Samuel Adams
Sam of the Adams Family
There are few families in American history that have had quite an impact on the country's future as the Adams family. By September 27, 1722, when Samuel Adams was born in Boston, the Adams family already had a long and distinguished history in the new colonies. Adams's father, also named Samuel, was a successful businessman in the Massachusetts capital, who ran a brewery and served as deacon of the Congregational Church. Even then, long before the revolution, before John Adams would serve as President, and even longer before America had ever heard of John Quincy Adams, Abigail Adams or Henry Adams, the Adamses were already involved in politics. Samuel Adams, Sr. was a justice of the peace, selectman, and representative to the General Court, the colony's governing body. His mother supported the increasingly narrow Calvinist faith movement, and the pious woman influenced her son enough that he would later be called "the last of the Puritans."
Out in the World
After receiving his Master's degree, Samuel Adams began the search for a job. He halfheartedly began studying law but found that his mother's strong opposition prevented any serious study. He joined the counting house of Thomas Cushing, hoping to succeed in business. He quickly proved that he severely lacked business abilities. After a few months, Cushing broke the news to Adams and his parents that Adams would never be a merchant. Cushing remarked that he trained men to be merchants, not politicians. Adams's father thought that there might be hope for the young man to become a financier and thus loaned him a thousand pounds with which to begin business. Adams lost almost every penny in a single transaction. Samuel Adams then joined his father in the family brewery.
ORIGINAL LETTER to John Hancock, from distributors of East India tea, November 18, 1773.
Adams badly wanted to help lead Massachusetts, but, being in the opposition, he found his way blocked by the "Shirlean Faction" of Massachusetts politics, so- called after the governor of the same name who led the colony for sixteen years. Thus, Shirley's Court Party, composed of merchants, political appointees, and "High Church" men, faced Adams's Country Party–the mantle of which he had received from the party's founder, Elisha Cooke. Thomas Hutchinson was a strong opponent for Adams. The stunning Hutchinson had "captivated half the pretty ladies in the colony," the Country Party complained. In 1750, Hutchinson outlawed paper money, thus killing the pet project of the Country Party. In response, crowd of radicals attacked his house and burned it to the ground. Nonetheless, he stood proudly against everything Adams wanted. He would be Adams's great opponent for much of the rest of their lives.
Shifting Loyalties
By 1760, Thomas Hutchinson's efforts to preserve the colony's upper-class rule began to worry Adams deeply. Hutchinson was now president of the Massachusetts Council, lieutenant governor, Captain of Castle William and probate judge of Suffolk County–not only did it look like Hutchinson's party would prevent the government from becoming egalitarian, but it looked like Hutchinson himself might prevent anyone else from holding office altogether. His efforts violated the colony's principle that the different branches of government should be separated from one another, and Adams's followers complained that the colony "groaned under his Tyranny."
Sugar and Stamps
While the controversy from the writs died off, it did not take long for Britain to create a new controversy. In 1764, the British government imposed the Sugar Act, yet another in a long line of attempts to increase revenue for Britain. The act created new duties on Spanish wine and also significantly cut the duties on imported molasses that had been levied in 1733. To colonists, this signaled a change in Britain's attempts to tax the colonies. Prior to the Sugar Act, taxes had only been levied to regulate trade–never had they been specifically for a source of revenue. Adams was one of the only patriots to protest the act from the start; most others failed to recognize its importance.
The Sugar Act underscored a growing disconnect between Britain and the colonies. The French and Indian War had demonstrated that the colonies were unable to defend themselves with British troops, and thus the war had cost the homeland dearly; on the other hand, the influx of British troops and the need to provision and equip them had helped boost the economy in the colonies. Thus, the British argued that the colonies had gotten rich off the war while England shouldered the entire cost. Britain saw the taxes as an attempt to even the playing field and cover the costs of defending the colonies. The colonists saw things differently. With no voice in Parliament, many colonists saw the taxes as a burden without giving them any real opinion in how to spend it.
Seeds of Revolution
As the war clouds began to gather for the coming Revolution, Adams remained a simple man living in poverty–little made him stand out in a crowd. He lived with his two children from his first wife, one slave, a Newfoundland dog, and his second wife, Elizabeth Welles. Welles, whom he wed in 1764, ran the family finances and had enough business sense to keep the family out of the poor house. Together, they oversaw the pious household: grace was said before every meal, and Bible passages were read at night.
