The Reason For The Season

Benjamin Harrison to Elbridge Gerry on the signing of the Declaration of Independence:

"I shall have a great advantage over you when we are all hung [sic] for what we are doing. From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air for an hour or two before you are dead."*

 Enjoy the booms and the pretty flashes in the sky.

*Source: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=269 

 I've seen this quote turned around so that Gerry was saying how much he envied Harrison for his (Harrison's) bulk. Either way it's probably apocryphal, but I don't care. It illustrates perfectly the situation the signers were in: they simultaneously committed treason and confessed to it with one stroke of a pen.