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SAMUEL ADAMS was born in Boston, Massachusetts
on September 27, 1722, one of the twelve children
of Samuel and Mary Fifield Adams. The elder Samuel
Adams was a man of wealth and influence. He owned
a large estate on Purchase Street, with a noble
mansion fronting the harbor, and it was here the
younger Samuel Adams was born. The father was
always a leader, and it is from him that the younger
Samuel inherited the political tastes and aptitudes
that were to make him the most illustrious citizen
that Massachusetts has ever produced.
Young Adams was educated first at the Boston
Latin School, then at Harvard College, where he
was graduated in 1740. Very little is known of
his college life, except that he was noted as
a diligent student, fond of quoting Greek and
Latin. In 1743, as a candidate for the master's
degree, he chose as the subject for his thesis
the question, "Whether it be lawful to resist
the supreme magistrate if the commonwealth cannot
otherwise be preserved". He answered this question
in the affirmative. History has not told us how
this bold doctrine affected Governor Shirley and
the other officers of the crown who sat there
on commencement day listening to Adams thesis.
It was his father's wish that Samuel would become
a clergyman, but the son had no taste for theology
and preferred law. However, in those days, law
was not considered a respectable profession, and
his mother made that fact know to Samuel many
times over. After a short time, Samuel yielded
to his mother's objections to the law and he entered
the counting house of Thomas Cushing, who was
a prominent merchant. At twenty-one, Samuel won
his first post as clerk of the market, a solid
training ground for a neophyte politician. Shortly
thereafter, Samuel's father gave him ₤1,000
to set up a business for himself. Samuel lent
half of his money to a friend, who never returned
it and lost the other half in bad deals. Samuel
then became a partner with his father in a brewery,
but that business did not prosper.
Around this time, his father lost most of his
fortune in a wildcat banking enterprise that helped
shape young Samuel's future. In 1690, Massachusetts
had issued paper money with the inevitable results.
Coin was driven from circulation and there was
a great inflation of prices with frequent fluctuations.
This led to complaints from British merchants
who were trading with Massachusetts, and the King
ordered the Governor to veto any further issue
of paper money. A disagreement ensued between
the governor and the legislature and as the veto
of the governor was inevitable, two joint-stock
banking companies were created to meet the emergency.
One was known as the "silver scheme", which was
patronized chiefly by merchants. It issued notes
to be redeemed in silver at the end of ten years.
The second, which was known as the "manufactory
scheme", issued notes redeemable in products or
goods after twenty years. It was with the latter
scheme that Adams father invested. There were
800 or so stockholders in the banking companies
and they not only controlled the Massachusetts
legislature, but they also succeeded in achieving
Governor Belcher's removal in 1741. However, Britain
won out in the end. There was an Act of Parliament
that extended to the colonies, an earlier Act
of George I, that forbade the incorporation of
joint-stock companies with more than six partners.
The two Massachusetts banking companies were then
obliged to suspend operations and redeem their
script. All of the partners of the companies were
held individually liable, and each was quickly
ruined. The wealth of the elder Adams melted away
in a moment. Friends of the banking companies
denounced this Act of Parliament as a violation
of the chartered rights of the colony and they
questioned the extent of the authority of Parliament
in America. So in a certain sense, Samuel Adams
may be said to have inherited his quarrel with
the British government.
After the death of his father in 1748, Samuel
carried on the brewery by himself and soon was
made tax collector for the town of Boston. As
tax collector, he became personally acquainted
with everybody in Boston, and his qualities soon
won for him great respect and influence. He was
an adroit political manager and he had courage
and indomitable perseverance. He had a genuine
sympathy for men with leather aprons and hands
browned by toil – he knew how to win their confidence
and he never abused it for he was in no sense
a demagogue. He was nothing like John Hancock,
Adams cared nothing for personal glory, to him
the cause was paramount and his most important
activities were behind the scenes. In the town
meeting, he was a power, however, it was not until
his forty-second year that his great public career
began.
In May 1764, he drafted the instructions given
by the town of Boston to its newly chosen representatives
in regard to Grenville's proposed Stamp Act. These
instructions were the first public protest in
America against the right of Parliament to tax
the colonies. The next year, he was elected to
the legislature, where he remained until 1774,
officiating as clerk of the house, and drafting
most of the remarkable state papers of that period
of fierce agitation. As clerk of the house, Adams
had his eye on everything, and his hand entered
into numerous resolutions. On the passage of the
Townshend Acts in 1767, Adams wrote the petition
of the Massachusetts legislature to the King,
the letter of instructions to their agent in England,
and the circular letter addressed to the other
colonies, inviting their aid in the defense of
the common rights of Americans. This circular
letter especially enraged the King and he directed
the governor to have the legislature rescind the
circular letter or face immediate dissolution.
