Dr. Kevin DeYoung | Presbyterians and 1776, Part 2

Sunday School, April 26, 2026

Given by Dr. Kevin DeYoung | Senior Pastor, Christ Covenant Church

Presbyterians and 1776, Part 2
Declaring Independence from Great Britain

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What a joy it was for me and hopefully for you to walk through our illustrious, sometimes rascally, but important history here, as we look at Presbyterians in 1776. Last week I entitled the first lecture “The Mad Men and Ministers of Mecklenburg County.” This second lecture, second of two, entitled “Declaring Independence from Great Britain.” There are two distinct halves to this lecture. Part one in Charlotte, and then part two in Philadelphia. 

So, let's start with a picture that I trust will be familiar to you, and that is our North Carolina flag. I saw a survey online last year – somebody ranking the top 50 flags. It turns out that's how many there are of the states. Some of you will be very proud. This particular site, it did have North Carolina, I think, in the top 10. It had South Carolina as the best flag. This is a very strong flag. Red, white, and blue in those blocks there. I won't put up the Michigan flag, what I grew up with. It has some deer, sort of touching hooves together, and it has a wonderful Latin phrase, which translated is, "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you." So, if you want peninsulas, Michigan's got two of them. This is really cool, though. You see there's two dates. You see the one on the bottom: April 12, 1776. Hopefully, you learned somewhere in North Carolina history, or you can go Google it, this is the date of the Halifax Resolves. Halifax is a tiny town. I think even today, it has barely over a hundred people. It's up in sort of the northeast part of the state. On April 12th, by unanimous vote of the 83 delegates meeting in that tiny town, the provincial congress of North Carolina voted in favor of independence. And the document, the Resolves that they passed, instructed the delegates from North Carolina in the Second Continental Congress to vote with the other colonies in support for independence. The Halifax Resolves were the first official action by any colony calling for independence from Great Britain. 

The first date – you can put it back up there – the first date on the flag is even more significant, and as you'll find, even more controversial: May 20, 1775. That's the date of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence – MecDec. If you are a native Charlottean – different than a native charlatan – if you're a native Charlottean, you perhaps grew up learning about MecDec, and we’ll hear about some of the controversy, because many historians doubt whether MecDec ever existed. So, we'll look at the arguments pro and con, but an important date – so important that it is on our license plate. There it is. I hope that's not your license plate, but you can see “First in freedom.” Maybe you got “First in flight,” or you have a, you know, the Parkway, but we have “First in freedom.” May 20, 1775, that's MecDec; and April 12, 1776, the Halifax Resolves. 

So, what is this date? May 20. Well, in May of 1775, Thomas Polk – remember him from last week, who built that nice house at the corner of Trade and Tryon, and also built across the street that courthouse, which looks like it was taken from seven, but that was actually built about 50 years ago, but it's just sort of faded out in the background, and it's black and white, so it looks very old, but this is a replica of what they think the courthouse looked like. Across the street, Thomas Polk gathered local militia leaders. They wanted to find a way to extricate themselves from the rule of Great Britain, and so, they met at this courthouse, something that looked like this, across from Thomas Polk's house on May 19 into the early morning of May 20. And they came up with something now known as the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. But here's the thing: for almost 50 years, hardly anyone had heard of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence until this bombshell report hit the newspapers in 1819. So, here is a picture of the Raleigh Register. Hard for you to read. I had to sign up for this newspaper service this week. You got to remind me, I have a 7-day free trial, so I remember to get out of this. Although, I might keep it. It's cool to look at all these newspapers. So, here's this copy, the Raleigh Register from April 30, 1819, with this bombshell report. Now, you can't read that first paragraph, but here's what it says: “It is not probably known to many of our readers that the citizens of Mecklenburg County in this state made a declaration of independence more than a year before Congress made theirs. The following document on the subject has lately come to the hands of the editor from unquestionable authority and is published, that it may go down to posterity.” 

Joseph Alexander, the son of John McKnitt Alexander – often went by just “McKnitt” – that was his father. His father was the secretary of this gathering. Dead by now, but his son finds among his father's papers the Declaration of Independence that took place in Mecklenburg County in 1775. So, he sends this off, and it fills up those first two columns. It's not terribly long, and it gives a little history, and then it prints these five resolves. And let's just look at the third, because this is the most important if you can read it: “Resolved, that we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people, are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing Association, under the control of no power other than that of our God and the General Government of the Congress; to the maintenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor.” Well, immediately you hear some phrases that sound a lot like the more famous Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. And we'll come back to that. This is put into the Raleigh Register in 1819, and immediately people begin to wonder, well, what is this? Why haven't we heard of this? Is this genuine and a brand-new part of our country's history that most people never heard of before? Or is this document spurious? We don't know all of the men who were present, but it seems that Abraham Alexander was the chairman, and John McKnitt Alexander was the clerk. Later reports mentioned 26 delegates. You can see a slide there that has the names. Again, that's probably hard for you to read from where you are. All of these were militia men. Most of them were Scots-Irish Presbyterians. If you could read it, you could see that there's a whole bunch of Alexanders. We saw that that was the leading family in the town, though there's some other names. McClure was Irish, Queary was Scottish, Reese was Welsh, Phifer was a Swiss Lutheran. 

