Samuel Adams

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Samuel Adams
4th Governor of Massachusetts
In office October 8, 1793 – June 2, 1797
Lieutenant(s)	Moses Gill
Preceded by	John Hancock
Succeeded by	Increase Sumner
Born	September 27, 1722 Boston, Massachusetts
Died	October 2, 1803 Boston, Massachusetts
Political party	None
Spouse	Elizabeth Checkley, Elizabeth Wells
Religion	Congregational

Samuel Adams (September 27, 1722 - October 2, 1803) was an American leader, politician, writer, political philosopher and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.^[1][2] Adams was the chief Massachusetts leader who garnered the support of the colonies in rebelling against Great Britain, ultimately resulting in the American Revolution. After serving as a tax collector in Boston, Adams led town meetings in which he drafted protests against the Stamp Act and called for the colonists to defend their rights and liberties. In the following years, Adams was responsible for organizing the Boston Tea Party and other protests against the British. Adams took a proactive role in the Continental Congress, fighting for the Suffolk Resolves, which called for Massachusetts to withdraw from royal authority and start up a colonial government in protest of the Intolerable Acts of 1774.^[3] He also championed for the approval of the Declaration of independence by the delegates at the Second Continental Congress. Adams was perhaps most influential as a political writer and theorist, in which he articulated the principles of republicanism that shaped the American political culture. He used his writing to influence others, and make a case for withdrawing from Great Britain and forming a new government.^[4]

After America gained their independence, Adams helped write the Massachusetts Constitution with John Adams and James Bowdoin.^[5] Afterwards, Adams helped draft the Articles of Confederation, which stood until plans to revise the document begun in September 1786.^[6] Along with John Hancock, another staunch anti-federalist, Adams reached a compromise with other federalists in Massachusetts to allow for amendments to Constitution, should the document go into effect.^[7] Even so, the Constitution was just barely ratified in Massachusetts, with less than 53% of the 355 convention members approving the document. Once the document was ratified by thirteen states, and became the law of the land, Adams ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives in the election for the 1st United States Congress. However, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in 1789. After John Hancock's death on October 8, 1793, Adams then served as the acting governor, until he was elected governor in January of the following year.^[8] He served that position until June 1797 when he decided to retire from the political scene.

[edit] Early life

This statue of Samuel Adams in front of Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts commemorates his early life there.

Samuel was born on Sunday, September 16, 1722 to Mary Fifield and Samuel Adams, Sr. Samuel was the married couple's tenth-born child, but he would be only the second to live past their third birthday.^[9] Mary, the only daughter of businessman Richard Fifield, and Samuel Sr., a deacon of the church, had been married nine years earlier and had settled in Samuel's recently-built home on Purchase Street in Boston, Massachusetts. Samuel's parents were devout Puritans, who were tied very closely to the Old South Congregation Church, which they helped build in 1715.^[10] In his early years, Samuel was heavily influenced by his mother and sister, Mary, both of whom were extremely religious. Samuel's father perhaps exercised the greatest influence on the young boy. His father was a very influential man in Boston, and he served a very important role in many of the town's affairs. He was on the board of selectmen, a member of the colonial legislature and an active member of many political organizations and clubs.^[11] Deacon Adams was active in many political discussions, and took an active stance against the control exerted by British royalty over the colonies. Samuel attended Boston Latin School, an institution known for its prestige, tradition and close ties to Harvard College. Adams was especially studious, showing a profound interest in Greek and Latin literature, which he would frequently allude to in his future writing.^[12] As a result of his religious upbringing, Adams felt a special appreciation for church services and the captivation effect they had on parishioners. He too wanted to influence others with his words, and he began to consider his future as a minister.

In 1736, at age fourteen, he entered Harvard College to begin his studies in theology. While at Harvard, Adams gradually shifted his interest to politics and political theory.^[13] He went on to pursue graduate studies at Harvard after receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1740. Adams developed his own political beliefs about the rights of colonists and British control over America. During this time, Adams was greatly influenced by the writings of John Locke, especially Locke's Two Treatises of Government, in which he justified England's 1688 Glorious Revolution removal of James II and installation of William of Orange into power. According to Locke's writing, all men were born with natural rights like "life, health, liberty, or possessions".^[14] The government was to protect these rights for the people. So enthralled by the political theory of Locke and others, Adams wrote his master's thesis on "whether it be lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved."^[15]

