Samuel Adams is the reason that the American Revolution gained the support neccessary for obtaining independence from Great Britain. His writings played a large role in the outworking of this.
The Public Advertiser and Other Publications
By January of 1748, with the approval of his father, Samuel Adams had begun a newspaper entitled The Public Advertiser. The newspaper was predominantly Whig, and included mostly editorials and commentary. It was through this newspaper that Adams had begun expressing his disapproval of Parliament’s control. In his political writings, Adams expressed his knowledge of ancient Rome and Greece. He compared the downfall of the ancient Roman Empire to the possible future downfall of New England if its Puritanical views were abandoned. Adams also believed that "political literature was to be as selfless as politics itself, designed to promote its cause, not its author."
Samuel Adams also wrote for other newspapers throughout his life. One of which was the Boston Gazette where he wrote a series of articles in 1769 entitled The Right of Revolution. In this, he wrote of some of the benefits of independence from monarchy. This was one of many such articles, circular letters, leaflets, and pamphlets. He wrote many articles for the Boston Gazette. One of the leaflets he wrote was entitled The Rights of the Colonists. In this leaflet, written in 1772, he stressed the rights of life liberty and property, along with the right to protect and defend these rights. He believed that these rights were granted to us by nature and essential to self-preservation.
The Effects of the Writings
Samuel Adam's writings influenced people's opinion of Great Britain and Parliament’s rule over the colonies. Adams wrote the majority of the resolutions and reports which made Massachusetts the leader in the constitutional struggle. These made Massachusetts the center for negative attention from Great Britain.
Another circular letter was written on February 4, 1768 by Samuel Adams as well as James Otis, Thomas Cushing and Joseph Hawley. This letter represented a shift in the thinking of Patriots as a whole. Now they insisted that Parliament had no right to impose any taxes, including external, if their main purpose was to raise money. These circular letters claiming “no taxation without representation” against the Tea Act. In this circular letter Adams warned the colonies that the Tea Tax would “serve both to destroy the trade of the colonies & increase the revenue".This included taxes to pay the salaries of judges and governors. Samuel Adams was also responsible for drafting the response to the Intolerable Acts in September of 1774. These five Intolerable Acts were the Boston Port Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Administration of Justice Act, Quartering Act and Quebec Act. All considered by Samuel Adams a direct violation of colonist’s rights.
Adams also wrote a circular letter calling for the support of other colonies against the isolation of Boston. The effect of this was grand; Boston received much support from other colonies and proposed a general congress of the colonies. Adams thought that they should write a bill of rights, publish it worldwide, and then send out an ambassador to as a representative in the court of Great Britain. Due to the many letters Samuel Adams wrote to Parliament, the British government, including the king, believed that Samuel Adams was the main opposer of Great Britain in New England. Samuel Adams also assisted in the drafting of the Articles of Confederation.
These writings also affected opposers of the cause for American independence. Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn, who was going to question Benjamin Franklin, had once looked through a pamphlet written by Samuel Adams and said, “It told them of a hundred rights of which they had never heard of before, and a hundred grievances which never before felt.” The General’s words only prove how effective Samuel Adams’s words were on the colonists. Adams’s writings made colonists realize just what they should naturally have the right to and when and how Parliament was exceeding their boundaries and infringing upon the rights of colonists.
Between August, 1770, and December, 1772, Samuel Adams wrote more than forty articles for the Gazette. He would stay up late into the night to write these articles against the Tories and against Parliament’s control over the colonies. In these articles Samuel Adams also often wrote of the liberties of the colonists and chided them for not upholding these rights. The closer to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War the harsher Adams’s words became.
The writings of Samuel Adams actually influence unity among the colonies and among the Sons of Liberty from the colonies. He met his goal in his circular letters as they did unite all of the colonies to take the same stand against Great Britain.
Samuel Adams gained the support of many through his role in the Boston Tea Party, his opposition to the Intolerable Acts, his opposition to the Stamp Act, and his influential writings.
Sources
- Puls, Mark. Samuel Adams: Father of the American Revolution. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
- Miller, John C. Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda. Chicago: Stanford University Press, 1936.
- Wells, William Vincent. Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams. Manchester: Ayer Co Pub, 1988.Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
- Ammerman, David. In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774 New York: Norton, 1974
- Adams, John, and George W. Carey: The Political Writings of John Adams. Washington D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 2000
- Morgan, Edmund S, and Helen M. Morgan. Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1963
- Adams, Samuel and Harry Alonzo Cushing. The Writings of Samuel Adams. New York: Octagon Books, Inc. /G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1968.
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