|
Samuel Adams (September 27, 1722 – October
2, 1803) was an American Patriot and organizer of the Boston Tea Party.
He played a major role in starting the American Revolution. Born to
Boston parents, Adams was a second child and attended school at Boston
School and Harvard College where he received a bachelor's degree in 1740
and a master's degree in 1743; prophetically, the subject of his
master's thesis was "Whether it be lawful to resist the supreme
magistrate if the commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved."
Although Adams' brother was named John, it
is not the same person as John Adams, the 2nd President of the United
States, who was Adams' second cousin.
After he completed his college education,
Adams and his father, Old Samuel Adams, began a partnership in a
brewery. Adams's father, however, soon lost most of his wealth due to
the failure of an investment venture in paper currency, which was made
illegal by the British government in 1744, thus exacerbating the
family's dislike for the central government. The elder Adams died in
1748, and Samuel took full charge of the family brewery.
Adams, in the meantime, became tax
collector of Boston and was vocal in town meetings, which brought him
significant political influence among his peers. He was a leader of a
group of radicals called the Sons of Liberty. When the brewery, never
enormously profitable, failed in 1764, Adams began devoting himself full
time to political matters, first drafting the colony's negative response
to the Sugar Act in May 1764, and the next year being elected to a seat
in the Massachusetts colonial legislature (called the "General Court"),
where he immediately became a vocal opponent of the Stamp Act, even to
the extent of helping to instigate Boston's Stamp Act riots of that
year.
While a member of the legislature, Adams
served as clerk of the house, in which capacity he was responsible for
drafting written protests of various British governmental acts during
his tenure, which continued to 1774. Notable among these was a circular
letter he drafted as a response to the 1767 Townshend Acts, distributed
among the other twelve colonies in a bid to achieve a united front of
resistance to these acts. The failure of the legislature to rescind the
contents of this letter at the express demand of King George is usually
cited as one of the main factors resulting in the stationing of troops
in Boston beginning in 1768.
This British troop presence in Boston,
aggravated by protest activities such as Adams' formation of the
Non-Importation Association, led to the Boston Massacre (a term coined
by Adams) two years later. After the incident Adams chaired a town
meeting which formed a petition, presented to acting governor Thomas
Hutchinson, demanding the removal of two British regiments from Boston
proper. Hutchinson at first claimed no responsibility for the matter,
owing to his temporary status as governor, but stated he would be
willing to move one regiment; the meeting was re-convened and Adams
successfully urged the crowd of over 5,000 present to stand firm on the
terms: "Both regiments or none!" Fearing open warfare, Hutchinson had
both regiments removed to Castle William, an old fort on an island in
Boston Harbor. These regiments would thereafter be known in the British
Parliament as "The Sam Adams Regiments."
In 1772, after a British declaration that
judges should be paid by the Crown rather than by the colonial
legislatures, a demand from the people of Boston for a special session
of the legislature to reconsider this matter was refused by Hutchinson.
It was at this point Adams devised a system of Committees of
Correspondence, whereby the towns of Massachusetts would consult with
each other concerning political matters via messages. Such a scheme was
still technically legal under British law, but led to a de facto
colonial legislative body. Dabney Carr of Virginia later proposed the
adoption of this system throughout the Thirteen Colonies, which led
eventually to the formation of the Continental Congress.
Adams is perhaps best remembered for
helping to organize, with William Molineux, the Boston Tea Party of
December 16, 1773, in response to the Tea Act. As British tea-ships sat
in Boston Harbor awaiting payment of the import duties, Adams energized
a large crowd gathered at the port with his oratory, and later donned
costume and led a band of men aboard ship where they dumped the tea into
the harbor, to the delight of the assembled spectators on shore. In
response to this escapade, Parliament passed what were later to be known
as the "Intolerable Acts," which called for the revocation of the
colonial charter of Massachusetts and the closing of the port of Boston.
Reaction from the colonies was to expedite the opening of a Continental
Congress, and when the Massachusetts legislature met in Salem on June
17, 1774, Adams locked the doors and made a motion for the formation of
a colonial delegation to attend the Congress. A loyalist member, faking
illness, was excused from the assembly and immediately went to the
governor, who issued a writ for the legislature's dissolution; however,
when the legislator returned to find a locked door, he could do nothing.
Adams was one of the major proponents of
the Suffolk Resolves drafted in response to the Intolerable Acts, and
adopted in September 1774. Also that month the Continental Congress held
its first meeting, and Adams retired from the legislature and was sent
to Philadelphia as a representative from the Massachusetts colony. From
the beginning of his time in Congress he was one of the most vocal
proponents of independence. (Notably, only he and John Hancock were
exempted from the general amnesty offered by Thomas Gage to
Massachusetts rebels in 1775.) After signing the Declaration in 1776,
Adams, wary of a strong central government, was instrumental in the
development and adoption of the loose government embodied in the
Articles of Confederation, to which he was also a signatory in 1777. He
continued serving in the Congress until 1781, when he was elected to the
state senate of Massachusetts. He served in that body until 1788,
becoming its president.
At the time of the drafting of the United
States Constitution, Adams was considered an anti-federalist, but more
moderate than others of that political stripe. His contemporaries
nicknamed him "the last Puritan" for his views; in 1788 he would write
in his diary regarding the federalist and anti-federalist factions,
"Neither Interest, I fear, display that Sobriety of Manners, Temperance,
or Frugality—among other manly Virtues—which once were the Glory and
Strength of our Christian Sparta on the Bay...". He finally came in on
the side of ratification, with the stipulation that a bill of rights be
added. Additionally, Adams was a member of the conventions that drafted
the first Massachusetts state constitution in 1779, and the second one
in 1788.
He stood unsuccessfully for election to the
House of Representatives for the first Congress, but was elected
Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, serving from 1789–94. He was
elected as governor in 1793 to succeed John Hancock, and served to 1797,
afterwards retiring to his home in Boston.
Adams died at the age of 81 and was
interred at the Granary Burying Ground in Boston. Owing to his
occupation as a brewer, today a popular brand of Boston beer bears his
name: Samuel Adams.
Well before his death, he freed his wife's
slave, Surry; however, she chose to remain in her service. It was
rumored that they were involved in a love affair, Samuel insisted it
wasn't true. Yet some of his letters were burned by Surry. Surry liked
to recount tales of her master's friendly laugh and wholesome heart. She
did spread rumors of rages, however they may be founded on fact.
A descendant of his, William V. Wells,
wrote a three volume biography about his famous ancestor.
Quotations
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the
tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom,
go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may your chains set
lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
-- Samuel Adams
"The said constitution shall never be
construed to authorize congress to prevent the people of the United
States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." --
Samuel Adams
"It does not require a majority to prevail,
but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in
people's minds." -- Samuel Adams
"He who made all men hath made the truths
necessary to human happiness obvious to all… Our forefathers opened the
Bible to all." ["American Independence," August 1, 1776. Speech
delivered at the State House in Philadelphia]
"Let divines and philosophers, statesmen
and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age by impressing
the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and
girls, inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity…
and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the
Christian system." [October 4, 1790]
"Remove both regiments or none." Samuel to
Governor Hutchinson about the state of the two regiments in Boston.
In old age, Samuel suffered from symptoms
akin to those of palsy or Parkinson's disease, so Samuel's daughter had
to sign his name for him. He also had one still born child, and his wife
died three days after the still born child.
****
The
above information has been copied in part or in
whole from Wikipedia.org
"The Free Encyclopedia." It may have been modified under
the GNU Free Document License Section 5 in the
following manner: (1) linking; (2) The "[Edit]" text;
(3) the Table of Contents; and
(4) portions may have
not been copied. This article has been licensed
under the terms of the GNU Free Document License.
URL of Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_adams
Date Article Copied:
March 17, 2006
We
will try to replace this article with an original
biography in the near future, but we hope this will
be of help to our visitors in the mean time.
See something wrong?,
Click Here to tell us about it
|