After graduating, Adams was unsure about his future career. Upon suggestion by his father, Adams then went into the mercantile business. Instead of employing his own son, Deacon Adams arranged for young Samuel to work at the counting house for Thomas Cushing. Samuel was not particularly interested by the business, and did not show the same conviction for business as conveyed by his co-workers. Foreseeing that business was not Samuel's intended path, Cushing fired Adams saying "he thought he was training a businessman, not a politician."^[16] After that, Adams' father gave him £1,000 to go into business for himself. Adams promptly loaned half the money to a friend in financial trouble, but he was never repaid back. Adams wastefully squandered the other half of the money. His father then employed Samuel in the family's malt business on Purchase Street. Samuel was seen through the streets of Boston lugging malt, and was called by some as "Sam the malster".^[17] During this time, Sam ran for his first political office, and was elected in 1746 as one of the clerks of the Boston market, where he worked for two future members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.^[18] in early life he was gay

[edit] Start as a political writer

In early 1748, Adams and some friends launched a public opinion publication that was agreed upon to be named The Public Advertiser.^[19] To his father's liking, the group launched the inaugural weekly issue in January of that year. The paper mostly contained editorials and commentary, with a predominantly Whig stance. On the cover of the publication was a woodcut illustration of Brittania liberating a bird tied by a cord to the arms of France.^[20] The publication stated it was "open to whatever may be adapted to state and defend the rights and liberties of mankind".^[21] With the publication, Adams began to express his general disapproval with Parliament and he believed they had overstepped their bounds by restricting the rights of American colonists. In his personal writings for the publication, Adams stated that sedition resulted from the instable emotions of men. He said, "It is a weak, feverish, sickly thing, a boisterous and unnatural vigor, which cannot support itself long, and oftentimes destroys the unhappy patient."^[22] Adams stated that citizens should not get too caught up in the respect given to people in high positions, or the praise given to leaders. "This has led millions into such a degree of dependence and submission".^[23] He went on to say that the people should believe in the constitution, not the leaders who dictate it. "Whoever, therefore, insinuates notions of government contrary to the constitution, or in any degree winks at any measures to suppress or even to weaken it, is not a loyal man."^[22] Adams showed strong conviction in his belief that the 1691 Massachusetts Charter had provided the American society with far more freedoms to enjoy than the British Constitution in England. Adams stated, "Our invaluable charter secures to us all the English liberties, besides which we have some additional privileges which the common people there have not."^[24] Using the charter as a guide, Adams and others demanded royal governor William Shirley be removed from power. They cited that the royal governor should not be able to hold that much power in Massachusetts, since the King in England was not even given the same powers. Adams stated that since "the King At Home cannot negative or suspend any Member of the upper House called the House of Lords",^[25] then the royal governor should not have that power and influence over the colony.^[26] Adams wrote that the new freedoms were a result of the Puritan pilgrimage to America. He declared that the people should be "happy beyond expression!--in the form of our government, in the liberty we enjoy--if we known our own happiness and how to improve it."^[27] Adams expressed his knowledge of the Ancient Rome and Greece, citing the Decline of the Roman Empire as an example of what could happen to New England if they were to abandon their Puritan values. He closely associated the peak of the Roman Empire with the early days of the Puritan New England settlements.^[28]

During this time of political enlightenment, Adams was struck by personal tragedy. In March 1748, Samuel's father died of an unknown cause. The Boston Independence Advertiser noted in his obituary:{{cquote|He was one who well understood and rightly pursued the civil and religious interests of this people; a true New England man, an honest patriot.^[29] Adams not only inherited the family brewery but a third of his father's estate as well, which he shared with his newly-married sister and his brother Joseph, a clerk in the town market. His father also removed the debt of the £1,000 loan he had made to Samuel a few years earlier, saying "it being my will that he be discharged from said debt at my decease."^[30] As the eldest son, Adams also was given responsibility of managing his father's affairs, including the malt house on Purchase Street.^[31]

Within ten years, he had spent and mismanaged most of it to the point where creditors even attempted to seize his home.^[32] By 1760, Adams was bankrupt and making by as a local tax collector; less than a year afterwards his accounts were £8,000 in arrears. "Making a virtue of necessity, Sam gloried in his poverty and compared himself to one of the 'Old Romans' who despised money and devoted themselves to their country's welfare."^[33]

[edit] Political activities

Turning his attention back to politics, Adams joined the "Whipping Post Club," as well as Boston's South End Caucus, which was a powerful force in the selection of candidates for elective office. He served as tax collector of Boston from 1756 through 1764, and used non-collection of taxes as a political bargaining chip. By 1765, he was a leader in Boston's town meetings, drafting protests against the Stamp Act that protested British efforts to tax the colonists and called for a spirited defense of Americans' "invaluable Rights & Liberties." Over the next decade he became an increasingly dominant leader of the town meeting. He repeatedly insisted on the "inherent and unalienable rights" of the people,^[34] a theme that became a core element of republicanism.

