ots Presbyterians and
their descendants came many of the leaders in the struggle for
independence, as Bancroft has well pointed out in the following words:
"The first voice publicly raised in America to dissolve all connection
with Great Britain came not from the Puritans of New England, nor the
Dutch of New York, nor the planters of Virginia, but from the
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians." Joseph Galloway (1730-1803), the
Loyalist, than whom, says Ford, "there could be no better informed
witness," "held that the underlying cause of the American Revolution
was the activity and influence of the Presbyterian interest," and
further, that "it was the Presbyterians who supplied the Colonial
resistance a lining without which it would have collapsed." And Joseph
Reed of Philadelphia, himself an Episcopalian, said: "The part taken
by the Presbyterians in the contest with the mother country was
indeed, at the time, often made a ground of reproach, and the
connection between their efforts for the security of religious liberty
and opposition to the oppressive measures of Parliament, was then
distinctly seen. A Presbyterian loyalist was a thing unheard of."
Parker, the historian, quotes a writer who says: "When the sages of
America came to settle the forms of our government, they did but copy
into every constitution the simple elements of representative
republicanism, as found in the Presbyterian system. It is a matter of
history that cannot be denied, that Presbyterianism as found in the
Bible and the standards of the several Presbyterian churches, gave
character to our free institutions." Ranke, the German historian,
declared that "Calvin was the founder of the American Government;" and
Gulian C. Verplanck of New York, in a public address, traced the
origin of our Declaration of Independence to the National Covenant of
Scotland. Chief Justice Tilghman (1756-1827) stated that the framers
of the Constitution of the United States were through the agency of
Dr. Witherspoon much indebted to the standards of the Presbyterian
Church of Scotland in molding that instrument.

SCOTS AS SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Of the fifty-six Signers of the Declaration of Independence, no less
than nine can be claimed as directly or indirectly of Scottish origin.
Edward Rutledge (1749-1800), the youngest Signer, was a son of Dr.
John Rutledge who emigrated from Ulster to South Carolina in 1735. The
Rutledges were a small Border clan