The Meaning of the American Revolution
John Adams
[A letter to H. Niles, 13 February 1818]
The American Revolution was not a common event. Its effects and
consequences have already been awful over a great part of the globe.
And when and where are they to cease?
But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the
American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced.
The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in
their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. While the
king, and all in authority under him, were believed to govern in
justice and mercy, according to the laws and constitution derived to
them from the God of nature and transmitted to them by their
ancestors, they thought themselves bound to pray for the king and
queen and all the royal family, and all in authority under them, as
ministers ordained of God for their good; but when they saw those
powers renouncing all the principles of authority, and bent upon the
destruction of all the securities of their lives, liberties, and
properties, they thought it their duty to pray for the continental
congress and all the thirteen State congresses, &c.
There might be, and there were others who thought less about religion
and conscience, but had certain habitual sentiments of allegiance and
loyalty derived from their education; but believing allegiance and
protection to be reciprocal, when protection was withdrawn, they
thought allegiance was dissolved.
Another alteration was common to all. The people of America had been
educated in an habitual affection for England, as their mother
country; and while they thought her a kind and tender parent,
(erroneously enough, however, for she never was such a mother,) no
affection could be more sincere. But when they found her a cruel
beldam, willing like Lady Macbeth, to "dash their brains out,"
it is no wonder if their filial affections ceased, and were changed
into indignation and horror.
This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and
affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.
By what means this great and important alteration in the religious,
moral, political, and social character of the people of thirteen
colonies, all distinct, unconnected, and independent of each other,
was begun, pursued, and accomplished, it is surely interesting to
humanity to investigate, and perpetuate to posterity.
To this end, it is greatly to be desired, that young men of letters
in all the States, especially in the thirteen original States, would
undertake the laborious, but certainly interesting and amusing task,
of searching and collecting all the records, pamphlets, newspapers,
and even handbills, which in any way contributed to change the temper
and views of the people, and compose them into an independent nation.
The colonies had grown up under constitutions of government so
different, there was so great a variety of religions, they were
composed of so many different nations, their customs, manners, and
habits had so little resemblance, and their intercourse had been so
rare, and their knowledge of each other so imperfect, that to unite
them in the same principles in theory and the same system of action,
was certainly a very difficult enterprise. The complete accomplishment
of it, in so short a time and by such simple means, was perhaps a
singular example in the history of mankind. Thirteen clocks were made
to strike together -- a perfection of mechanism, which no artist had
ever before effected.
In this research, the gloriole of individual gentlemen, and of
separate States, is of little consequence. The means and the
measures are the proper objects of investigation. These may be of
use to posterity, not only in this nation, but in South America and
all other countries. They may teach mankind that revolutions are no
trifles; that they ought never to be undertaken rashly; nor without
deliberate consideration and sober reflection; nor without a solid,
immutable, eternal foundation of justice and humanity; nor without a
people possessed of intelligence, fortitude, and integrity sufficient
to carry them with steadiness, patience, and perseverance, through all
the vicissitudes of fortune, the fiery trials and melancholy disasters
they may have to encounter.
The town of Boston early instituted an annual oration on the 4th of
July, in commemoration of the principles and feelings which
contributed to produce the revolution. Many of those orations I have
heard, and all that I could obtain, I have read. Much ingenuity and
eloquence appears upon every subject, except those principles and
feelings. That of my honest and amiable neighbor, Josiah Quincy,
appeared to me the most directly to the purpose of the institution.
Those principles and feelings ought to be traced back for two hundred
years, and sought in the history of the country from the first
plantations in America. Nor should the principles and feelings of the
English and Scotch towards the colonies, through that whole period,
ever be forgotten. The perpetual discordance between British
principles and feelings and of those of America, the next year after
the suppression of the French power in America, came to a crisis, and
produced an explosion.
