To which the laws of nature, and of nature's God, unquote entitled them, every man felt

the enormous significance of the moment, in a June 9, 1776 letter, John Adams confided,

quote, objects of the most duptimous magnitude, and measures in which the lives and liberties

of millions yet unborn are intimately interested are now before us.

And these things are once completed I shall think that I have answered the end of my creation,

unquote. Each man knew the dangers he faced, already two revolutionary leaders, John

Hancock and Samuel Adams faced the scaffold it caught by the British. All knew that if

their mission failed, they too would be hanged for treason. As John Adams noted in the letter

to Abigail, quote, the declaration was, in fact, an act of treason. And if it were not made

good, those who had signed it, did a good chance to incur the penalty needed out to traitors,

unquote. But the signers of the Declaration of Independence were not rabble-rowsers. They

were responsible leaders from the 13 colonies, minivision, minivized standing in their communities.

25 were lawyers are jurists, 11 were merchants, 9 were farmers, are large plantation owners,

and there were also doctors and educators. The war was already in progress as they gathered in

the Pennsylvania State House in a sheltering room with doors and windows tightly shut and pledged

their lives, their fortunes, and risked conviction for treason in order to gain liberty for themselves

in posterity. They formed a committee on June 11th to draw up a declaration. The members of

this committee were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.

Jefferson, whose writing skills were acknowledged by the other committee members, was chosen to

draft the declaration. Looking back on the event in 1825, Jefferson recalled that their purpose

had been to provide, quote, an appeal to the tribunal of the world, unquote. This, he said,

was the object of the Declaration of Independence, not to find out new principles or new arguments,

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