Would We Have Signed?
Reflections on Courage, Freedom, and the Birth of America
I spent part of my weekend watching a documentary about George Washington. Some of it felt familiar, things I half-remembered from school. Other parts genuinely stopped me. Not because the facts were new, but because I actually let myself sit with them this time instead of just absorbing them and moving on.
We always look back at the founding of this country knowing how it ends. The colonies won. Washington became our first president. America became the greatest nation in history. But the people who lived through it? They had no idea. No guarantee. No blueprint. Just a belief, and a decision about whether that belief was worth everything.
That's the part I couldn't stop thinking about.
If we had been living in 1776, would we have had the courage to sign?
The Men Who Risked Everything
I think we romanticize the founders a little. We picture the paintings, the wigs, the grand speeches. What we don't always picture is how genuinely terrifying that moment must have been.
These were not superhuman people. They were lawyers, farmers, merchants. And they looked at the most powerful empire on Earth and said — no. We will not submit to this.
Signing the Declaration wasn't a formality. If they lost, it was a death warrant. Every man who put his name on that document knew it. And they did it anyway, not out of recklessness, but out of something I can only describe as a refusal to accept the alternative. Submission wasn't something they were willing to live with.
That spirit didn't appear out of nowhere in 1776 either. The people who crossed an ocean to build this country were already carrying it. Washington and the founders didn't manufacture courage from nothing. They gave people who already had it a reason to use it.
Would They Recognize Us Now?
Here's the question I've been sitting with since I watched that documentary, and I'll be honest. I'm not sure I love my own answer.
If those founders could see America right now, would they recognize what they fought for?
I don't think they would.
They would see a southern border left open for years while citizens were told that caring about it made them cruel. They would see leaders who spent years apologizing for this country on the world stage, treating allies with contempt, appeasing people who wish us harm. They would see schools more focused on teaching children what's wrong with America than what's extraordinary about it. They would see the flag burned in the streets and called a protest. They would see elected officials who seem far more interested in what the rest of the world thinks of them than in the people they were sent to serve.
And I think they would ask: how did you let it go this far?
I'll Be Honest With You
That question hits me personally. Because I have to be honest about something.
I pulled back. More than I should have.
Not because I stopped believing what I believe. But because it got exhausting. When you support this president, when you say you want a secure border, when you simply say out loud that you love this country, the response from some people is vicious. And I don't mean a disagreement. I mean a level of nastiness that is hard to describe if you haven't experienced it firsthand.
At some point I just got tired of it. So I got quieter. More careful. I softened things I had no business softening.
But here's what watching that documentary reminded me: the founders didn't get to pull back. There was no quieter option. Putting their name on that document was the provocation, and they did it anyway, because the alternative was worse than the consequences.
I keep thinking about that. Some things matter more than avoiding the negativity. The freedom my kids and grandkids inherit is one of them.
I am done getting quieter.
The Slow Drift
The founders knew something I think we've let ourselves forget. The biggest threat to a free country doesn't always come from the outside. Sometimes it's the slow drift. The gradual acceptance of things that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. The silence of people who know better but decide it's not worth the fight today.
I'm not calling for anger. I want to be clear about that. I don't want to add to the ugliness because there's already enough of it. What I'm calling for is something much simpler and much harder: the courage to say what you actually believe. Clearly. Without apology. Without softening it for people who were never going to agree with you anyway.
That's what the founders did. That's what this moment asks of us too.
Why I Started This Brand
When I started The Lion & The Cross, people thought I was making t-shirts.
I was making a declaration.
The lion, the cross, the flag. To me those aren't just design elements. They're a reminder that everything we have was purchased at a cost most of us will never fully understand. And that it doesn't stay without people willing to fight for it, not with weapons, but with their voice. Their presence. Their refusal to go quiet.
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A Question Worth Asking
So I'll end where I started.
Would you have signed? Would you have put your name on something that dangerous, that uncertain, with that much on the line, before you knew how the story ended?
I ask myself that. And then I ask the more uncomfortable version: am I showing that kind of courage right now, today, in the much smaller and safer ways this moment asks of me?
I'm working on it. I hope you are too.
Because America's 250th birthday is coming and the story isn't finished. It's being written right now, by people like you and me, in the choices we make about whether to speak or stay quiet.
I know which one I'm choosing.
With gratitude for this country and everyone who fought for it,
Christine
The Lion & The Cross
Have you pulled back too? I'd really love to know. Drop it in the comments. And if this resonated with you, please share it. Someone in your life needs to read it.
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