It was not until after the annihilation of the French dominion in
America that any British ministry had dared to gratify their own
wishes, and the desire of the nation, by projecting a formal plan for
raising a national revenue from America, by parliamentary taxation.
The first great manifestation of this design was by the order to carry
into strict executions those acts of parliament, which were well known
by the appellation of the acts of trade, which had lain a dead
letter, unexecuted for half a century, and some of them, I believe,
for nearly a whole one.
This produced, in 1760 and 1761, an awakening and a revival of
American principles and feelings, with an enthusiasm which went on
increasing till, in 1775, it burst out in open violence, hostility,
and fury.
The characters the most conspicuous, the most ardent and influential
in this revival, from 1760 to 1766, were, first and foremost, before
all and above all, James Otis; next to him was Oxenbridge Thacher;
next to him, Samuel Adams; next to him, John Hancock; then Dr. Mayhew;
then Dr. Cooper and his brother. Of Mr. Hancock's life, character,
generous nature, great and disinterested sacrifices, and important
services, if I had forces, I should be glad to write a volume. But
this, I hope, will be done by some younger and abler hand. Mr.
Thacher, because his name and merits are less known, must not be
wholly omitted. This gentleman was an eminent barrister at law, in as
large practice as any one in Boston. There was not a citizen of that
town more universally beloved for his learning, ingenuity, every
domestic and social virtue, and conscientious conduct in every
relation of life. His patriotism was as ardent as his progenitors had
been ancient and illustrious in this country. Hutchinson often said, "Thacher
was not born a plebeian, but he was determined to die one." In
May, 1763, I believe, he was chosen by the town of Boston one of their
representatives in the legislature , a colleague with Mr. Otis, who
had been a member from May, 1761, and he continued to be reflectcd
annually till his death in 1765, when Mr. Samuel Adams was elected to
fill his place, in the absence of Mr. Otis, then attending the
Congress at New York. Thacher had long been jealous of the unbounded
ambition of Mr. Hutchinson, but when he found him not content with the
office of Lieutenant-Governor, the command of the castle and its
emoluments, of Judge of Probate for the county of Suffolk, a seat in
his Majesty's Council in the Legislature, his brother-in-law Secretary
of State by the king's commission, a brother of that Secretary of
State, a Judge of the Supreme Court and a member of Council, now in
1760 and 1761, soliciting and accepting the office of Chief Justice of
the Superior Court of Judicature, he concluded, as Mr. Otis did, and
as every other enlightened friend of his country did, that he sought
that office with the determined purpose of determining all causes in
favor of the ministry at St. James's, and their servile parliament.
His indignation against him hence forward, to 1765, when he died,
knew no bounds but truth. I speak from personal knowledge. For, from
1758 to 1765, I attended every superior and inferior court in Boston,
and recollect not one, in which he did not invite me home to spend
evenings with him, when he made me converse with him as well as I
could, on all subjects of religion, morals, law, politics, history,
philosophy, belles lettres, theology, mythology, cosmogony,
metaphysics, -- Locke, Clark, Leibnitz, Bolingbroke, Berkeley, -- the
pre-established harmony of the universe, the nature of matter and of
spirit, and the eternal establishment of coincidences between their
operations; fate, foreknowledge absolute; and we reasoned on such
unfathomable subjects as high as Milton's gentry in pandemonium; and
we understood them as well as they did, and no better. To such mighty
mysteries he added the news of the day, and the tittle-tattle of the
town. But his favorite subject was politics, and the impending,
threatening system of parliamentary taxation and universal government
over the colonies. On this subject he was so anxious and agitated that
I have no doubt it occasioned his premature death. From the time when
he argued the question of writs of assistance to his death, he
considered the king, ministry, parliament, and nation of Great Britain
as determined to new-model the colonies from the foundation, to annul
all their charters, to constitute them all royal governments, to raise
a revenue in America by parliamentary taxation, to apply that revenue
to pay the salaries of governors, judges, and all other crown
officers; and, after all this, to raise as large a revenue as they
pleased, to be applied to national purposes at the exchequer in
England; and further, to establish bishops and the whole system of the
Church of England, tithes and all, throughout all British America.
