Happy fourth of July, all. Just wanted to remind everyone why they're cranking up the grill today.
Unlike the latest version of (woke) history might tell you, the men involved in the revolution were mostly under 40 -- hardly the old white men they're often accused of being (as if people could help being white, or becoming old!). Those who were older, men like Benjamin Franklin, or John Hancock, staked their not inconsiderable reputations (in Franklin's case) and their fortunes (in Hancock's), as well as their lives, the lives of their families and their "sacred honor" (a concept we should consider bringing back posthaste!). British prison ships were horrendous, squalid places where the best one might hope for was being whipped daily and eventually released. If you were caught and not imprisoned, well, that was the end of you. But those people, living more than 200 years ago, thought the object was worth the risk. I wonder how many of us would undertake the same risks.
For anyone who has the time and interest, I highly recommend Madison's "notes on the constitutional convention." It's available on Amazon, and gives a lot of insight into the concepts the revolution was fought for, and the hopes of those long-ago ancestors for those of us living today.
Lucky for us, huh?