July 4 Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence in the morning of a bright, sunny, but cool Philadelphia day. John Dunlap prints the Declaration of Independence. These prints are now called “Dunlap Broadsides.” Twenty-four copies are known to exist, two of which are in the Library of Congress. One of these was Washington’s personal copy.

August 2 Delegates begin to sign engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence. A large British reinforcement arrives at New York after being repelled at Charleston, S.C.

I say we have fireworks on all these days. What is your pick for the actual birthdate of the United States?

I traveled many parts of the world. I have yet to find a place that is better than here. Yes, we have encountered countless problems in the past. However, we have the best ship to sail through the storm each time. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

This came from our military fighting in Iraq:

“….The Americans Who Risked Everything

My father, Rush H. Limbaugh, Jr., delivered this oft-requested address locally a number of times, but it had

never before appeared in print until it appeared in The Limbaugh Letter. My dad was renowned for his oratory

skills and for his original mind; this speech is, I think, a superb demonstration of both. I will always be grateful

to him for instilling in me a passion for the ideas and lives of America’s Founders, as well as a deep

appreciation for the inspirational power of words which you will see evidenced here:

“Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor”

It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind was from the southeast. Up especially early, a tall

bony, redheaded young Virginian found time to buy a new thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen

shillings. He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife, who was ill at home.

Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The temperature was 72.5 degrees and the horseflies

weren’t nearly so bad at that hour. It was a lovely room, very large, with gleaming white walls. The chairs were

comfortable. Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but they would not be used today.

The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room

became an oven. The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling voices

could not be heard by passersby. Small openings atop the windows allowed

a slight stir of air, and also a large number of horseflies. Jefferson records

that “the horseflies were dexterous in finding necks, and the silk of

stockings was nothing to them.” All discussing was punctuated by the slap

of hands on necks.

On the wall at the back, facing the president’s desk, was a panoply –

consisting of a drum, swords, and banners seized from Fort Ticonderoga

the previous year. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had captured the place,

shouting that they were taking it “in the name of the Great Jehovah and the

Continental Congress!”

Now Congress got to work, promptly taking up an emergency measure

about which there was discussion but no dissension. “Resolved: That an

application be made to the Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania for a

supply of flints for the troops at New York.”

Then Congress transformed itself into a committee of the whole. The Declaration of Independence was read

aloud once more, and debate resumed. Though Jefferson was the best writer of all of them, he had been

somewhat verbose. Congress hacked the excess away. They did a good job, as a side-by-side comparison of

the rough draft and the final text shows. They cut the phrase “by a self-assumed power.” “Climb” was replaced

by “must read,” then “must” was eliminated, then the whole sentence, and soon the whole paragraph was cut.

Jefferson groaned as they continued what he later called “their depredations.” “Inherent and inalienable rights”

came out “certain unalienable rights,” and to this day no one knows who suggested the elegant change.

A total of 86 alterations were made. Almost 500 words were eliminated, leaving 1,337. At last, after three days

of wrangling, the document was put to a vote.

Here in this hall Patrick Henry had once thundered: “I am no longer a Virginian, sir, but an American.” But

today the loud, sometimes bitter argument stilled, and without fanfare the vote was taken from north to south

by colonies, as was the custom. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

There were no trumpets blown. No one stood on his chair and cheered. The afternoon was waning and

Congress had no thought of delaying the full calendar of routine business on its hands. For several hours they

worked on many other problems before adjourning for the day.

Much To Lose

What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and who, by their

signing, committed an act of treason against the crown? To each of you, the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock

and Jefferson are almost as familiar as household words. Most of us, however, know nothing of the other

signers. Who were they? What happened to them?

I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the names not there: George Washington, Alexander

Hamilton, Patrick Henry. All were elsewhere.

Ben Franklin was the only really old man. Eighteen were under 40; three

were in their 20s. Of the 56 almost half – 24 – were judges and lawyers.

Eleven were merchants, nine were landowners and farmers, and the

remaining 12 were doctors, ministers, and politicians.

With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these

were men of substantial property. All but two had families. The vast majority

were men of education and standing in their communities. They had

economic security as few men had in the 18th Century.

Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it. John

Hancock, one of the richest men in America, already had a price of 500

pounds on his head. He signed in enormous letters so that his Majesty could

now read his name without glasses and could now double the reward. Ben

Franklin wryly noted: “Indeed we must all hang together, otherwise we shall

most assuredly hang separately.”

Fat Benjamin Harrison of Virginia told tiny Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts:

“With me it will all be over in a minute, but you, you will be dancing on air an

hour after I am gone.”

These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by hanging. And remember, a great

British fleet was already at anchor in New York Harbor.

They were sober men. There were no dreamy-eyed intellectuals or draft card burners here. They were far from

hot-eyed fanatics yammering for an explosion. They simply asked for the status quo. It was change they

resisted. It was equality with the mother country they desired. It was taxation with representation they sought.

They were all conservatives, yet they rebelled.

It was principle, not property, that had brought these men to Philadelphia. Two of them became presidents of

the United States. Seven of them became state governors. One died in office as vice president of the United

States. Several would go on to be U.S. Senators. One, the richest man in America, in 1828 founded the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. One, a delegate from Philadelphia, was the only real poet, musician and

philosopher of the signers. (It was he, Francis Hopkinson not Betsy Ross who designed the United States flag.)

Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, had introduced the resolution to adopt the Declaration of

Independence in June of 1776. He was prophetic in his concluding remarks: “Why then sir, why do we longer

delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic. Let her arise not to

devastate and to conquer but to reestablish the reign of peace and law.

“The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us. She demands of us

a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the

felicity of the citizen to the ever-increasing tyranny which

desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an

asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the

persecuted repost.

“If we are not this day wanting in our duty, the names of the

American Legislatures of 1776 will be placed by posterity at

the side of all of those whose memory has been and ever

will be dear to virtuous men and good citizens.”

Though the resolution was formally adopted July 4, it was not until July 8 that two of the states authorized their

delegates to sign, and it was not until August 2 that the signers met at Philadelphia to actually put their names

to the Declaration.

William Ellery, delegate from Rhode Island, was curious to see the signers’ faces as they committed this

supreme act of personal courage. He saw some men sign quickly, “but in no face was he able to discern real

fear.” Stephan Hopkins, Ellery’s colleague from Rhode Island, was a man past 60. As he signed with a shaking

pen, he declared: “My hand trembles, but my heart does not.”

“Most Glorious Service”

Even before the list was published, the British marked down every member of Congress suspected of having

put his name to treason. All of them became the objects of vicious manhunts. Some were taken. Some, like

Jefferson, had narrow escapes. All who had property or families near British strongholds suffered.

· Francis Lewis, New York delegate saw his home

plundered — and his estates in what is now Harlem –

completely destroyed by British Soldiers. Mrs. Lewis was

captured and treated with great brutality. Though she

was later exchanged for two British prisoners through the

efforts of Congress, she died from the effects of her

abuse.

· William Floyd, another New York delegate, was able to

escape with his wife and children across Long Island

Sound to Connecticut, where they lived as refugees

without income for seven years. When they came home

they found a devastated ruin.

· Philips Livingstone had all his great holdings in New York confiscated and his family driven out of their home.

Livingstone died in 1778 still working in Congress for the cause.

· Louis Morris, the fourth New York delegate, saw all his timber, crops, and livestock taken. For seven years he

was barred from his home and family.

· John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his dying wife. Hessian soldiers rode

after him, and he escaped in the woods. While his wife lay on her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and

wrecked his homestead. Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was hunted across the countryside. When at

long last, emaciated by hardship, he was able to sneak home, he found his wife had already been buried, and

his 13 children taken away. He never saw them again. He died a broken man in 1779, without ever finding his

family.

· Dr. John Witherspoon, signer, was president of the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton. The British

occupied the town of Princeton, and billeted troops in the college. They trampled and burned the finest college

library in the country.

· Judge Richard Stockton, another New Jersey delegate signer, had rushed back to his estate in an effort to

evacuate his wife and children. The family found refuge with friends, but a Tory sympathizer betrayed them.

Judge Stockton was pulled from bed in the night and brutally beaten by the arresting soldiers. Thrown into a

common jail, he was deliberately starved. Congress finally arranged for Stockton’s parole, but his health was

ruined. The judge was released as an invalid, when he could no longer harm the British cause. He returned

home to find his estate looted and did not live to see the triumph of the Revolution. His family was forced to live

off charity.

