Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams
Samuel Adamswas an American statesman, political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a politician in colonial Massachusetts, Adams was a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and was one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped the political culture of the United States. He was a second cousin to President John Adams...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth27 September 1722
CityBoston, MA
CountryUnited States of America
Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.
What a man has honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, but cannot be taken from him without his consent.
If virtue & knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great security.
The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.
Principally, and first of all, I resign my soul to the Almighty Being who gave it, and my body I commit to the dust, relying on the merits of Jesus Christ for the pardon of my sins.
In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind.
Hence as a private man has a right to say what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a Community to determine what they will give and grant of their substance for the Administration of public affairs.
But there are some persons who wouldpersuade the people never to make use of their constitutional rights.
All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should.
If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.
And if a minister shall usurp the supreme and absolute govern ment of America, and set up his instructions as laws in the colonies, and their Governors shall be so weak or so wicked, as for the sake of keeping their places, to be made the instruments in putting them in execu tion, who will presume to say that the people have not a right, or that it is not their indispensible duty to God and their Country, by all rational means in their power to RESIST THEM.
The country shall be independent, and we will be satisfied with nothing short of it.
What has commonly been called rebellion has more often been nothing but a manly and glorious struggle in opposition to the lawless power of rebellious kings and princes.
The right to freedom being the gift of God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave....