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No people will tamely surrender their liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when people are universally ignorant, and debauched in their manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign invaders.” Letter to James Warren (Nov. 4, 1775).
Continuing this week with another installment of The 1776 Project, today’s guest is that old troublemaker, Samuel Adams (1722-1803). Regarded by Thomas Jefferson as “the patriarch of liberty,” Samuel Adams spearheaded the revolutionary cause and was one of the first to recognize that struggle was necessary to restore the rights of the colonial people.
The descendant of Puritan immigrants, Samuel had great appreciation for his ancestors that carved a niche for his family in the New World. His father, Samuel Sr., made a fortune as a merchant, brewer, and deacon, but the younger Samuel followed a path of civil service. His second-cousin, through a shared great-grandfather, was the lawyer John Adams, 13 years his junior, who would also take part in the revolution. Both Adamses studied law at Harvard University, and in their careers put forth reflective arguments, in both print and rhetoric, for how their rights were abused by British dominance, arguments that appealed to both the common man and the educated erudite. In response to the incendiary Stamp Act (1765), a direct tax imposed by Parliament on paper products (e.g. newspapers, legal documents, pamphlets, and even playing cards), the firebrand Samuel founded the Sons of Liberty, an underground organization in the Colonies that sought restore their equal rights as Englishmen. The words and actions of the Sons of Liberty – including the phrase, “No taxation without representation” coined by lawyer James Otis Jr. - led to the quick repeal of the Stamp Act, but the rift between the motherland and her colonies continued to widen. Samuel and his allies resisted the Townshend Acts and taxation impositions that followed over the next decade. Tensions came to a head in 1770 with the Boston Massacre, in which several of the Sons of the Liberty were shot while protesting and provoking British sentries (Sam’s lawyer cousin John successfully defended the redcoats in court). Another instance of culminating unrest came with the Boston Tea Party of 1773, in which the Sons of Liberty protested against the tea tax by boarding docked ships from the British East India Company and dumping the cargo of tea into the harbor.
The following year, as Parliament issued the Intolerable Acts to punish Massachusetts, the Adamses became delegates in the Continental Congress, a convention of representatives from the Colonies that met in Philadelphia to address the tumult. The requests of the First Continental Congress for redress from Parliament and the Crown fell on deaf ears in London. In April 1775, British authorities out of Boston sought to arrest the Patriot leaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and confiscate a rumored cache of weapons stored secretly by the colonials in the town of Concord. Thanks to advance warning from nightriders, including Paul Revere, the two men evaded the redcoats, and the expedition was met by the armed resistance of local militiamen, kicking off the Revolutionary War. A month after the fighting at Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress convened - but with greater zeal. The Adamses nominated the Virginia delegate George Washington as the commander of the newly-formed Continental Army, and they became head proponents of a war that would severe the ties with Britain. John aided Thomas Jefferson with the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, and Samuel would join the rest of the congressmen by attaching his signature to the document. While John was dispatched to Europe to serve in a diplomatic capacity, Samuel continued to serve in the Congress, where he helped draft the Articles of Confederation, until the military victory of the war in 1781. Following the revolution, Samuel returned to Massachusetts to serve in the state senate and governorship. In 1797 he retired from public life, and six years later he passed away at age 81. Today he rests in Boston’s Granary Burying Ground, along with his fellow revolutionaries and old friends: Paul Revere, James Otis Jr., Robert Treat Paine, John Hancock, and the five men killed in the Boston Massacre.
Regarding slavery, Samuel Adams loathed the practice. Like several other Signers, such as John Adams and Richard Sherman, he never owned a slave. As a wedding gift, he was given a slave girl named Surry, but he freed her immediately, and Surry worked and lived as a free servant with the household for decades. Black men were allowed admittance into the Sons of Liberty, the most famous member being Crispus Attucks, a former slave who was the first slain in the Boston Massacre, and afterwards lionized by Samuel and Boston’s abolitionists. A profile in moral courage, Samuel Adams believed in maintaining the virtues of his Puritan forebears, and that the protection of principle and liberty was the struggle of every generation.
“Since his death, the nation witnessed the growth of slavery, a Civil War, segregation, as well as limits on political rights based on race and gender,” wrote his biographer Mark Puls. “But the ideals that Adams fought for and the tools he used to obtain his goals have likewise endured and continued to live in the hearts of future generations of abolitionists, civil rights advocates, soldiers, politicians and statesmen, and by countrymen. His prayer was that liberty would continue to be cherished by “millions yet unborn.””

Description

No people will tamely surrender their liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when people are universally ignorant, and debauched in their manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign invaders.” Letter to James Warren (Nov. 4, 1775).
Continuing this week with another installment of The 1776 Project, today’s guest is that old troublemaker, Samuel Adams (1722-1803). Regarded by Thomas Jefferson as “the patriarch of liberty,” Samuel Adams spearheaded the revolutionary cause and was one of the first to recognize that struggle was necessary to restore the rights of the colonial people.
The descendant of Puritan immigrants, Samuel had great appreciation for his ancestors that carved a niche for his family in the New World. His father, Samuel Sr., made a fortune as a merchant, brewer, and deacon, but the younger Samuel followed a path of civil service. His second-cousin, through a shared great-grandfather, was the lawyer John Adams, 13 years his junior, who would also take part in the revolution. Both Adamses studied law at Harvard University, and in their careers put forth reflective arguments, in both print and rhetoric, for how their rights were abused by British dominance, arguments that appealed to both the common man and the educated erudite. In response to the incendiary Stamp Act (1765), a direct tax imposed by Parliament on paper products (e.g. newspapers, legal documents, pamphlets, and even playing cards), the firebrand Samuel founded the Sons of Liberty, an underground organization in the Colonies that sought restore their equal rights as Englishmen. The words and actions of the Sons of Liberty – including the phrase, “No taxation without representation” coined by lawyer James Otis Jr. - led to the quick repeal of the Stamp Act, but the rift between the motherland and her colonies continued to widen. Samuel and his allies resisted the Townshend Acts and taxation impositions that followed over the next decade. Tensions came to a head in 1770 with the Boston Massacre, in which several of the Sons of the Liberty were shot while protesting and provoking British sentries (Sam’s lawyer cousin John successfully defended the redcoats in court). Another instance of culminating unrest came with the Boston Tea Party of 1773, in which the Sons of Liberty protested against the tea tax by boarding docked ships from the British East India Company and dumping the cargo of tea into the harbor.
The following year, as Parliament issued the Intolerable Acts to punish Massachusetts, the Adamses became delegates in the Continental Congress, a convention of representatives from the Colonies that met in Philadelphia to address the tumult. The requests of the First Continental Congress for redress from Parliament and the Crown fell on deaf ears in London. In April 1775, British authorities out of Boston sought to arrest the Patriot leaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and confiscate a rumored cache of weapons stored secretly by the colonials in the town of Concord. Thanks to advance warning from nightriders, including Paul Revere, the two men evaded the redcoats, and the expedition was met by the armed resistance of local militiamen, kicking off the Revolutionary War. A month after the fighting at Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress convened - but with greater zeal. The Adamses nominated the Virginia delegate George Washington as the commander of the newly-formed Continental Army, and they became head proponents of a war that would severe the ties with Britain. John aided Thomas Jefferson with the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, and Samuel would join the rest of the congressmen by attaching his signature to the document. While John was dispatched to Europe to serve in a diplomatic capacity, Samuel continued to serve in the Congress, where he helped draft the Articles of Confederation, until the military victory of the war in 1781. Following the revolution, Samuel returned to Massachusetts to serve in the state senate and governorship. In 1797 he retired from public life, and six years later he passed away at age 81. Today he rests in Boston’s Granary Burying Ground, along with his fellow revolutionaries and old friends: Paul Revere, James Otis Jr., Robert Treat Paine, John Hancock, and the five men killed in the Boston Massacre.
Regarding slavery, Samuel Adams loathed the practice. Like several other Signers, such as John Adams and Richard Sherman, he never owned a slave. As a wedding gift, he was given a slave girl named Surry, but he freed her immediately, and Surry worked and lived as a free servant with the household for decades. Black men were allowed admittance into the Sons of Liberty, the most famous member being Crispus Attucks, a former slave who was the first slain in the Boston Massacre, and afterwards lionized by Samuel and Boston’s abolitionists. A profile in moral courage, Samuel Adams believed in maintaining the virtues of his Puritan forebears, and that the protection of principle and liberty was the struggle of every generation.
“Since his death, the nation witnessed the growth of slavery, a Civil War, segregation, as well as limits on political rights based on race and gender,” wrote his biographer Mark Puls. “But the ideals that Adams fought for and the tools he used to obtain his goals have likewise endured and continued to live in the hearts of future generations of abolitionists, civil rights advocates, soldiers, politicians and statesmen, and by countrymen. His prayer was that liberty would continue to be cherished by “millions yet unborn.””