SAMUEL ADAMS (1722-1803), a Bostonian and graduate of Harvard, probably
gave his time in fuller measure to the cause of independence than any other
writer or speaker. For nine years he was a member of the Continental
Congress. When there was talk of peace between the colonies and the mother
country, he had the distinction of being one of two Americans for whom
England proclaimed in advance that there would be no amnesty granted. We
can seem to hear him in 1776 in the Philadelphia State House, replying to
the argument that the colonists should obey England, since they were her
children:--
[Illustration: SAMUEL ADAMS]
"Who among you, my countrymen, that is a father, would claim authority to
make your child a slave because you had nourished him in his infancy?"
After he had signed the _Declaration of Independence,_ he spoke to the
Pennsylvanians like a Puritan of old:--
"We have explored the temple of royalty, and found that the idol we have
bowed down to has eyes which see not, ears that hear not our prayer, and
a heart like the nether millstone. We have this day restored the
Sovereign, to whom alone men ought to be obedient.
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