Revolutionary Cousins

«The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.” — Samuel Adams

The American Revolution had no shortage of compelling characters with seemingly larger than life traits, including men like the multi-talented Benjamin Franklin, the wise Thomas Jefferson, the mercurial John Adams and the stoic George Washington. But no Revolutionary leader has been as controversial as Samuel Adams, who has been widely portrayed over the last two centuries as America’s most radical and fiery colonist.

Among his contemporaries, Adams was viewed as one of the most influential colonial leaders, a man Thomas Jefferson himself labeled “truly the Man of the Revolution” and the one who the Boston Gazette eulogized as the “Father of the American Revolution.” Adams was an outspoken opponent of British taxes in the 1760s, one of Boston’s hardest working writers and orators, a leader of the Boston Caucus, active in the Sons of Liberty, and a political leader who organized large gatherings in settings like Faneuil Hall and the Old South Meeting House. When cousin John Adams was an Ambassador to France during the Revolution, he had to explain that he was not the “famous” Adams.

At the same time, Adams’s zeal for his cause was unquestioned and unrivaled. During the Revolution, Adams exhorted his countrymen, “If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” Today historians believe that Adams’s legacy as a radical firebrand came from the British, who naturally viewed Adams as an incendiary troublemaker, and it is widely believed that important events like the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party were incorrectly attributed to the sway Adams held over the town. The exaggeration of Adams as the one man who could control a mob took hold, and even as modern historians try to recast Adams in a more moderate light, he continues to be remembered as the American Revolution’s most ardent patriot.

Naturally, Adams’s reputation and activities before and during the Revolution have come to dominate the history books and Americans’ perceptions of him, so many remain unfamiliar with his post-war life. In fact, Adams was one of the most instrumental leaders in Massachusetts, helping draft the state’s constitution during the Revolution and becoming one of its earliest governors after the Revolution.

John Adams has become one of the more popular presidents in history relatively recently, but it was not always so. For most of his life he was seen as a bit of an outsider, different from his fellow first presidents in his temperament, birth, life and politics.  Adams and his son were the only presidents out of the first seven who were born north of the Mason Dixon line, and he was not an easy man to understand or work with.  Not only did he have few friends, but he also often fell into long term quarrels with those he had.

Politically, Adams shared Washington’s preference for Britain as well as his preference of non-interference.  However, while he was certainly the more significant man in his work and his governing, he could never seem to move out of Washington’s shadow.  Even worse, his presidency was seen as threatening to the very essence of American liberty with the Alien and Sedition Acts, and his loss to Jefferson in 1800 was a repudiation of the Federalists that left Jeffersonians in power until John Quincy Adams was elected in 1824. His presidency is still viewed relatively unfavorably.