Founders History: August 2024
The Sons of Liberty, progenitors of the Founding Fathers
In August, after the First Boston Stamp Act Riot, Samuel Adams wrote an article that appeared in Benjamin Edes’ Boston Gazette. Adams used the name and said:
“The Sons of Liberty on the 14th of August 1765, a Day which ought to be forever remembered in America, animated with a zeal for their country then upon the brink of destruction, and resolved, at once to save her…”
The Sons of Liberty is important to the history of the United States because it was an effective — although often violent — group that successfully coordinated efforts to resist the policies of the British government. Many members of the Sons of Liberty went on to serve on Committees of Correspondence, participate in the Provincial Congresses, and the Continental Congress, and became Founding Fathers.
Samuel Adams served as the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts from 1789 to 1793 and then as Governor until 1797. Adams is memorialized by a statue outside of Faneuil Hall in Boston, home of the Boston Town Meeting. The inscription reads, “Samuel Adams. 1722-1803. A patriot. He organized the Revolution and signed the Declaration of Independence.” Throughout his career, Adams adhered to an ascetic ideal of virtue that reflected both his Puritan heritage and his republican principles. He mobilized popular opinion against Britain through his mastery of propaganda techniques and his use of the press. Equally important was his participation in political organizations such as the Sons of Liberty. Adams was especially active in securing the passage of the 1768 Massachusetts Circular Letter, which denounced the Townshend Acts (1767). In 1772, he established a Boston Committee of Correspondence, which served as a model for other colonies.
A second cousin of John Adams, who was the second president of the United States, Samuel Adams was graduated from Harvard in 1740 and briefly studied law; he failed in several business ventures. As a tax collector in Boston, he neglected to collect the public levies and to keep proper accounts. Although unsuccessful in conducting personal or public business, Adams took an active and influential part in local politics. He played an important part in instigating the Stamp Act riots in Boston that were directed against the new requirement to pay taxes on all legal and commercial documents, newspapers, and college diplomas.
In Closing on this historical revolutionary a few lines from his Speech on August 1, 1776 called, "American Independence".
"Our Union is now complete; our constitution composed, established, and approved. You are now the guardians of your own liberties. We may justly address you, as the Decemvir did the Romans, and say - "Nothing that we propose can pass into a law without your consent. Be yourselves, O Americans, the authors of those laws on which your happiness depends."
Further Reading
