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The Fight for Freedom
On July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolutionary War was in its second year.
The 56 men who signed the Declaration had put their lives on the line. If the United States lost the war, they could be executed as traitors by the British government. As Benjamin Franklin supposedly put it, “Now we must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.” They would have to wait until the war’s end to know their fate.