There are three men of this group who were recent graduates of Princeton. William Avery, 1766. Hezekiah James Balch, B A L C H, also 1766. And here's a name, at least the last name you've heard before, Ephraim Brevard – yes, the namesake for the town and for the college in the western part of the state. Brevard was a recent Princeton grad in 1768. Avery was a young attorney. There's another attorney among this group, William Kennon, who was present, and we'll see he played an instrumental role. This man Avery would become North Carolina's first attorney general. Balch was 30 years old and, like Avery, was a good writer and speaker. Hezekiah Balch was the pastor who succeeded Alexander Craighead. Remember him? Fiery Alexander Craighead. Balch is the pastor at Rocky River and Poplar Tent churches. And most consequentially, there was Ephraim Brevard, also 30 years old, also a graduate of Princeton. He was a teacher, a doctor, and he was considered the most brilliant student and the best writer in the whole area. He was the one who drafted the Mecklenburg Resolves. We'll come back to that. Something different, we think, than the Mecklenburg Declaration. And Ephraim Brevard was likely the main author of the MecDec. The drafting committee consisted of Brevard, Balch (he's the Presbyterian pastor), and Kennon (he's the lawyer). Brevard would go on to serve as an army surgeon during the war. He was captured at Charleston in 1780, and he contracted a fever, and he died as a result of that fever, so you could say he is a war casualty. Died in 1781 by the fever he contracted while he was imprisoned. He died en route back to Charlotte and was buried at Hopewell Church. That was one of the other seven sisters of the Presbyterian churches. Buried there in an unmarked grave. Certainly someone worth naming and remembering, Ephraim Brevard. 

Several days after the MecDec, May 20, 1775, they read the declaration, probably that same day, at the courthouse to that small gathering. Remember, Charlotte is just a little teeny crossroads of a town. That document was then entrusted to Captain James Jack. Have you ever seen this statue? You can see Uptown there in the background. This is right sort of across the street from Piedmont Community College, and this is right on the Sugar Creek Greenway. I have run by there many times. You just got to go a little bit. It's near that Elizabeth Street park. So, here's a statue. It's quite a cool statue, with the horse running through the water, of Captain Jack. Not Captain Jack Sparrow, but Captain James Jack. His job was to take the Mecklenburg Declaration, cover the 600-mile journey to the Continental Congress that was meeting in Philadelphia, and deliver the Resolves to the three North Carolina delegates: Richard Caswell, William Hooper, Joseph Hughes. Those three men in 1775 were supposed to – the idea was – take this Mecklenburg Declaration, and the instructions were to adopt the resolutions or to find some way to sanction them and approve them with the others. Unfortunately, those three delegates, we know, were quite wishy-washy on independence. I think it was James Adam who said they were some of the most Tory-leaning members of the Congress. So, it seems that they politely received the declaration just as a congressman might – oh, thank you, you have something that your little county has done; oh, we'll take this under consideration – and met with Captain Jack, gave him a nice handshake, and did nothing with the Mecklenburg Declaration. 

When this burst on to the scene in 1819, John Adams wrote to his frenemy Thomas Jefferson – because they were friends and enemies back and forth, and quite famously, might say providentially, they both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. You can imagine the whole country thought surely God was in this, that these two men died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. Well, this is 1819. They’re frenemies, rivals. John Adams writes with some passive aggressive verve, “May I enclose to you one of the greatest curiosities and one of the deepest mysteries that have ever occurred to me?” He sent Thomas Jefferson a copy of that 1819 paper with the Mecklenburg Declaration. He says, "How is it possible that this paper should have been concealed from me to this day?" Jefferson, of course, marveled that Adams thought it was genuine. Thomas Jefferson was absolutely certain it was a fake from the beginning. Adams, for his part, writes later, in July of 1819, to another friend, and he speculates that the phrases there in the MecDec and the phrases in Jefferson's declaration are too similar to be coincidental. So, one must have copied from the other. And Adams was quite pleased to speculate, “I bet Thomas Jefferson, he didn't come up with all of that on his own. He was having a copy of the Mecklenburg Declaration in his coat pocket and has kept it hidden from us, and he stole some of those phrases for his very own.” So, you can see that this is an important controversy. 

Ten years later, 1829, the North Carolina General Assembly appointed a committee to look into the controversy. And in 1831, they published a 32-page report. Come on PCA study committees, if they can do this with 32 pages, why are we always going so long? 32 pages with a preface from the governor, so it's often called the governor's report. And this governor's report contained detailed accounts from more than a dozen eyewitnesses, all reputable men. They were pastors, war heroes, local officials. They talked to Captain Jack. They talked to Major John Davidson of Davidson, who claimed to have been there, though there's some debate whether he was. They heard from William Polk, who said – so he's the son – who said that he heard his father, Thomas Polk, read the declaration. The governor himself said that he had seen a copy of the Mecklenburg Declaration before it was burned in a fire in the Alexanders’ home. The most detailed account, the star eyewitness, was General Joseph Graham, who said he was “only a lad” at the time in 1775, but he was an onlooker to these events, and he gave two pages of very detailed testimony. So, the report compared these eyewitnesses’ accounts. They weren't exact in every detail, but considering this was 50 years later, they were remarkably similar. They all told the same basic story – a declaration of independence had been decided in Charlotte on May 20, read from the courthouse, sent with Captain Jack up to Philadelphia. So, you might say, "Case closed." North Carolina, I don't have any biases there. We got the eyewitnesses. This is clearly a real thing. Well, it was for the state of North Carolina, but not everyone was convinced. Now these are eyewitnesses 50 years after the fact, and some wondered, well, might have been possible that they embellished the story over 50 years, and they conflated some remembrances and reinterpreted through the lens of July 4, 1776 back to their own important, but less dramatic, declaration in 1775. Might it be an example of misremembering something together? 