· Robert Morris, merchant prince of Philadelphia, delegate and signer, met

Washington’s appeals and pleas for money year after year. He made and

raised arms and provisions which made it possible for Washington to cross

the Delaware at Trenton. In the process he lost 150 ships at sea, bleeding

his own fortune and credit almost dry.

· George Clymer, Pennsylvania signer, escaped with his family from their

home, but their property was completely destroyed by the British in the

Germantown and Brandywine campaigns.

· Dr. Benjamin Rush, also from Pennsylvania, was forced to flee to Maryland. As a heroic surgeon with the

army, Rush had several narrow escapes.

· John Martin, a Tory in his views previous to the debate, lived in a strongly loyalist area of Pennsylvania.

When he came out for independence, most of his neighbors and even some of his relatives ostracized him. He

was a sensitive and troubled man, and many believed this action killed him. When he died in 1777, his last

words to his tormentors were: “Tell them that they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it [the

signing] to have been the most glorious service that I have ever rendered to my country.”

· William Ellery, Rhode Island delegate, saw his property and home burned to the ground.

· Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina delegate, had his health broken from privation and exposures while

serving as a company commander in the military. His doctors ordered him to seek a cure in the West Indies

and on the voyage; he and his young bride were drowned at sea.

· Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., the other three South Carolina signers, were

taken by the British in the siege of Charleston. They were carried as

prisoners of war to St. Augustine, Florida, where they were singled out

for indignities. They were exchanged at the end of the war, the British

in the meantime having completely devastated their large

landholdings and estates.

· Thomas Nelson, signer of Virginia, was at the front in command of

the Virginia military forces. With British General Charles Cornwallis in

Yorktown, fire from 70 heavy American guns began to destroy

Yorktown piece by piece. Lord Cornwallis and his staff moved their

headquarters into Nelson’s palatial home. While American cannonballs were making a shambles of the town,

the house of Governor Nelson remained untouched. Nelson turned in rage to the American gunners and

asked, “Why do you spare my home?” They replied, “Sir, out of respect to you.” Nelson cried, “Give me the

cannon!” and fired on his magnificent home himself, smashing it to bits. But Nelson’s sacrifice was not quite

over. He had raised $2 million for the Revolutionary cause by pledging his own estates. When the loans came

due, a newer peacetime Congress refused to honor them, and Nelson’s property was forfeited. He was never

reimbursed. He died, impoverished, a few years later at the age of 50.

Lives, Fortunes, Honor

Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war.

Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire

families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims

of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost

everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation

they sacrificed so much to create is still intact.

And, finally, there is the New Jersey signer, Abraham Clark.

He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were

captured and sent to that infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor

known as the hell ship Jersey, where 11,000 American captives were to die. The

younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father. One

was put in solitary and given no food. With the end almost in sight, with the war

almost won, no one could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British

request when they offered him his sons’ lives if he would recant and come out for

the King and Parliament. The utter despair in this man’s heart, the anguish in his

very soul, must reach out to each one of us down through 200 years with his

answer: “No.”

The 56 signers of the Declaration Of Independence proved by their every deed

that they made no idle boast when they composed the most magnificent curtain

line in history. “And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine

providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

My friends, I know you have a copy of the Declaration of Independence somewhere around the house – in an old

history book (newer ones may well omit it), an encyclopedia, or one of those artificially aged “parchments” we

all got in school years ago. I suggest that each of you take the time this month to read through the text of the

Declaration, one of the most noble and beautiful political documents in human history.

There is no more profound sentence than this: “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…”

These are far more than mere poetic words. The underlying ideas that infuse every sentence of this treatise have

sustained this nation for more than two centuries. They were forged in the crucible of great sacrifice. They are

living words that spring from and satisfy the deepest cries for liberty in the human spirit.

“Sacred honor” isn’t a phrase we use much these days, but every American life is touched by the bounty of this,

the Founders’ legacy. It is freedom, tested by blood, and watered with tears.

- Rush Limbaugh III…”

God Bless America.

It’s been tested here at times, here. :)

Happy Independence Day, everyone!