🔴 WATCH THE FULL EPISODE: https://ept.ms/3MdPx56Show more “We have a sense today that somehow [the signers] are just these dainty individuals, sitting around debating and wearing tricorn hats and wigs and writing with quill pens.” But nothing could be further from the truth, says Hillsdale professor Matthew Spalding: Those who signed the Declaration were “literally giving up their lives [and] their fortunes—but not their sacred honor,” Spalding says. John Witherspoon lost his son to a cannonball at Germantown. Francis Lewis’s Long Island estate was bombarded and destroyed, and his wife Elizabeth was imprisoned in terribly harsh conditions until George Washington forced a prisoner exchange for her release. She never recovered. Robert Morris, one of the richest men in America and the revolution’s chief financier, put his own credit on the line—the equivalent of $32 million in today’s dollars—to keep the Continental Army supplied with what were called Morris notes. He later landed in debtors’ prison and died in obscurity, virtually penniless. The Declaration was signed by men who knew they might lose everything—and chose to sign anyway. Spalding shares their stories in his new book “The Making of The American Mind: The Story of the Declaration of Independence.” Show less

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