And then, in 1838, things got more complicated. A researcher found a report from a South Carolina newspaper dated June 13, 1775. June 13, 1775. So, this is just a couple of weeks after MecDec. And in the paper were printed 20 resolves. Remember, the Mecklenburg Declaration had five. That's just the common language, what we resolve to do. This one had 20 resolves, decided in Charlotte Town in Mecklenburg County on May 31st – so, different date – 1775, and it's signed by Ephraim Brevard, clerk of the committee. And this document stated that the authority of the British crown was “null and void,” but it didn't use the exact language of free and independent. And it didn't include those phrases that sounded like Jefferson's declaration of, you know, our lives and our fortunes and our sacred honor, and it had a May 31 date instead of May 20. So many people then wondered if this was actually what took place in Mecklenburg County. Was the May 31st Resolves – now we have indisputable, just a couple weeks after, printed in the paper that this took place – and might these other eyewitnesses have misremembered something that they said, or maybe it happened not quite like they remembered, and maybe they had sort of some conversations, but there was no Mecklenburg Declaration. There simply were the Mecklenburg Resolves, which were an important step, and they did say null and void, but they weren't a declaration of independence. No one doubts the Resolves. They appeared in the paper just weeks after they were passed, but how to understand the relationship between the two. So a case can be made, both against the genuineness of the Mecklenburg Declaration and in favor. I'll tell you, I mentioned this book last week from Scott Syfert, who's the expert local attorney here and really a fine historian, and you can go Google this, and they made videos, because last year was the 250th anniversary of MecDec, and they'll give you a 10-minute summary here. I got this book when I first moved here, and I'm sorry disappoint you. I don't think I had heard of the Mecklenburg Declaration, and seeing that the phrases were so similar, I was skeptical. I'm less skeptical. I don't think you can make an ironclad case, but I think there are better arguments for it than against it, but let me give you both. 

Here, quickly, are five arguments against the Mecklenburg Declaration. One, we don't have any original copies of it. Two, we don't have an indisputable record. Now, we have some suggestions I'll come to, but we don't have an indisputable record of it existing until it appears in the paper in 1819. Certainly, no one in Congress in Philadelphia knew about it, unless a lot of them are lying – were lying. It doesn't appear in any of their journals. So, how do we explain a gap of 45 years, from 1775 to 1819, with something so significant that it seems like virtually no one had heard of it? Here's a third argument against it. One can imagine quite easily how, without even nefarious intent, those eyewitnesses who did something significant with the Mecklenburg Resolves could have read back the experience of 1776 and some of the language and began to understand what happened more along the lines of independence, even though that's not exactly what the Resolves stated. Fourth, the other documents we have that provide notes on the MecDec proceedings – because there are a few other fragments, but they're all torn, they're undated. For example, we have something called the rough notes from James McKnitt or John McKnitt Alexander, but they don't sound exactly what is in the Raleigh Register, and we don't know that they were written exactly at 1775. They were probably written after. So, we have some other fragments, but they're not dated. It's hard to know exactly what to make of them. And then five – I think this is the biggest hurdle – is a psychological one. Are we to believe that our national origin story is, in some significant measure, a lie? That Jefferson kept a furtive copy of the MecDec and cribbed the phrases and never told anyone about it and then lied about it to his grave? And then it becomes sort of a proxy on whether you like Thomas Jefferson or not, and what other things did he lie about, and is he a reputable person or not? It's a psychological hurdle, I think, for everyone in about 49 states to sort of believe that. In 1907, a historian William Henry Hoyt published a work, “The Alleged Early Declaration of Independence by Mecklenburg County … Is Spurious.” And that remains the most comprehensive case against the MecDec, and it set in motion, for really a hundred years, historians doubting the veracity of the Mecklenburg Declaration. And it's made – in no small part to Scott Syfert, or this book that I mentioned by David Fleming which came out – it's made a bit of a comeback in the last 10 to 15 years. 

So what are the arguments for the genuineness of the Mecklenburg Declaration? Let me give you five arguments. It is worth noting that, although there are some historians who absolutely are certain it did not exist, in recent years some famous historians – like George Will (he's more of a journalist, but…), David McCullogh, Andrew Roberts, the Churchill biography – have offered their informed opinion that they believe in the veracity. So, it's not like there are no historians who believe in the veracity of MecDec. But here's five reasons. Number one, the governor's report, which I already mentioned. There were sworn affidavits by leading citizens who would not be the sort of men to lie or to conspire to deceive, and though they weren't exact in every matter, it's remarkable that they all told the same basic story of what happened. Surely those eyewitness accounts should count for something. 

Here's a second reason. Syfert shows, and this was really important in my thinking, he shows that phrases like “inherent and inalienable rights” or “our lives, our fortunes” or “our sacred honor,” that these were commonplace phrases at the time. In fact, the “as a right ought to be free” – that wasn't even Jefferson. That was Lee's resolution earlier in June. So, you can make the case that John Adams set everyone on an either/or trajectory. One must be copying the other. So, either MecDec’s fake, or Thomas Jefferson is a big liar, and those might not be the only options. It's quite possible that those familiar phrases were familiar to Jefferson not from the Mecklenburg Declaration, but because others were using them. Now some historians have said rather dismissively, "How do a bunch of backwoods, hick Scots-Irish Presbyterians come up with something as elegant as the Mecklenburg Declaration?" Well, not owning those insults to begin with, but you remember the three-person committee, Ephraim Brevard, Hezekiah Balch – they're Princeton graduates – and then Kennon, who's a lawyer – one pastor, a lawyer, a doctor. These are educated men who did have the brain power and the writing ability to craft such a statement. 