In June 1767, Adams's financial problems as tax collector came to a head. The city brought suit against him, and an appeal court ruled that he should pay the full amount, beginning with a payment of 1,463 pounds nine months hence. In March 1768, he appeared with a petition seeking more time, and, after a hot debate at a town meeting, he was given an additional six months. In 1769, when the matter came up yet again, Adams had grown so popular that he was able to shift the burden of tax collection to another man and wean himself of the entire matter.
The Boston Massacre
It did not take long for the redcoats to make their presence felt. After Adams prevented them from being quartered in other areas, the redcoats found a garrison in old Boston warehouses from where they could keep an eye on the city at all times. Parliament readied an old statute that allowed Americans to be extradited to Britain for treason–a move that caused shivers throughout the Sons of Liberty. Adams, James Otis, and the others were relieved when the Massachusetts attorney general could not come up with a chargeable offense of treason for any of them. The redcoats patrolled the whole city and challenged everyone who entered or left Boston. Cannons were placed across the street from the legislature and soldiers overran the Town House. Adams smarted and waited for the day when full martial law would be installed.
Conversely, Adams's movement quickly grew under the watchful eye of the troops. The redcoats' presence in Boston polarized the area, and moderates and even some rural conservatives began to come over to Adams's side. The Tories recognized that they remained safe only as long as the British troops remained and that, if the troops withdrew, the Sons of Liberty would show little mercy. At Adams's alma mater Harvard College, the heart was ripped out of a portrait of Governor Francis Bernard. Bernard had finally had enough, and he left in such a hurry that he did not wait for his wife but hopped on the first ship out of Boston. His ship barely made it out of Boston harbor before it stalled, and while he sat there for the rest of the day and through the night, he could hear the celebrations of his departure back in Boston.
The Tide Turns
The Boston Massacre helped spur Bostonians and the surrounding countryside to action. Adams successfully argued that the New Englanders should be prepared to resist the next incursion of British troops right from the start. Local militias began drilling in open fields and preparing to do battle with the Redcoats, should they arrive again. In Boston, the militia drilled nightly on Boston Common. Adams proclaimed, "Innocence is no longer safe, we are now obliged to appeal to God and to our Arms for defense."
Committee of Correspondence
Despite the rising tide of conservatism and anti-Adams sentiment, there were still signs that Boston remained as patriotic as ever. Again, Britain's interference in colonial affairs helped push the homeland's "tyranny" to the foreground. Toward the end of 1771, Britain determined that it would be more efficient if Governor Thomas Hutchinson was paid out of the British treasury rather than by the Massachusetts legislature. The patriots, on the other hand, saw the taking of the "power of the purse" as the ultimate usurpation by the empire–without being able to control the governor's salary, there was nothing to prevent Hutchinson from becoming a dictator, Adams argued. The following year rumors began to circulate that the colony's judges were to be paid by the Crown as well, but these efforts by the Crown were less tyrannical than Adams made them sound–the measures were merely meant to allow the judges and the governor a fair set salary as opposed to the meager and infrequent sums they received.
America is Born
After the Continental Congress, Sam Adams returned to his home of Boston to try to restore order in an increasingly chaotic atmosphere. Massachusetts had long before fallen behind other states in forming a constitution and a stable form of self-government. By 1779, when a Constitutional Convention was called and both John Adams and Sam Adams were nominated as delegates, the state had already rejected one draft constitution. Sam Adams fell sick during the convention and all but one section of the constitution was written by John Adams. Article III, though, was written solely by Sam Adams.
His Puritan underpinnings and reactionary religious feelings showed through as the article proclaimed that everyone would pay taxes to support the local Congregational Church, except Quakers, Baptists, and Episcopalians who would pay taxes to support their own church. All other sects would face a lengthy legal battle before they might be recognized. That section of the document survived until 1833. Adams also tried to establish a unicameral legislature, but that met with little support among the delegates. Nonetheless, as the Constitution of 1780 was adopted, Sam Adams welcomed the new government and marked the end of his days as a revolutionary. He now stood solidly behind the government. In 1781, Adams was elected president of the Massachusetts Senate. Later, as Daniel Shay advocated rebellion in western Massachusetts, Adams denounced the efforts and called him a traitor.