A first-person monologue by Lyman Hall (as presented in a YouTube video) in which he recalls moving from Connecticut to Georgia, serving as a Georgia delegate to the Continental Congress, and signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776 despite personal risk. He frames his actions as an expansion of a healer’s oath to preserve the people’s soul, recounts wartime losses inflicted by the British, and ends with a moral call for contemporary viewers to take up the cause of liberty.
Chapters
I am Lyman Hall. Once a minister, later physician, and always, always a servant to my conscience. I came from Connecticut, but destiny led me southward to Georgia, where I became one of her delegates to the continental Congress. In 1776, with pen in hand and the weight of an unborn nation upon my shoulders, I signed the Declaration of Independence. I knew that stroke of ink could destroy my livelihood or worse. But how could I do otherwise? I was not raised a rebel. I was a healer sworn to preserve life. And when the British crown began crushing the spirit of the colonies, my oath expanded. Healing, after all, can mean mending more than bodies. It can mean restoring the soul of a people. On the question of independence, Georgia was initially divided, cautious, uncertain. Yet I stood firm for liberty. For posterity. For you, I voted for independence. Later, when the British torched homes and terrorized citizens, including my own family, we bore the scars. But I never wavered. And by heaven, I kept that pledge. Liberty is not without cost. It demands sacrifice, sometimes in ways we never imagined. I made my stand in my time. Now, friend, it is your turn.