We know a few of the names on the Declaration of Independence. We’ve forgotten what signing actually cost them. Signing was treason, and the penalty was death — and these weren’t reckless young men with nothing to lose. They were the most respectable men in America, with fortunes and families and everything to lose. And they signed anyway. This is the story of the price they paid: the scholar broken in a freezing prison, the father offered his captured sons’ freedom if he’d recant, the old farmer hunted into the winter mountains, the financier who bankrolled the revolution and died in a debtor’s cell — and the one signer who, under torture, finally broke.

Day 6 of our seven-part salute to America’s 250th birthday.

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