On Making America Great Again

I have a date.

It is July 4th. It is 1776.

Two days earlier, the British landed on Staten Island unopposed. Theirs is the largest fleet ever seen in North America. General Washington and a ragtag army are fortifying lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights. He barely has cannon. He has no cavalry. He has no ships.

I have a temperature.

Jefferson kept a record of these things. At 1 pm in Philadelphia, it was 76°F.

I have a room.

The Assembly Hall of the Pennsylvania State House. The tables are covered in green cloth. Flies coming through open windows pester the men from a nearby stable. There are Windsor chairs, a chandelier. The final draft of a political declaration rests on the table.

There remains dispute about what was signed, if anything, on July 4th. Jefferson, Franklin and Adams insist the declaration was signed then and there. John Hancock signs first. We know that the unheralded Charles Thomson, the Continental Congress secretary, signs directly after. Now there are two.

It's not hard to imagine each of the delegates coming up front in turn to take a close look at the parchment on the semi-circular table. Possibly they came forward to verify what had been agreed and amended in the heat of argument. At last, here they stood in rough consensus. They leaned over a mortgage they’d now sign with their lives.

The New York delegation to the Second Continental Congress is in the crosshairs. They have everything at stake: their homes, their reputations, their families.

By winter, New Jersey’s signer John Hart will have fled his property and hidden in the woods. By the end of the war, Abraham Clark will have refused to use his political position to fight for his captured sons. Many of the men’s homes will be occupied, their families ravaged and scattered. They know the stakes. While they are signing, news from New York Harbor is arriving by the hour on horseback.

The majority of the remaining fifty-five men will sign shortly after, by which time the circumstances will be even more dire. On August 2nd, they will queue in a line, by geography, North to South. They will take a turn at the silver inkwell, the sand caster, the quill holder.

They will lean the side of their hands against the table or parchment and look down at the document to get their bearings for signing. They will scan the elegant header down to the last line. Whether they read it or not, they will know the oath there, their pledge of Lives, Fortunes and sacred Honor. Some of the men who know him best will look at the scale of John Hancock’s signature — thick and long as a hanging noose — and think, “That is like John. I must sign smaller.”

And each, stepping forward in turn, will think, “And here I go.”

They will find their empty space. They will dip the nib of a prepared quill and feel the pressure of the tines. They will hear the soft scratch, the sprinkled sand on the parchment to blot the ink, the puff of breath to blow it clear.

They will look up at the other men who have already signed it.

Treason.

Done.

New York City will be lost within weeks. Before the end of the war, every signer from the New York delegation will have lost his fortunes, estates or sons.

*

The Declaration contained a lengthy set of Grievances against the Crown. Those grievances spoke to their moment. Two hundred and fifty years later, they speak to ours.

Among the grievances against King George III they mortgaged their lives to redress are these:

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good

• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither

• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world

• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone…

• He has sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

Happy 250th, America.