Here's a third reason. There were statements from the governor of North Carolina, Josiah Martin, the last royal governor, in a letter dated June 30, 1775. He wrote to Lord Dartmouth. Now, when you read this paragraph, and you think he's either talking about the Mecklenburg Resolves, as they've come to be known or he's talking about the Mecklenburg Declaration. He says, “The Resolves” – now before you say, bummer, he's talking about Mecklenburg Resolves, remember the Mecklenburg Declaration consisted of five resolves, so we just call the other one Resolves to distinguish it, so he could be talking about the Declaration. He says, “The Resolves of the committee of Mecklenburg, which your lordship will find in the enclosed newspaper, surpasses all the horrid and treasonable publications that the inflammatory spirits of this continent have yet produced. And your lordship may depend its authors and abetters will not escape my due notice whenever my hands are sufficiently strengthened to attempt to recover the lost authority of government.” And he goes on to say that the Resolves were sent off by an express to the Congress meeting in Philadelphia. So, there's the Captain Jack story. Captain Jack certainly sent off with something. Now, you could say this is just a reference, June 30, that he saw in the paper. Remember I said it was in the South Carolina paper. He's talking about the Mecklenburg Resolves. Or because he says “they're treasonous beyond anything we've ever heard,” that sounds more like a full-on declaration of independence. Now, there's more to this drama, because he says there, “your lordship will find in the enclosed newspaper,” and so, you go, and these historians have gone and looked there for the enclosed newspaper in the archives in Britain. And they go, and they open, and they find this letter, and the newspaper's gone. And then someone traces it back and says, "You know when this happened? It happened when there was the ambassador to Great Britain who was from Virginia and was a friend of Thomas Jefferson. He went in there and he pinched that." There's all these conspiracy theories. The paper in question is probably the Cape Fear Mercury, because Martin later that summer issued a proclamation in which he said “I have also seen a most infamous publication in the Cape Fear Mercury importing to be resolves of a set of people styling themselves a committee of the county of Mecklenburg, most traitorously declaring the entire dissolution” – I didn't say independence, but the entire dissolution – “of the laws, government, and constitution of this country.” So, is he talking about the Mecklenburg Resolves? Because he doesn't use the language of independence exactly, or is he talking about MecDec, because he says “this is the most traitorous thing I have ever read”? So, there's an argument. 

Here's four. In 1904, a journal was discovered from the Moravian community that existed near Winston-Salem. Maybe you've visited before. That area, called Wachovia – heard that name before. That area was called Wachovia, and there was a journal. There was a well-known, well-respected merchant named Traugotte Bagge. T R A U G O T T E B A G G E. German. We'll call him Traugotte Bagge. And he kept a journal of the events of the time, and someone found in his journal. Now, the pages are undated, and there's some things in the journal that we can date back to 1783, so, at least parts of the journal were written 1783 or after. We don't know when in particular these pages were written – maybe immediately, maybe 1783 looking back, but here's what was found in this Moravian's journals: “I cannot leave unmentioned at the end of 1775 that already in the summer of this year, that is May, June, or July, the county of Mecklenburg in North Carolina declared itself free and independent of England and made such arrangements for the administration of the laws among themselves as later the Continental Congress made for all. This Congress, however, considered these proceedings premature.” And, you say that should be an open-and-shut case. But again, if you're a skeptic, you can say, well, this was written in 1783. Someone gave him this information, and again, they reinterpreted the Mecklenburg Resolves with the language of Thomas Jefferson's declaration. So that's possible. But it's significant, he says here, “and free and independent” – here's what's really interesting. You just find from the historians, it’s written in German, except for the word “independent” is written in English. So, this is obviously very crystallized in his mind that the county of Mecklenburg declared themselves free and independent. So, at least this Moravian merchant certainly thought there was a declaration of independence that happened in 1775. Maybe somebody gave him the wrong information, but he wrote it down. 

And then, here's a fifth reason. Newly discovered reference in the Raleigh Register on April 14, 1801. The article from 1801 talks about a gathering of “citizens of the village of Charlotte in Mecklenburg County,” and they were convening at the house of a Mrs. McCombs to celebrate the election of Thomas Jefferson. And they offered a series of toasts, and the newspaper article says they included a toast “to the citizens of Mecklenburg, being the first in their declaration of independence, may they ever be the first in resisting usurpation by defending their civil rights.” And if you're a skeptic, you can say they're remembering the Resolves, but they've now remembered it through the lens of independence. But here we have, so far, the earliest known occurrence, 1801, the citizens in Charlotte here are proposing a toast, and at least they think that in 1775, they were the first people to declare themselves free and independent. There's a good lesson here for how you do history, and also how you piece together any sort of information when you don't have all the information, and you're not sure how it all fits together. It's almost always best to start with an explanation that does not rely on people having lied, committed conspiracies, and acted in bad faith. Now, sometimes do people lie, and do they effect conspiracies? They do. But if you start there – this is a good lesson for all of life – more often than not, people are not super genius super villains. They're incompetent, or they misremember things. So, there may be conspiracies, there are lies at times, but if you come up with how to piece it together, because once you say, well, that was just a lie, you can prove almost anything. So, you start, at least, to say, how might everyone be telling basically the truth? Maybe they're shading it. Maybe they're misremembering. And I think there is a way to put it together. It seems most likely to me that these delegates that met in Mecklenburg County in Charlotte on May 19 and May 20 – one of the things in that Raleigh Register, it says that they met until 2:00 in the morning, so these guys are working long, and it's quite easy to see how they work late into the night, and what that article says is they were inflamed with rage when they heard the news of Lexington and Concord. Lexington and Concord, actually, was last Sunday, April 19, so they had heard – that's what galvanized them. Word had traveled. Word doesn't travel quickly. Word traveled. Lexington and Concord. So, these men get together. They're fiery Scots-Irish, most of them, and they're mad as hornets, and so they work late into the night, and they declare themselves free and independent. And they announce it on the court steps to, you know, a very small gathering of people. One can understand how then they might re-gather May 31st and publish something that is more fit for public consumption, something longer, more technical, more polished. Still a bold statement, null and void, but not quite a treasonous declaration of independence. I think it's – if I had to come up with a scenario, that makes the most sense to me. They did write the Mecklenburg Declaration. They did announce it to a few people. That's why we have remembrances of it. And yet, it was largely buried. Captain Jack went up to Philadelphia. The three North Carolina men said, "Thank you very much" and buried it in oblivion. And so, on the one hand, we shouldn't think that the Mecklenburg Declaration inspired the whole country. It was unknown to most of the country. Nor do we have to think that Thomas Jefferson stole from it. It was almost completely unknown for 45 years. But I still think there is compelling evidence that it did happen, and it was a real statement made on May 20, 1775, and in that, the residents of Mecklenburg County in North Carolina and Scots-Irish Presbyterians, though the committee was more than that, North Carolina does have a right to put on their flag and put on their license plate “first in freedom.” So, keep the license plate. Keep the flag. 

