Patriot and orator; a second cousin of President John Adams; born in Boston, Sept. 27, 1722; graduated at Harvard College in 1740; and became a merchant, but was not successful in business, and soon abandoned it. In 1765 he was chosen to represent Boston in the General Court of Massachusetts, in which he distinguished himself by his courage, energy, and oratorical talents, and acquired great influence. Before the Revolution he was an unflinching advocate of the popular cause, and took such an active part in political meetings that he was one of the two leading patriots who were excepted from a general pardon offered in 1775. He was a member of the first Continental Congress, which met in Sept., 1774, and he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He remained in Congress about eight years, was afterwards elected to the Senate of Massachusetts, and was a member of the State convention which ratified the Federal Constitution in 1788. His political affinities connected him with the Republicans (or Jeffersonian) party. He was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1794, was re-elected twice, and retired to private life in 1797. He died Oct. 2, 1803. In religion he was a decided Calvinist.

Personal

  The Cromwell of New England.

  If ever a man was sincerely an idolater of republicanism, it was Samuel Adams; and never a man united more virtues to give respect to his opinions. He has the excess of republican virtues,—untainted probity, simplicity, modesty, and, above all, firmness. He will have no capitulation with abuses. He fears as much the despotism of virtue and talents as the despotism of vice. Cherishing the greatest love and respect for Washington, he voted to take from him the command at the end of a certain time. He recalled that Cæsar could not have succeeded in overturning the Republic but by prolonging the command of the army. The event has proved that the application was false; but it was by a miracle, and the safety of a country should never be risked on the faith of a miracle.

  The dignity of his manners was well expressed by the majesty of his countenance,—an index of a mind never debased by grovelling ideas nor occupied in contemplating low pursuits. Yet this appearance was accompanied with a suavity of temper, qualifying him for those charities and graces so highly ornamental to the most sublime and dignified character. Few are there who better discharge the social relations of life than our departed friend; neither would it be easy to find a more tender husband, more affectionate parent, or more faithful friend. He would easily relax from severe care and study, to enjoy the delight of private conversation. Nor did he ever omit any patronage or kindness due to any in the circle of his acquaintance which was in his power to execute. So that some who disliked his political conduct loved and revered him as a neighbor and friend.

  It has been lately announced to the public, that one of the earliest patriots of the Revolution has paid his last debt to Nature. I had hoped that some other gentleman, better qualified for the task, would have undertaken to call the attention of the House to this interesting event. It cannot indeed be a matter of deep regret that one of the first statesman of our country has descended to the grave full of years and full of honors; that his character and fame are put beyond the reach of that time and chance to which everything mortal is exposed. But it becomes this House to cherish a sentiment of veneration for such men, since such men are rare, and to keep alive the spirit to which we owe the Constitution under which we are now deliberating…. I feel myself in every way unequal to the attempt of doing justice to the merits of our departed countryman. Called upon by the occasion to say something, I could have not have said less. I would not, by any poor eulogium of mine, enfeeble the sentiments which pervades the House, but content myself with moving the following resolutions—Resolved unanimously, That this House is penetrated with a full sense of the eminent services rendered to his country in the most arduous times by the late Samuel Adams, deceased, and that the members thereof wear crape on the left arm for one month in testimony for the national gratitude and reverence towards the memory of that undaunted and illustrious patriot.

  Altho’ my high reverence for Samuel Adams was returned by habitual notices from him which highly flattered me, yet the disparity of age prevented intimate and confidential communications. I always considered him as more than any other member the fountain of our important measures. And altho’ he was neither an eloquent nor easy speaker, whatever he said was sound, and commanded the profound attention of the House.

  He attached an exclusive value to the habits and principles in which he had been educated, and wished to adjust wide concerns too closely after a particular model. One of his colleagues who knew him well, and estimated him highly, described him, with good-natured exaggeration, in the following manner: “Samuel Adams would have the State of Massachusetts govern the Union, the town of Boston govern Massachusetts, and that he should govern the town of Boston, and then the whole would not be intentionally ill-governed.”

  No single man did so much to promote the success of the Revolution.

