Declaration of Radicals

"A toast...to high treason. That's what these men were committing when they signed the Declaration.  Had we lost the war, they would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered, and--my personal favorite--had their entrails cut out and burned. So, here's to the men who did what was considered WRONG, in order to do what they knew was right...what they KNEW was right."
--Benjamin Franklin Gates (National Treasure)

Two hundred and forty three years ago today the Continental Congress ratified our first law. The underwriters knew that, should their declaration be put down, then they would be executed by the Crown for committing treason. They were the nation's first radicals.

Their declaration remains radical as well. That people are free by natural right, and that they are beholden to no government that tramples that right.

Today let us pray that one day the ideas of freedom and liberty will no longer seem so radical.