Part two, turning from Charlotte to Philadelphia. And ironically, the Charlotte story we started in 1819. The Philadelphia story we're also going to start in 1819 with the most famous painting, probably, in American history. Up on the screen. You've seen it before. That is John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence. So, leave it up there. He was commissioned to do the painting in 1817. He finished in 1818. It's hung in the Capitol in 1819. You've all seen it. I have this, along with several other artifacts, hanging in my office. Well-known picture. You've all seen Trumbull's painting before. What you need to know is almost everything about the painting is wrong. The chairs were not plush and red. The doors were not in that part of the room. There were no military flags and banners hanging on the wall. The windows were covered with simple Venetian blinds, not with those heavy ornate draperies. And as for the men, sitting so attentively as if they're just posing for a camera shot, they were sitting at plain tables. If you've seen the John Adams miniseries, which is worth seeing, and you see that's more accurate, though they have John Witherspoon in there, who looks unbelievably slovenly, from the colony of Rhode Island when he was from New Jersey. But if you've seen that – simple, at tables – that's more accurate. They were also not so immaculately dressed. They were also not all in the room at the same time. There are 47 men in Trumbull's painting. Only 42 of them signed the declaration. So, five of the men in the painting didn't even sign the declaration. And there are 14 other signers who are not in Trumbull's painting. And you say, "Well, boy, pity for them. You sign the declaration. You didn't even get in the painting. Why didn't they make it in the painting?" Because he didn't know what they looked like. It wasn't so easy to find pictures. There was no Google service to give you a picture for people. In fact, in that painting, Benjamin Harrison and Stephen Hopkins – he painted their sons. He's like, I don't know what they, but I got their sons. He probably looked a lot like their father. So, he just painted their sons. So, men, try to have good-looking sons. He was not trying to create a perfect photograph. What he was trying to do – this is what he said – is he wanted the faces, wanted people to see, wanted it to give a sense that something epic and historic took place there, that they could see the faces of the nation's founders. 

Well, what I want to do very briefly in our time left, as I mentioned last week, is give you a brief overview of the 12 Presbyterian signers. So, here's another picture of the signers. It's hard to see that. That's from 1876, and it has there an array of the various signers. How to determine the religious affiliation of each of the signers is not an exact science. I'm drawing from an article in 1958 by William Miller for the journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society where he looks at, he says, I think there are 12. Now, some people have a different number, and you'll hear that the connection to the Presbyterian Church with some of them is small, and some of them, they were clearly very committed Christians and Presbyterians. But we're going to move through, very quickly, from north to south. There's one man from New Hampshire, two from New York, four from Pennsylvania, four from New Jersey, and one from Delaware. So, you're getting a fire hose. 

Here's from New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton. Poor Matthew Thornton didn't even get a picture. He just got a signature here. You can admire that signature. He was born in Ireland in 1714. Family moved to America in 1717, settled in Maine, then in Massachusetts. As an adult, he lived in Londonderry, New Hampshire, and he was a successful physician. He filled numerous political positions in Londonderry and in New Hampshire – colonial president, speaker of the house, superior court judge, delegate to the Continental Congress. He was not in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. You realize no one signed the Declaration on July 4. They had approved the motion on July 2 and then came back with the final document July 4. So, it's good to celebrate July 4. Some people always say it was really July 2, but with the document July 4, but they didn't sign it. They first had a very, you know, a man with really great penmanship who made the document, and then people came in starting in August to sign it, which is why some people signed it who weren't there in July 4, including one man from New York, who had said he was going to vote “no” on independence, and then they convinced him, well, don't – or it was Pennsylvania – they convinced him not to show up so that Pennsylvania's vote would go in favor of independence. But then once they did vote for independence, he came back, and he signed the thing anyways. He's like, "I'm in. I'm in. I'm on board." This man, Matthew Thornton, signed it later that summer. He retired from being a judge in 1782. He lived out the last years on a farm in Merrimack, New Hampshire. Died in 1803 at 89. He was a consistent and zealous Christian, with connections to both parishes in Londonderry, the Congregational Church and the Presbyterian Church. Coming from Ireland, his roots were Presbyterian. He owned a pew. This is one of the ways we tell church membership is back then you owned pews, you rented pews. He contributed out of his wealth to raise the pastor's salary. What a fine chap. When he died, the funeral sermon was preached by Jacob Burnap, who was an evangelical reformed minister at the congregational church. So that's Matthew Thornton. 