  In character and career he was a singular combination of things incongruous. He was in religion the narrowest of Puritans, but in manner very genial. He was perfectly rigid in his opinions, but in his expression of them, often very compliant. He was the most conservative of men, but was regarded as were the “abolition fanatics” in our time, before the emancipation proclamation. Who will say that his uprightness was not inflexible? Yet a wilier fox than he in all matters of political manœuvring our history does not show. In business he had no push or foresight, but in politics was a wonder of force and shrewdness. In a voice full of trembling he expressed opinions, of which the audacity would have brought him at once to the halter if he could have been seized. Even in his young manhood his hair had become gray and his hand shook as if with paralysis; but he lived, as we shall see, to his eighty-second year, his work rarely interrupted by sickness, serving as governor of Massachusetts for several successive terms after he had lived his three score and ten years, almost the last survivor among the great pre-revolutionary figures…. There is another character in our history to whom was once given the title, “Father of America,”—a man to a large extent forgotten, his reputation overlaid by that of those who followed him,—no other than this man of the town-meeting, Samuel Adams. As far as the genesis of America is concerned, Samuel Adams can more properly be called the “Father of America” than Washington.

  “The American Cato.” “The Cromwell of New England.” “The Father of America.” “The Last of the Puritans.” “The Man of the Revolution.”

  Samuel was stern, serious, and deeply in earnest. He seldom smiled and never laughed. He was uncompromisingly religious, conscientious, and morally unbending. In his life there was no soft sentiment. The fact that he ran a brewery can be excused when we remember that the best spirit of the times saw nothing inconsistent in the occupation; and further than this we might explain in extenuation that he gave the business indifferent attention and the quality of his brew was said to be very bad. In religion he swerved not nor wavered. He was a Calvinist and clung to the five points with a tenacity at times seemingly quite unnecessary…. Adams’ home life was simple to the verge of hardship. All through life he was on the ragged edge financially, and in his latter years he was for the first time relieved from pressing obligations by an afflicting event—the death of his only son, who was a surgeon in Washington’s army. The money paid to the son by the Government for his services gave the father the only financial competency he ever knew. Two daughters survived him, but with him died the name…. The grave of Samuel Adams is viewed by more people than that of any other American patriot. In the old Granary Burying Ground, in the very centre of Boston, on Tremont Street, there where travel congests, and two living streams meet all day long, you look through the iron fence, so slender that it scarce impedes the view, and not twenty feet from the curb is a simple metal disc set on an iron rod driven into the ground and on it this inscription. “This marks the grave of Samuel Adams.” For many years the grave was unmarked, and the disc that now denotes it was only recently placed in position by the Sons of the Revolution.

General

  As a writer, he was indefatigable when he thought his literary efforts could tend to promote his liberal and patriotic views; and although most of his productions have suffered that oblivion, to which the best efforts of temporary politics are generally destined, those which remain, or of which a knowledge is yet preserved, give abundant proof of the strength and fervour of his diction, the soundness of his politics, the warmth of his heart, and the piety and sincerity of his devotion. As an orator, he was peculiarly fitted for the times and circumstances on which he had fallen. His language was pure, concise and impressive; he was more logical than figurative; and his arguments were addressed rather to the understanding than the feelings: yet these he could often deeply interest, when the importance and dignity of his subject led him to give free vent to the enthusiasm and patriotic ardour, of which his heart was always full; and if we are to judge by the fairest of all tests, the effect upon his hearers, few speakers of ancient or modern times, could be named as superior to him.

  Samuel Adams possessed a calm, solid, and yet polished mind. There is a wonderful lucidness in his thought and phraseology; everything about his composition is plain, forcible, and level to the simplest comprehension. Above all the men of his day, he was distinguished for sound practical judgment. All prominent statesmen looked to him for counsel. He aided Otis in preparing state papers; and a direction to the printers, attached to some of Josiah Quincy’s manuscripts, reads—“Let Samuel Adams, Esq., correct the press.” In fact there were few, if any, important documents published between 1764 and 1769, in Boston, that were not revised by the cool and solid judgment of the New England Phocion…. One great secret of the power of his popular address, probably, lay in the unity of his purpose and the energy of his pursuit. He passionately loved freedom, and subordinated every thing to its attainment. This kind of inspiration is a necessary pre-requisite to eminent success. Samuel Adams had more logic in his composition than rhetoric, and was accustomed to convince the judgment rather than inflame the passions; and, yet, when the occasion demanded, he could give vent to the ardent and patriotic indignation of which his heart was often full.

  His pen was early employed in political discussion, and the soundness of his judgment, and purity of his thoughts, made him very popular, even before public affairs called his patriotism into activity.

  His state papers and essays in the public journals, which would fill volumes, contain the most advanced political doctrines of the times as they presented themselves to thinkers and actors for decision and application. It is impossible to touch upon the history of Massachusetts without meeting his name. He took a leading part in the Congress that separated us from England; and, having from the beginning cast in his lot with his country, never shrunk from the labour, the sacrifices, or the perils which his decision involved.