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 III was 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 which was a committee that recorded the British activities, where 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. This system was adopted by each of the Thirteen Colonies, creating the Continental Congress.

[edit] Boston Tea Party

An illustration of Adams from an 1899 history book.

Samuel Adams is best remembered for helping organize the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, in response to the Tea Act — a tax law passed in London that allowed the British East India Company to land tea free from the tax that had been imposed on it earlier. The angry reaction from all 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. Whose "spirited" resolves called for disobedience to the Coercive Acts, endorsed military preparations for defense, and called for the meeting of an extralegal provincial congress. Adams opposed a compromise offered by Joseph Galloway and advocated boycotts of British imports through the continental associations.

[edit] Continental Congress

Adams is depicted in John Trumbull's iconic work, seated on the left side, next to Richard Henry Lee, whose legs are crossed in the front row (Adams is just to the [viewer's] right of Lee).^[35]

In September 1774 Adams retired from the legislature and was a delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He was one of the first and loudest voices for independence. (Notably, only he and John Hancock were exempted from the general amnesty offered by Thomas Gage to Massachusetts rebels in 1775.) He was a workhorse member of the Second Continental Congress, serving on numerous committees, notably the Board of War, from May 1775 until 1781.

The climax of his career came when he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. After that 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. Like others in his party, Adams had both a suspicion and dislike of both General George Washington, declaring the army had "too many idle, cowardly...drunken generals",^[36] and the American army itself, often saying, "The sins of America will be punished by a standing army."^[36] 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.

[edit] State politics

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.

[edit] Personal life

After graduating with a Master of Arts degree from Harvard, Adams' mother wanted him to be part of the church, and his father wanted him to study law. Adams began to court Elizabeth Checkley, the daughter of Reverend Checkley at the church. His mother approved of his romantic relationships with a clergyman's daughter.^[37]

After a few years of courtship, Adams proposed to Elizabeth Checkley, and the couple was married at Reverend Checkley's house on October 17, 1749.^[38] In September of the following year, Elizabeth gave birth to a son named Samuel, but the infant died only eighteen days after birth. On October 16, 1751, Elizabeth again gave birth to a son they also named Samuel. Fortunately, there were no health issues with the child. Another son named Joseph was born just two years later, but he died the following day. Exactly a year after Joseph's birth, Elizabeth gave birth to the couple's first daughter, Mary.^[39]

[edit] Later life

Samuel Adams grave marker in the Granary Burying Ground.

In old age, Samuel suffered from symptoms akin to those of cerebral palsy or Parkinson's disease, so Samuel's daughter Hannah had to sign his name for him. In addition to his daughter Hannah, Adams had a son named Samuel Adams, Jr., by his first wife, Elizabeth Checkley (1725-1757), whom he married in 1749. She died three days after the birth of their last child, a stillborn. He and his second wife, Elizabeth Wells, whom he married in 1764, did not have any children.

His son, Samuel Adams, Jr., studied medicine under Doctor Joseph Warren, fellow patriot and friend to both Adams and his second cousin John Adams. Samuel Adams, Jr. held an appointment as surgeon in Washington's army. He died in 1788. His government claims provided enough for Adams and his wife to live on in their old age.

It was rumored that he and his wife's slave Surry were involved in a love affair, which Adams insisted was not true. Yet some of his letters were burned by Surry and Surry liked to recount tales of her master's friendly laugh and wholesome heart. She also spread rumors of rages, which may be founded on fact.

Adams died at the age of eighty-one in 1803 and was interred at the Granary Burying Ground in Boston. Owing to his occupation as a brewer, today a popular brand of beer known as Samuel Adams is produced by the Boston Beer Company.