Go to New York. Philip Livingston. He was born in Albany in 1716, graduated from Yale. He's the only one of the Presbyterian signers to go to Yale. So, Yale was the New England congregational school, up with Harvard. Princeton was the middle colonies and south and was Presbyterian for all intents and purposes. He married the daughter of the mayor of Albany. After becoming a successful businessman in New York City, he entered politics. He helped establish King's College, now Colombia. He helped found the library of the Chamber of Commerce in New York City. He was one of the governors of the hospital. He oversaw the benevolence society. He established a divinity chair at his alma mater. He was a member of the Stamp Act Congress. Served as president of the provincial congress of New York. Took his seat in the Continental Congress in 1775. His roots were also Presbyterian. His great-grandfather was a distinguished minister in the Church of Scotland. When he died in 1778, the esteemed Presbyterian minister George Duffield officiated his funeral. So those are his connections. 

William Floyd is the other Presbyterian from New York. His family background was Welsh. He was born in Long Island in 1734, one of eight children. He received very little formal education, but he was born into a family of great wealth, active in political affairs. During the war, he was forced to flee his home and leave behind his vast 4,000-acre estate, which was then ravaged by the British. He was married twice. Most of all of these men were married. Most of them were married twice, because their wife died. And he had five children. He was committed to the South Haven Presbyterian Church on Long Island. He took an active role in establishing the church. He helped fund the church. He served as an officer in the church – not an elder, but they had someone who certified elections in the church. That was him. One source says this, and this is not exactly a compliment, “Mediocre in ability though he might be” – that's not the first sentence you want in your obituary – “Mediocre in ability though he might be, he was nevertheless for years honored by fellow citizens with offices of trust and respectability.” He died in 1821. 

Pennsylvania. This is one of the true forgotten founders. Benjamin Rush. He was born in Philadelphia in 1745. He was the only Presbyterian signer from Pennsylvania who was born in America. As a boy, he went with his mother to hear the famous Presbyterian revival preacher Gilbert Tennent. His early education was Samuel Finley. Later would be president of Princeton, another Presbyterian. He graduated from the College of New Jersey. That's another name for Princeton in 1769. He did, then, a medical internship with one of the elders, so he graduated 1766. He did a medical internship with one of the elders from Second Presbyterian Church. So, Philadelphia at this time had First Presbyterian and Second Presbyterian, and they did not get along well. First Presbyterian was the old school, not in favor of the revivals, and Second Presbyterian was the pro-revival. The first general assembly took place at Second Presbyterian Church. Sadly, that church doesn't exist in Philadelphia. It is now a pizza parlor. So, also good, but not as good as the church still existing. While he was studying in Edinburgh, he was called upon to meet with John Witherspoon and to implore John Witherspoon, who was at the time a pastor in Scotland, to come and take the position as the president at Princeton. So, he's a recent Princeton graduate, writing letters and saying, "You got to go meet with Witherspoon and convince him to come.” Rush returned to America. He taught chemistry at the College of Philadelphia, now UPenn. He worshiped at First Presbyterian Church. In 1776, he married Julia Stockton. That's the daughter of one of the other founders we'll come to in just a moment. And he said one of the chief reasons for marrying her was because she considered John Witherspoon the best preacher she had ever heard. Young men, look for wives that have good taste in preachers, and women for men. Rush did so many things in his life – surgeon with the militia, constitutional ratifying convention in Pennsylvania, treasurer for the U.S. Mint. He helped to establish Dickinson College. He helped to found the Bible Society. He helped Philadelphia navigate the yellow fever epidemic. He supported the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The black leaders there said they had no friend as great as Benjamin Rush. He is another one of those sort of Forrest Gumps of the founding era – every scene, oh, there's Benjamin Rush again. He signed the Declaration in August. He was a medical doctor, philanthropist, abolitionist. Now, to be fair, later in life, he drifted from his earlier evangelical and Presbyterian convictions. He became less orthodox over the years. He dabbled in Unitarian Universalism. He read his Bible daily. He considered himself a Christian, though he died without a strong denominational attachment. 

James Smith, also from Pennsylvania, born in Northern Ireland in 1720, comes to America, settles in York County, Pennsylvania. He received his education from another Presbyterian minister, Reverend Francis Alison. Smith became a lawyer, surveyor, worked in manufacturing. Early in 1774, which was very early, he started already publishing that the bands between America and England should be dissolved. He worked in both the Pennsylvania Congress and the Continental Congress. In 1789, he was instrumental in establishing a Presbyterian church in York, Pennsylvania. He signed the call for the first pastor. He was an elder in the congregation. We even have record of him attending presbytery meetings. Bonus points. When he died in 1801, he was buried in the Presbyterian churchyard. 

George Taylor. He was born in Northern Ireland in 1716. Settled in Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1736. Became a successful businessman. Had a furnace and forge company, was elected to the provincial congress assembly in Pennsylvania in 1764. During the war, his company supplied gunshot and ammunition. He was elected to the Continental Congress after July 4, but he signed the document anyway. His roots were also Presbyterian. In 1765, he gave a plot of land to the Presbyterian minister in Bucks County. When he died in 1781, he was buried in a Lutheran cemetery, though it seems he was a member of Red Hills Presbyterian Church. So, you can see some of these men have a, you know, somewhat connection, and some of them have a very strong connection. 

