THE PRICE OF LIBERTY CAN BE VERY HIGH.
No freedom comes cheap.
This reality of life we must all face.
When Patrick Henry proclaimed in the Reflection of yesterday that “give me liberty or give me death,” it sounded casual to us. But it was a statement with very serious implications and consequences.
At the bottom of the Article of Declaration of American Independence from Britain are 56 names.
Most Americans know two or three of the list – George Washington or perhaps Thomas Jefferson.
Here is what those men actually gave up to put their names on that document called “Article of Independence”.
Know that the men were not wild-eyed radicals.
They were lawyers, merchants, farmers, doctors, men of property and education who had far more to lose from a revolution than they had to gain from one.
But they knew clearly what they were doing when they signed the Article.
Benjamin Franklin said it plainly as they gathered – we must all hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
John Hancock signed his name so large he said King George of England could read it without his spectacles.
Then the British came for them :
1) 12 signers had their homes burned to the ground.
2) 17 lost everything they owned.
3) 5 were captured, tried and imprisoned.
4) Carter Braxton of Virginia was one of the wealthiest men in the colonies. The British Navy swept his ships from the seas. He sold his home and his properties to pay his debts. He died with almost nothing.
5) Francis Lewis of New York watched British troops destroy his estate. They took his wife and threw her in prison. She was held for months. Her health never recovered. She died not long after her release.
6) John Hart of New Jersey was a farmer. When British and Hessian troops swept through his county, he fled into the woods in the middle of winter. His farm was destroyed, his mill was destroyed, his crops were burned. He hid in the hills for weeks, sick and alone while his wife lay dying at home. He never saw her again. He died in 1779 with almost nothing left.
7) Abraham Clark of New Jersey had two sons serving in the Continental Army. Both were captured. Both were sent to a notorious British prison ship in New York Harbor where conditions were brutal. His sons received extra punishment specifically because of their father’s name on the Declaration. The British offered Clark a deal – recant your oath. Support the King and your sons go free. Clark said no.
Not one of the 56 men renounced their stand or defected.
Not one went back on his oath. Not one took the deal of the colonial master.
They had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour. Every single one of them meant it.
Over 250 years later, Americans are basking in the country these men bled for, and for which some of them paid the supreme sacrifice by laying their lives down.
You will therefore agree with me that the price of Liberty is quite high.
TAKE – AWAY : As a take away on this topic by everyone of us : how much are you willing to give up for the liberty of our dear nation?
In the same vein – the salvation we are encouraged to receive and embrace, we should always remember that it costs Jesus Christ his heavenly glory, his precious blood and his sinless life to purchase for humanity.
Top of the day to you 👍
©️ Olubunmi S Adebayo.