[edit] Legacy

Adams has been regarded as a controversial figure in American history. In one viewpoint, he is seen as a pre-Revolution political visionary and leader, noted as the "Patriarch of Liberty" by Thomas Jefferson and the "Father of the American Revolution" by the people of his time.^[40] After Samuel's death, his cousin John stated:

Adams is associated with laying down the groundwork needed towards solidifying the thirteen colonies. In the pre-war times, the patriotic Adams emerged as a leader and a strategic and influential political writer.^[42] From 1764, Adams struggled to persuade his fellow colonists to move away from their allegiance to King George III and rise against the British control. He was the first leader to proclaim that the Parliament of England had no legal authority over America. Adams pioneered strategies of using the media to spread his revolutionary goals and ideas. In his monumental work, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, historian and politician George Bancroft said, "No one had equal influence over the popular mind"^[43] in the movement leading up to the war. American philosopher and historian John Fiske ranked Adams second only to George Washington in terms of importance to the founding of the nation.^[44]

Still, Adams has been overlooked by many biographers and historians because he did not have a major role in national politics during the time after the United States had become an independent nation. More crucial examinations of his record as a leader has produced works depicting Adams in a negative light. In his 1923 biographical work, Samuel Adams - Promoter of the American Revolution: A Study of Psychology and Politics, author Ralph V. Harlow portrays Adams as a zealot and a propagandist for the American independence movement.^[45] A similar view is also connoted in John C. Miller's 1936 biography, Samuel Adams: A Pioneer in Propaganda.^[46] More recent works have shown Adams as a propagandist who used the independence movement to further his own political ambitions, as stated in Russell Kirk's 1974 book The Roots of American Order in which Kirk labels Adams as a "well-born demagogue".^[46]

In her 1980 biographical work, The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of Samuel Adams, historian Pauline Maier argues that Adams was not the "grand incendiary" or firebrand of Revolution and was not a mob leader. She says that he took a moderate position based firmly on the English revolutionary tradition that imposed strict constraints on resistance to authority. That belief justified force only against threats to the constitutional rights so grave that the "body of the people" recognized the danger and after all the peaceful means of redress had failed. Within that revolutionary tradition, resistance was essentially conservative, intended to preserve what Adams described in 1748 as "the true object" of patriotic loyalty, "a good legal constitution, which...condemns every instance of oppression and lawless power." It had nothing in common with sedition or rebellion, which Adams, like earlier English writers, charged to officials who sought "illegal power".^[47]

[edit] Notable quotations

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Samuel Adams

• "If ye love wealth greater 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; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." --Speech delivered at the State House in Philadelphia, "to a very numerous audience," on August 1, 1776.^[48]

• "In monarchy the crime of treason may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished, but the man who dares rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death." -- Arguing for a Riot Act during a debate prompted by Shays' Rebellion and the death sentences given to the rebels.^[49]

• "If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." -- October 24, 1780 letter to James Warren.^[50]

• "We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom all alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds his subjects assuming that freedom of thought, and dignity of self-direction which He bestowed on them. From the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come." -- Speech at the State House, in Philadelphia, on August 1, 1776.^[51]

• "Freedom of thought and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum." -- Speech at the State House, in Philadelphia, on August 1, 1776.^[52]

• "And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions" -- While debating over the Constitution at the Massachusetts Convention of 1788.^[53]

[edit] See also

• Republicanism
• American Revolution

[edit] Bibliography

• John K. Alexander. Samuel Adams: America's Revolutionary Politician (2002)
• Steward Beach, Samuel Adams, The Fateful Years, 1764-1776 (1965),
• David Hackett Fischer. Paul Revere's Ride (1994)
• Dennis Brindell Fradin. Samuel Adams: The Father of American Independence (1998) for middle school audience
• James Kendall Hosmer. Samuel Adams 1885 online edition
• Benjamin H. Irvin. Sam Adams: Son of Liberty, Father of Revolution Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. 176.
• Pauline Maier. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 (1992)
• Pauline Maier, The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of Samuel Adams (1980) chap. 1: "A New Englander as Revolutionary: Samuel Adams,” pp 3-50
• John C. Miller, Sam Adams, Pioneer in Propaganda (1936)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Samuel Adams

• Samuel Adams quotes at Liberty-Tree.ca
• Samuel Adams Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
• Works by Samuel Adams at Project Gutenberg
• Adams' biography at U.S. Congress website
• Official Commonwealth of Massachusetts Governor Biography
• Adams Genealogy
• Biography by Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, 1856
• Biography resources dedicated to Samuel Adams
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Adams, Samuel