Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams 1722-1803, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Boston, Mass.; second cousin of John Adams. An unsuccessful businessman, he became interested in politics and was a member (1765-74) and clerk (1766-74) of the lower house of the Massachusetts legislature. As colonial resistance to British laws stiffened, Adams spoke for the discontented and replaced James Otis as leader of the extremists. He drafted a protest against the Stamp Act in 1765 and was one of the organizers of the non-importation agreement (1767) against Great Britain to force repeal of the Townshend Acts . He drew up the Circular Letter to the other colonies, denouncing the acts as taxation without representation. More important, he used his able pen in colonial newspapers and pamphlets to stir up sentiment against the British. His polemics helped to bring about the Boston Massacre . With the help of such men as John Hancock he organized the revolutionary Sons of Liberty and helped to foment revolt through the Committees of Correspondence. He was the moving spirit in the Boston Tea Party . Gen. Thomas Gage issued (1775) a warrant for the arrest of Adams and Hancock, but they escaped punishment and continued to stir up lethargic patriots. Samuel Adams was a member (1774-81) of the Continental Congress, but after independence was declared his influence declined; the "radical" was replaced by more conservative leaders, who tended to look upon Adams as an irresponsible agitator. He later served (1794-97) as governor of Massachusetts.

Bibliography: See writings ed. by H. A. Cushing (4 vol., 1904-08, repr. 1968); biographies by J. C. Miller (1936, repr. 1960), S. Beach (1965), W. V. Wells (2d ed. 1969), and N. B. Gerson (1973).

Adams, Samuel (1722–1803), radical patriot and political agitator, described by Thomas Jefferson as “truly the Man of the revolution.”A Boston native and Harvard graduate (1740), Adams, after several business failures and an interlude as a tax collector, gained prominence as a brilliant polemicist and popular leader in opposition to the Stamp Act (1765–1766) and the Townshend Duties (1767–1770). He was elected a member (1765–1774) and then clerk (1766–1780) of the Massachusetts legislature. Instrumental in drafting the Circular Letter of 1768, Adams energized the revolutionary movement during the so‐called years of quiet by helping form the Committees of Correspondence (1772) and selectively publishing the incriminating correspondence of colonial officials including Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson. A planner of the Boston Tea Party in 1773, Adams led the opposition to the Coercive Acts and supported the radical Suffolk Resolves endorsed by the Second Continental Congress in 1774. Acknowledging his central role, General Thomas Gage, the military governor of Boston, excluded him from the general amnesty he issued in 1774.

A member of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1781, Adams signed the Declaration of Independence. His influence diminished thereafter, although he served in the convention that drafted the Massachusetts state constitution in 1779–1780, and was lieutenant governor (1789–1794) and then governor of Massachusetts (1794–1797). His neglect among the pantheon of revolutionary heroes might be explained by his prominence in state rather than national politics. More agitator than statesman, Samuel Adams was nevertheless a preeminent early leader in the independence movement. He gained posthumous celebrity in the late twentieth century when a popular Boston beer bore his name.
See also Revolution and Constitution, Era of.

Bibliography

John C. Miller , Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda, 1936.
Pauline Maier , The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of Samuel Adams, 1980.

Andrew J. O'Shaughnessy

Adams, Samuel (1722–1803), born in Boston, graduated from Harvard (1740), studied law, was unsuccessful in business and after 1764 turned to the serious use of his talent for political agitation. He was a leader in directing popular hatred against the conservatives, and strongly opposed the Sugar Act of 1764, the Stamp Act, and the Townshend acts. From 1765 to 1774 he was a member of the lower house of the Massachusetts general court, serving after 1766 as recording clerk, in which capacity he showed great skill as a polemical writer, drafting many important Revolutionary documents. As early as 1765 his writings pointed the way toward the Declaration of Independence, and at times, when revolutionary feeling was waning, he fanned the embers with bitter contributions to periodicals. He helped organize the Sons of Liberty, aided in the formation of the nonimportation association of 1768, and emphasized the revolutionary doctrines of the “rights of man,” “the laws of nature,” and American independence of Parliament. Inflamed by Lord North's Tea Act, he was the guiding spirit of the Boston Tea Party. As a member of the intercolonial congress, which he had proposed, and as a delegate to the Continental Congress, he worked for colonial union and against any compromise with England. After the signing of the Declaration of Independence his career waned, for he was essentially a revolutionary agitator and not a constructive statesman. His later career included membership in the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention (1779–80) and the lieutenant‐governorship (1789–93) and governorship of Massachusetts (1794–97). His various writings were collected (4 vols., 1904–8).