AMERICAN MINUTE
PERSECUTED FOR PATRIOTISM? IT HAPPENED ALL THE TIME
Bill Federer remembers life of Declaration signer Richard Stockton
Richard Stockton signed the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration mentioned God four times: “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. … All Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights … Appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions. … And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
Richard Stockton’s brother-in-law, Elias Boudinot, was president of the Continental Congress for a term, signed the Treaty of Paris, and founded the American Bible Society. Richard Stockton’s son, also named Richard Stockton, was a U.S. Senator from New Jersey. His grandson, Robert F. Stockton, was a U.S. Navy Commodore and a hero of the War of 1812. He helped freed slaves found the country of Liberia, West Africa.
In 1846, Robert F. Stockton defeated the Mexican army and captured California, serving as its first military governor. Stockton, California, was named for Commodore Richard F. Stockton.
Prior to the Revolutionary War, Richard Stockton traveled to England in 1767, where he met with many leaders: Edmund Burke, the Marquis of Rockingham, the Earl of Chatham, and even King George III, acknowledging the repeal of the Stamp Act.
The Stamp Act, passed by the British Parliament in 1765, required a tax on every piece of printed paper, including legal documents, licenses, newspapers, and publications, effectively restricting communication among American citizens.
Richard Stockton, who was a trustee of Princeton College, traveled to Scotland where he met with a young Princeton graduate attending medical school there – Benjamin Rush. Benjamin Rush later married Richard Stockton’s daughter, Julia. Richard Stockton and Benjamin Rush persuaded Rev. John Witherspoon to come to America and be the new president of Princeton.
In 1776, Richard Stockton, Benjamin Rush and John Witherspoon joined the other delegates in the Continental Congress in signing the Declaration of Independence, pledging their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. When the British invaded New Jersey, Richard Stockton and his family had to flee for their lives. Richard was betrayed by loyalists, dragged from his bed at night and imprisoned in New York. His farm was pillaged and his library, one of the best in the country, was burned.
Richard Stockton’s health was broken from over a year in the British prison and he died bankrupt at age 51 on Feb. 28, 1781. New Jersey placed a statue of Richard Stockton in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall.
Richard Stockton wrote in his will: “As my children … may be peculiarly impressed with the last words of their father, I think proper here, not only to subscribe to the entire belief of the great leading doctrine of the Christian religion. … but also in the heart of a father’s affection, to exhort them to remember ‘that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.'”
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