After several days' discussion the legislature
by a vote of 92 to 17 refused to rescind. This
obstinacy had much to do with the decision of
the British government to send troops to Boston
in the hope of over-awing the people.
On the morning after the famous Boston Massacre,
Adams was appointed chairman of a committee to
communicate the votes of the town meeting to the
governor and council. More than 5,000 people were
present at the town meeting, which was held in
the Old South Meetinghouse. All the neighboring
streets were crowded. Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson,
with the council and Colonel Dalrymple, the commander
of the two British regiments, sat in the Old State
House at the head of King Street. When Adams presented
the demand of the town meeting--that the soldiers
should be removed to the castle in the harbor--
Hutchinson at first disclaimed any authority in
the matter. Adams reminded him that as acting
governor of Massachusetts he was commander in
chief of all troops within the province. Hutchinson
consulted awhile with Dalrymple, and at length
replied that the colonel was willing to remove
one of the regiments in order to appease the indignation
of the people. The committee, led by Adams, returned
to the Meetinghouse with this message, and as
they proceeded through the crowded streets, Adams,
bowing to the right an left, passed along the
watchword, "Both regiments or none!" When the
question was put to the vote 5,000 voices shouted
"Both regiments or none!" Armed with this ultimatum,
Adams returned to the State House and warned Hutchinson
that if he failed to remove both regiments before
nightfall, he did so at his peril. Hutchinson
was as brave and as obstinate as Adams, but two
regiments were powerless in the presence of the
angry crowd that filled Boston and before sunset
they were removed to the castle. These troops
were ever afterward known in Parliament as the
"Sam Adams regiments."
In 1772, the British government went a step further
than anything it had yet done toward driving Massachusetts
into rebellion. It was ordered that the judges,
holding their offices at the Kings pleasure, should
be paid by the British crown and not by the colony.
This act, which was aimed directly at the independence
of the judiciary, aroused intense indignation.
The judges were threatened with impeachment if
they should dare to accept a penny from the crown.
The people of Boston, in a town meeting, asked
Hutchinson to convene the legislature to decide
what should be done about the judges' salaries.
When Hutchinson refused, Adams proposed that all
the towns of Massachusetts should appoint "committees
of correspondence" to consult with each other
about their common welfare. Such a step was legal,
but it virtually created a revolutionary legislative
body, about which the governor could do nothing.
Within a few months eighty towns had chosen their
committees of correspondence, and the system was
in full operation. Hutchinson at first scoffed
at it, for he did not see where it was leading.
The next spring, Dabney Carr of Virginia moved
that inter-colonial committees of correspondence
should be formed, and this was soon done. Only
one more step was needed. It was necessary that
the inter-colonial committees assemble in one
place. They would be a continental congress speaking
in the name of the united colonies and if need
be, supersede the royal government. By such stages
the revolutionary government that declared the
independence of the United States was formed.
It administered the affairs of the new nation
until 1789. It was Samuel Adams who took the first
step toward its construction, although the idea
had been first suggested in 1765 by the great
preacher Jonathan Mayhew.
Samuel Adams was the first American statesman
to come to the conclusion that independence was
the only remedy for the troubles of the colonies.
Since 1768 he acted upon this conviction without
publicly avowing it. When the British closed Boston
harbor and annulled the charter of Massachusetts
in response to the Boston Tea Party, all the colonies
became alarmed. Through the inter-colonial committees
of correspondence, Massachusetts was invited to
take the lead in assembling the first meeting
of the continental congress. Samuel Adams managed
this work with his accustomed shrewdness and daring.
When the legislature met at Salem on June 17,
1774, in conformity with the new Acts of Parliament,
he locked the door, put the key into his pocket
and carried through the measures for assembling
a congress at Philadelphia in September. A Tory
member, feigning sudden illness, was allowed to
go out and ran straight to the governor with the
news. The governor lost no time in drawing up
a writ dissolving the legislature, but when his
clerk reached the hall he found the door locked
and could not serve the writ. When the business
was accomplished the legislature adjourned. It
was the last Massachusetts legislature assembled
in obedience to the sovereign authority of Great
Britain.
Adams and his cousin John Adams were delegates
to the first continental congress. For the next
nine years, Samuel Adams took an active and important
part in the work of the congress. Probably no
other man did so much as he did to bring about
the declaration of independence. He "stirred men's
souls", he dared when others teetered, he inspired
when others weakened. He continued to serve in
Congress until the war was nearing its end. He
held local offices in Massachusetts and succeeded
John Hancock as governor.
Samuel Adams died in Boston in 1803 at the age
of eighty-one. He was twice married: first to
Elizabeth Checkley, by whom he had a son and daughter
and some years after the death of his first wife,
he wed Elizabeth Wells.
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