James Wilson. I have a book – it's not a long book – it's on America's forgotten founders. And in this book, it's very fascinating. The authors, the editors of the book, surveyed 45 professional historians to ask them which men and women are overlooked who played a key role in the founding of the republic from the 1760s to, you know, maybe George Washington's presidency. So, you got to take out Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton. That's like Wheel of Fortune, R S T L N and E. We already know you want them, so who else? They accumulated an initial list of 73 names, and then they voted on the list to come up with the top 10 of forgotten founders, and James Wilson came out by a wide margin as the number one forgotten founder. You want to know who else is on the list? George Mason, Gouverneur Morris, John Jay, Roger Sherman, John Marshall, John Dickinson, Thomas Payne – I don't think he's that forgotten, Patrick Henry – not that forgotten, and then John Witherspoon. So, this man, James Wilson, was born in Scotland in 1742 in a small town near St. Andrews, and he was perhaps the best educated of the Presbyterian signers, although John Witherspoon would give him a run for his money. He attended three universities in Scotland over the course of almost 10 years: St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Came to America in 1766. He lectured at UPenn. He later turned his attention to law. He got married in 1771 to Rachel Bird of Birdsboro. Now here, when you look at history, if you're from the town that's your same last name, it means you were probably really well off. Like there's a Caroll[ton] of Carollton who's one of the signers of the Declaration. It means you got a lot of money. Say I’m Kevin DeYoung of DeYoungsville, then you got something important going on. So, he married Rachel Bird of Birdsboro. He formed a corporation with 11 other men to establish the First Presbyterian Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Later he became a pew holder at First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, and he became one of the most significant financial backers of the church. Played a key role in adopting the Declaration. He was very instrumental in working for the adoption of the federal constitution. In 1789, he was appointed by Washington to the Supreme Court. A little bit of a sad ending to his life: he lost vast sums of money in land speculation, and he died in poverty. In 1798, he died in the home of his friend and Supreme Court Justice Judge James Iredell, for whom we have a county nearby, while on a judicial circuit in North Carolina. So, he died in North Carolina. 

On to New Jersey. We'll move quickly. Abraham Clark. He was born in Elizabeth Town, New Jersey in 1726, the only child of his parents. He was baptized as an infant by the well-known Presbyterian minister Jonathan Dickinson. He received no formal education, but he taught himself law, and he built up a reputable legal business. He was the sheriff of Essex County. He was a member of the committee of safety in Elizabeth Town. He served in the Continental Congress and later in the New Jersey state legislature. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth Town, pastored by James Caldwell. If we had time, James Caldwell – we could talk about him. He was known as the fighting parson, because he served with the army during the war. Tragic story. His wife was shot by British troops when she was inside her home with their children. Caldwell was murdered by a sentry in 1781, leaving behind nine orphaned children. So that was his pastor. Clark was a trustee at the church for four years. He died in 1794, and he was buried in the Presbyterian Churchyard in Rahway, New Jersey. 

Richard Stockton, born in 1730 into a family of wealth and privilege. You see there's different – some of them born into obscurity, some of them self-taught, some of them went to college. Stockton had his father for a judge – his father was judge – he was instrumental, his father, in getting the college of New Jersey to move to Princeton. There is – he built a beautiful estate called Morven. You can still go to Princeton. You can see Morven. It's a lovely estate. It's still there. He received, Richard, his early education from the Presbyterian minister Samuel Finley, again. He graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1748, so one of the first graduating classes. He studied law. He was a key member on the board of trustees of Princeton from 1757 until 1781. He was the driving force to raise funds for the Presbyterian congregation in Princeton. So, there was a church that was just literally a stone’s throw from Nassau Hall, which is where all the classes were, and the students were housed, at Princeton. And midway through his presidency, John Witherspoon built a house called Tusculum. There's a college in the south called Tusculum, which is named after John Witherspoon's home, which was named after a famous Roman residence, Tusculum – about a mile outside of town. He built that house in the late 1770s, 1780s. You can also see that house. Now, the Morven house with Richard Stockton is a museum. John Witherspoon's old Tusculum house is still a private residence. Somebody still lives there. Tell me if it comes for sale. I won't move there. We'll just get the house, and we'll all take tours. It'll be very lucrative. Richard Stockton helped to establish and fund the church building there in Princeton. They were robustly Presbyterian. His wife, Annis, was the sister of Elias Boudinot, another founding father, the president of the Continental Congress, the first president of the trustees of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. Boudinot married Stockton's sister, and Stockton's daughter Julia, who we heard, married Benjamin Rush. He died in 1781. The funeral sermon was preached by the Presbyterian minister and John Witherspoon's son-in-law, Samuel Stanhope Smith. 

John Hart, also from New Jersey. Born in 1771 in Connecticut. No formal education, but he rose to become a justice of the peace, then a judge, then a member of Congress. During the battles of Trenton and Princeton, in the end of ‘76 into ‘77, his home had to be abandoned. Harm came to his property and to his family. In 1735, he was received into membership at Hopewell Presbyterian Church, not the Hopewell here in Charlotte, but one outside of Princeton. Records indicate he gave almost continuous financial support to the church for 40 years after he joined. He died in 1779. His body was buried in a private plot and eventually moved to Hopewell Baptist Church. 

And then we come to John Witherspoon, and I promise I'll keep this brief. He was born in 1723 in Scotland. Presbyterian pastor for a father, and on his mother's side, he could claim a direct descendant from John Knox. He was ordained in 1745 to the ministry. He served two congregations around Glasgow, in Beith and in Paisley. I'm wearing a tie with paisleys here in his honor this morning. He came to America in 1768 to become the president of the College of New Jersey, or Princeton. He flourished on both sides of the Atlantic as an author, thinker, educator, denominational leader, controversialist, and he's now most well-known not for being a great, great, great something to Reese Witherspoon – that claim has not been verified; she has made the claim – but to be the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. So, here's a quiz. Do we have any gospel ministers on American currency? Do we? We do. The little-used $2 bill. There it is. Trumbull's painting – in the very back corner, four men sitting down there in the right side – one of those is John Witherspoon, so one minister is on our money, and he's a Presbyterian. So, way to go. John Witherspoon right there – we got an evangelical, orthodox Presbyterian minister, so long live the $2 bill. Witherspoon really had four careers: a local church pastor, a college president, a congressman and founding father, and a leader in the Presbyterian church. When the first General Assembly took place in Philadelphia in 1789, he was the natural choice to preach the opening sermon. He was the key leader in almost every important committee in the development of the Presbyterian Church. Few Christians in the 18th century wore as many hats with as much success as Witherspoon did. He died in 1794. 

