Samuel Adams

October 30

"The Roman Empire must have sunk...because Roman virtue was sunk." Sam Adams

Crying "No taxation without representation," he instigated the Stamp Act riots and the Boston Tea Party. After the "Boston Massacre," he spread Revolutionary sentiment with his network of Committees of Correspondence. Known as "The Father of the American Revolution," his name was Samuel Adams, born SEPTEMBER 27, 1722.

Samuel Adams called for the first Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence, stating: "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 prayers, and a heart like the nether millstone. We have this day restored the Sovereign, to whom alone all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven..."

Samuel Adams continued: "There are instances of, I would say, an almost astonishing Providence in our favor; our success has staggered our enemies, and almost given faith to infidels; so that we may truly say it is not our own arm which has saved us. The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great Providential dispensation which is completing..."

"We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back...We may, with humility of soul, cry out, 'Not unto us, not unto us, but to thy Name be the praise'...Providence is yet gracious unto Zion, that it will turn away the captivity of Jacob."

A cousin of the Second President John Adams, Samuel Adams wrote in The Rights of Colonists, 1772: "Among the natural rights of Colonists are: FIRST, a right to life; SECONDLY, to liberty; THIRDLY, to property; together with the right to defend them...The supreme power cannot justly take from any man any part of his property without his consent."

In The Rights of the Colonists, section "The Rights of the Colonist as Subjects," Samuel Adams wrote: "Government has no right to absolute, arbitrary power over the lives and fortunes of the people; nor can mortals assume a prerogative...reserved for the exercise of the Deity alone."

In The Rights of the Colonists, section "The Rights of the Colonist as Men," Samuel Adams wrote: "In regards to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced...It is now generally agreed among Christians that this spirit of toleration, in the fullest extent consistent with the being of civil society, is the chief mark of the church."