Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams was born on 27th September 1722 in Boston Massachusetts. Mr. Samuel Adams Sr., the father of John Adams was a brewer in Boston. The Adams Family was always interested in Political conflicts and outcomes. Soon in 1730, Mr. Deacon Adams had to mortgage his entire property due to the financial crisis, whole of Boston was suffering from.

The farmers and planters had no money. The public was unable to feed the family. In such conditions, the only way to survive in Boston was to mortgage their properties and take a loan. When Samuel Adams Sr. died, the whole family went into bankruptcy. Samuel Adams struggled hard against this and eventually started to hate the draconian government and its policies.

In 1740, Adams graduated from Harvard College. He was studying law back then. But he decided to open a business venture. As Adams had no experience in the business sector, he failed miserably. Not once, but quite many times. Finally he learned that he was really good at something else.

Samuel Adams was always involved in politics and took a keen interest in the happenings and surroundings of his. He always kept himself updated on the policies and upcoming laws. He soon became a revolutionary and stood up against the unfair and inhumane practices of the British Empire.

He raised his dissent and gathered a group of people to fight against the British Empire when they passed the Sugar Act. Later, he did the same, when the British parliament passed the Stamp Act. Samuel Adams always stood whenever the English Parliament tried to impose a new tax or anything which was not in favor of the public.

By 1764 Samuel Adams was now as influential and powerful as James Otis. Otis was a lawyer and politician who gained prominence by his resistance to the revenue acts. Not just this, Samuel Adams was also a Second Cousin of John Adams who later became the Second President of America.

According to John Adams, Samuel was simple, modest, and a man of virtues. And it is fairly important for any great revolutionary to have principles and values if he wishes to lead. Luckily, Samuel Adams had those qualities. On top of it, he was an impressive orator as well. He inspired people to fight for the nation like no one ever could.

It was 1767 and Cabinet Minister Charles Townshend imposed takes on earlier duty-free products like lead, glass, paper, paint, tea, etc. Samuel Adams made it his personal mission to undermine this. When there were shootings in the protests against it, he made sure to deface the troops in Boston as they fired and got 5 Americans killed. He published against them in colonial newspapers and showed how cruel and sadist the troops were. This forced Townshend to take back the duties he imposed and the daily products were now duty-free again. But the tax on Tea continued.

The British Parliament then imposed the Tea Act in 1773 which allowed East India Trading Company to become a Monopoly as they were the only sellers of tea. Yet another act that was not in favor of Americans.

On 16th December 1773, 60 men gathered together and took a drastic stand against it. At night, they invaded the British Ships at Boston Harbor and destroyed all the tea they could find. They dumped about 342 chests of tea into the sea. The total worth of tea dumped in the sea back then was about £18,000. This act of rebellion ignited a fire in the hearts of many other Americans and they too now started to rise against the British. One of those American was young Alexander Hamilton who was just in college back then.

But who planned it all? Who was the mastermind behind such an elaborate and rebellious act? It was no one other than Samuel Adams. He could not stand the fact that the British were still imposing a tax on the purchase of tea even after making it a British monopoly to sell the product.

Samuel Adams also served in the Continental Congress till 1781. Although he was not as active in the Continental Congress as he was in the Massachusetts Legislature and town meetings. He and his cousin John Adams were the first to come up with the idea to free themselves from the reign of British Empire once and for all. Samuel Adams also signed the Declaration of Independence with his cousin and others.

He was also an Anti-Federalist who believed that the new constitution would give a lot of unchecked power to the federalist government but later he changed his views and became a federalist when they promised to support a number of future amendments including The Bill of Rights.

At the point when public gatherings were created, he partnered himself with the Vote-based conservatives, the devotees of Thomas Jefferson who later became 3rd President of the United States. In the wake of being crushed by official voters leaning toward Jefferson in 1796, he resigned to private life.

Samuel Adams in one of his speech said
“Countrymen and Brethren: I would gladly have declined an honor, to which I find myself unequal. I have not the calmness and impartiality which the infinite importance of this occasion demands. I will not deny the charge of my enemies, that resentment for the accumulated injuries of our country, and an ardor for her glory, rising to enthusiasm, may deprive me of that accuracy of judgment and expression which men of cooler passions may possess. Let me beseech you, then, to hear me with caution, to examine without prejudice, and to correct the mistakes into which I may be hurried by my zeal.

Truth loves an appeal to the common-sense of mankind. Your unperverted understandings can best determine on subjects of a practical nature. The positions and plans which are said to be above the comprehension of the multitude may be always suspected to be visionary and fruitless. He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all.”

A few years after Samuel Adams left his political career, on 2nd October 1803, Samuel Adams bid farewell to the world. He died at the age of 81 but he spend most of his years revolting against injustice and trying to free America from the clutches of the British Empire. What America is today, is because of the fire he ignited in the hearts of American men who fought beside him in order to free the nation from foreign reign.
The death of such a great orator left the whole nation speechless. Let us not forget the man who stood tall against the British when America needed a hero the most, the source of inspiration and rebellion which led America to its freedom.