Sacred Honor: The Lives of the Fifty-Six Signers of the Declaration of Independence (250th Anniversary Founders Reference System)

Most Americans can name three or four of them.Few know what it cost the rest.On August 2, 1776, fifty-six men signed a document that declared them traitors to the most powerful empire on earth. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Richard Stockton of New Jersey was dragged from his bed at midnight, imprisoned in irons, and tortured until he broke. Thomas Nelson Jr. of Virginia ordered cannon fire on his own house at Yorktown, borrowed two million dollars for the Continental Army, and died at fifty with nothing. Francis Lewis of New York watched his wife be arrested, imprisoned without a bed or proper food, and broken until she died. Thomas Lynch Jr. of South Carolina came to Philadelphia to help his dying father, signed the Declaration in his place, and sailed into the Atlantic Ocean with his wife. Neither of them was ever seen again.These are not the stories in the textbooks. They are the stories this book was built to tell.The Complete Reference Guide to All Fifty-Six SignersSacred Honor: The Lives of the Fifty-Six Signers of the Declaration of Independence profiles every man who signed the Declaration, organized by state delegation from New Hampshire to Georgia in the order their signatures appear on the parchment.Each profile includes:A complete biographical narrative covering formation, career, and path to PhiladelphiaWartime service and personal lossesPost-war life and legacyA leadership and faith reflection drawing the man's story into conversation with character, sacrifice, and civic responsibilityEach of the thirteen colony chapters opens with an introduction to the colony's founding character, faith tradition, economic life, and road to independence, giving readers the context to understand why each delegation voted the way it did and what it cost them afterward.Honest. Complete. Built for the 250th Anniversary.This book handles the founding generation honestly. It names the contradiction present in a document about human equality written by men who owned enslaved people. It documents the signers who recanted under torture and the ones who voted against independence before signing it. It also documents the faith that sustained the men who held the Congregationalist covenant theology of New England, the Presbyterian political theology of John Witherspoon, the Catholic conviction of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and the explicit Trinitarian confession of Roger Sherman, who signed all four founding documents.This is the honest account. The complete account. The one worth knowing as America marks the 250th anniversary of its founding declaration.Who This Book Is ForSacred Honor is written for general readers, civic educators, homeschool families, men's ministry leaders, pastors, and anyone who believes the founders deserve to be known as they actually were: complicated, courageous, flawed, and consequential.Also available: The Sacred Honor Student Study Guides — a thirteen-guide companion series for homeschool and summer learning families in grades 4 through 12, with tiered discussion questions, primary source encounters, faith connections, and a Hero of Your Story moment for every colony. Visit oursacredhonor.us. Read more