Our Founders signed Declaration of Independence 250 years ago today would you have done the same?

It’s August 2, 1776, the day most delegates to the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence that was adopted on July 4th. Would you have signed?In Independence Hall, John Hancock led with his bold signature.Eventually, 56 men affixed their names.

Men of property, learning, and standing, they all knew the risks.High treason was punishable by hanging, drawing and quartering.

The hall was solemn.Benjamin Franklin captured the moment: “We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”They were right to fear.

The signers paid dearly.Five were captured by the British.

Even wives and families faced imprisonment, torture, and death.Some fled, others lost their estates funding the war.

A third — including all four from New York — saw their homes confiscated, pillaged, or burned to the ground.Long Island’s Francis Lewis was ruined financially and died poor; his wife endured brutal imprisonment and died soon after release.Yet they signed in 1776, pledging their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the radical proposition that governments derive just powers from the consent of the governed.Two hundred fifty years later, as America250’s tall ships filled New York Harbor and record fireworks lit the skies, the question still echoes.

2024 Gallup International data show that only 41% of Americans say they’d be willing to fight for their country in war, down sharply from 68.5% in the 1981 World Values Survey.The share of Americans extremely proud of the country has similarly plummeted, from 70% in 2003 to recent lows of 33%.What happened? Too many today see America not as a precious endowment of liberties and rights worth defending, but as a vending machine dispensing entitlements and comforts, whose origins have been reframed through identity politics.

The idea of America has been hijacked by cynics who exploit division and peddle free goodies to erode the covenant of self-government.People will die for a...