And then a final before we wrap up, Thomas McKean from Delaware. Born in Pennsylvania in 1734. Another one of the men who received his education from Francis Alison. So, this is how education often worked is you had ministers who had – might be a personal private tutoring or they might have a few men that would meet in a little academy in their home or in their church. That's how people were educated. McKean studied law, served in the Delaware Assembly, became a strong opponent of the Stamp Act, influential in forming Delaware's Constitution. In 1777, he became the acting president of Delaware and was named the same year as chief justice in Pennsylvania. He was married twice. He had 11 total children. On October 2nd, 1774, his name was entered in the roles as a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. He contributed financially, and McKean, together with Benjamin Rush and James Wilson – so those are all founders we've talked about – they all formed a corporation to help fund the rebuilding of the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia after it had been damaged during the war. Though he was from Delaware when he signed the Declaration, he served as chief justice in Pennsylvania for 22 years. He was buried in 1817 – or died in 1817; be good to know he was buried the same year he died – in the graveyard of First Presbyterian Church. He was known to have been, throughout his life, a devout Christian and a committed Presbyterian. 

So, on the one hand, we don't want to exaggerate that every single one of these men were the same kinds of devout Christian, and yet we don't want to undersell. Remember, at this time, there are really no liberal Presbyterian churches in America. There are some in Scotland. You have some that are for the revival or against the revival. You have no liberal Presbyterian churches. Now, these men might have been connected out of habit or because it was the thing to do. That might have been the case, but they were not a part of any liberal Presbyterian churches. Notice they were almost all from the middle colonies. That's where Presbyterianism was strongest and most numerous. All of them were married. Five were married twice. And if you take Abraham Clark out of it, they all had at least five children. The Presbyterians were, on average, older. The typical signer was in his 30s – these were young men – or maybe 40s, but the average Presbyterian signer was 51. And because of that fact, they had more to lose by signing the Declaration. When they pledged their fortunes, they meant it. With the possible exception of the man – I forgot which one – who had the iron foundry and sold ammunition, he may have gotten a little bit of a, you know, a windfall from the war. No one else did. They all, many of them, their properties suffered. They were really risking their lives. John Witherspoon's son died in the Battle of Germantown, there in North Philadelphia. They were taking a risk in signing the Declaration, and the Presbyterians chief among them because of their older age had the most to lose. 

So, why were Presbyterian pastors and churches almost uniformly for independence? Well, they were better prepared because of Presbyterian polity for a democratic and representative government. Many have wondered that in 1787, when the Presbyterians are forming their National Assembly, and really two blocks away – it is a stone’s throw away – the Constitutional Convention is meeting in Philadelphia, that there is a remarkable convergence, not only the sort of men who are there, but the kind of government that is formed, with the layers of federalism and session, congregation, presbytery, general assembly. It's not a stretch to see the overlap and the kind of conception of how government works. It's also true, and I think this is most important, that to a man they saw the intimate connection between civil liberty and religious liberty. And remember dissenters – Presbyterians were dissenters. They were part of the group that was not the state church in England. They were non-Anglicans. So, they had in their personal memory or their institutional memory persecution or at least inconvenience, annoyance, and they were very, very passionate for both civil liberty and religious liberty, which made Presbyterians, among all the denominations, most uniformly for independence. 

So, here's where we'll stop. Look back 51 years – May 20, 1975 here in Charlotte. I know if any of you were here, you can tell me later. There were 105,000 people gathered in Freedom Park to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Mecklenburg Declaration, or 200th at the time anniversary of the Mecklenburg Declaration. President Ford was there for the occasion, and he had been warned by his staff. I don't know that – even though the occasion was the MecDec, he said nothing about it. His staffers warned him, not sure this exists, better to play it safe, and don't talk about that. Ford was completely shown up by the speaker who came before him. The speaker before President Ford said, “The story of the Mecklenburg Declaration is a high watermark in American history.” He said, "When I was a boy, we were taught about this declaration to such an extent that I must have been in about fifth grade before I heard there was a Declaration of Independence signed in Philadelphia in 1776. Such has been the loyalty of the people of this community to Charlotte and Mecklenburg County." Later, he does acknowledge there's a debate, but he said the MecDec is the “kind thing this rugged, courageous, self-reliant community would have done for the roots of independence dug deep, caused in part by a belief in God of these freedom-loving Mecklenburgers.” And then the speaker emphasized he felt a kinship with the signers. He said he also felt a connection with the signers of the United States Declaration. He said both sets of men were deeply religious: "Their faith was the inner resource that directed their actions and gave meaning and purpose to their lives." That's not to say – today we know that many of them, some of them – some, not many, some – were deists. Several were latitudinarian in their beliefs, but all religious in some manner. He noted, the speaker, that no fewer than 14 of the MecDec signers were elders in their churches, and two were clergymen. He could have also noted that 12 of the 56 signers of the national Declaration were Presbyterians, and most of the signers were church-going Christians of one kind or another. And so, he said, "It is significant," as he looked out over 105,000 people in Freedom Park, “that both the signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration and the signers of the U.S. Declaration boldly proclaimed their belief in and their dependence upon God.” That much is true, and it's a good reminder back then in 1775, and now in 2026, to get that reminder from Charlotte's most famous son, Billy Graham. See you at 10:45 in just over a half hour.