  It is probable that he was one of the most voluminous writers whom America has as yet produced. Some twenty-five signatures have been identified as used by him in the newspapers at different times. At the same moment that he filled the papers, he went on with his preparation of documents for the town and the Assembly till one wonders how a single brain could have achieved it all. If those writings only which can be identified were published, the collection would present a formidable array of polemical documents, embracing all the great issues out of whose discussion grew our independence. They were meant for a particular purpose, to shatter British oppression, and when that purpose was secured, their author was perfectly careless as to what became of them. Like cannon-balls which sink the ship, and then are lost in the sea, so the bolts of Samuel Adams, after riddling British authority in America, must be sought by diving beneath the oblivion that has rolled over them. Of the portion that has been recovered, these pages have given specimens enough to justify a high estimate of the genius and accomplishments of their author.

  No other American had so good an opportunity to mould the form of a democracy in its best condition, and Adams made the most of his opportunity. A Calvinistic Congregationalist in religion, he applied to politics the principles of equality upon which he insisted in church order. Boston was somewhat leavened with aristocratic and Tory tendencies; against both he fought with a vigour which finally triumphed. To him fell a work in the North like that done by Thomas Jefferson in the South. Democratic principles carried too far become communistic; but extreme Federalism endangers the rights of the people. In the latter Adams saw the greater danger; and his work, fortunately, came at a time when the centrifugal force was more needed than the centripetal…. His work was that of a strong personal force, a pioneer, a destroyer of oppression, and upbuilder of liberty. He was the central figure in the town-meeting; he framed and voiced its policy; he drew up important instructions or appeals to home and foreign officers or legislators; and his pen was almost constantly in his hand, for he wrote stirring articles for the people’s newspaper in Boston. His signatures were many; now he was “Vindex,” now “Valerius Poplicola,” now “A Son of Liberty,” but the purport of his utterances was ever the same. In his speeches, epistles, or memorials he put the spirit before the letter, the matter before the manner.

  One of the greatest citizens that Massachusetts has ever produced, the man who has been well described as preëminently “the man of the town meeting,”—Samuel Adams. The limitations of this great man, as well as his powers, were those which belonged to him as chief among the men of English race who have swayed society through the medium of the ancient folk mote.

  The first colonial orator in point of time was Samuel Adams, but the record of his speeches is not abundant. The central figure of the Boston town-meeting he fought toryism and federalism with equal vigor; but reporters did not frequent town-meetings, or think the utterances of even a leader worth preserving. For their literary merit the speeches of Adams would not have been recorded. They were the straightforward, energetic sentiments of an earnest man who had no time to choose his words. Back of these, however, was the tremendous force of a strong personal character, fired with enthusiasm for freedom. His pen served him as often as his voice, and in the people’s newspaper in Boston and in the Providence Gazette he published predictions and opinions which both New England and Old might read, causing him to be excluded from the general offer of pardon to the patriots made by the Throne the year before the Revolution broke out. His name belongs as much to political literature as to oratory, by reason of such contributions to the public press…. In point of time the name of Samuel Adams heads the roll of American orators and statesmen, and in immediately effecting the purpose they had in mind none have surpassed him. His was a practical oratory which carried its point at the time and with contemporaries, even though it has not been perpetuated as a model to succeeding generations. It ended in action and the action which it secured was the establishment of a new and free nation on the western continent. Measured by what it accomplished it must be admitted to be among the greatest achievements of human speech, and in its final result it is as yet unmeasured.

  It is as an orator that he deserves mention in a history of American literature, though only fragments of his fiery oratory have come down to us. Tradition, however, mentions him as a speaker to be compared with Otis and Quincy.

  This sleepless, crafty, protean politician, for nearly a third of a century, kept flooding the community with his ideas, chiefly in the form of essays in the newspapers,—thereby constantly baffling the enemies of the Revolutionary movement, and conducting his followers victoriously through those battles of argument which preceded and then for a time accompanied the battles of arms…. Whether in oral or in written speech, his characteristics were the same,—simplicity, acuteness, logical power, and strict adaptation of means to the practical end in view. Nothing was for effect—everything was for effectiveness. He wrote pure English, and in a style severe, felicitous, pointed, epigrammatic. Careful as to facts, disdainful of rhetorical excesses, especially conscious of the strategic folly involved in mere overstatement, an adept at implication and at the insinuating light stroke, he had never anything to take back or to apologize for…. Perhaps no long public career was ever more perfectly self-consistent than his. From boyhood to old age, his master principle was individualism.