This system, he said, if it was suffered to prevail, would extinguish
the flame of liberty all over the world; that America would be
employed as an engine to batter down all the miserable remains of
liberty in Great Britain and Ireland, where only any semblance of it
was left in the world. To this system he considered Hutchinson, the
Olivers, and all their connections, dependents, adherents,
shoelickers, &c., entirely devoted. He asserted that they were all
engaged with all the crown officers in America and the understrappers
of the ministry in England, in a deep and treasonable conspiracy to
betray the liberties of their country, for their own private, personal
and family aggrandizement. His philippics against the unprincipled
ambition and avarice of all of them, but especially of Hutchinson,
were unbridled; not only in private, confidential conversations, but
in all companies and on all occasions. He gave Hutchinson the
sobriquet of "Summa Potestatis," and rarely mentioned him
but by the name of "Summa." His liberties of speech were no
secrets to his enemies. I have sometimes wondered that they did not
throw him over the bar, as they did soon afterwards Major Hawley. For
they hated him worse than they did James Otis or Samuel Adams, and
they feared him more, because they had no revenge for a father's
disappointment of a seat on the superior bench to impute to him, as
they did to Otis; and Thacher's character through life had been so
modest, decent, unassuming; his morals so pure, and his religion so
venerated, that they dared not attack him. In his office were educated
to the bar two eminent characters, the late Judge Lowell and Josiah
Quincy, aptly called the Boston Cicero. Mr. Thacher's frame was
slender, his constitution delicate; whether his physicians
overstrained his vessels with mercury, when he had the smallpox by
inoculation at the castle, or whether he was overplied by public
anxieties and exertions, the smallpox left him in a decline from which
he never recovered. Not long before his death he sent for me to commit
to my care some of his business at the bar. I asked him whether he had
seen the Virginia resolves: "Oh yes--they are men! they are noble
spirits! It kills me to think of the lethargy and stupidity that
prevails here. I long to be out. I will go out. I will go out. I will
go into court, and make a speech, which shall be read after my death,
as my dying testimony against this infernal tyranny which they are
bringing upon us." Seeing the violent agitation into which it
threw him, I changed the subject as soon as possible, and retired. He
had been confined for some time. Had he been abroad among the people,
he would not have complained so pathetically of the "lethargy and
stupidity that prevailed;" for town and country were all alive,
and in August became active enough; and some of the people proceeded
to unwarrantable excesses, which were more lamented by the patriots
than by their enemies. Mr. Thacher soon died, deeply lamented by all
the friends of their country.
Another gentleman, who had great influence in the commencement of the
Revolution, was Doctor Jonathan Mayhew, a descendant of the ancient
governor of Martha's Vineyard. This divine had raised a great
reputation both in Europe and America, by the publication of a volume
of seven sermons in the reign of King George the Second, 1749, and by
many other writings, particularly a sermon in 1750, on the 30th of
January, on the subject of passive obedience and non-resistance, in
which the saintship and martyrdom of King Charles the First are
considered, seasoned with wit and satire superior to any in Swift or
Franklin. It was read by everybody; celebrated by friends, and abused
by enemies. During the reigns of King George the First and King George
the Second, the reigns of the Stuarts, the two Jameses and the two
Charleses were in general disgrace in England. In America they had
always been held in abhorrence. The persecutions and cruelties
suffered by their ancestors under those reigns, had been transmitted
by history and tradition, and Mayhew seemed to be raised up to revive
all their animosities against tyranny, in church and state, and at the
same time to destroy their bigotry, fanaticism, and inconsistency.
David Hume's plausible, elegant, fascinating, and fallacious apology,
in which he varnished over the crimes of the Stuarts, had not then
appeared. To draw the character of Mayhew, would be to transcribe a
dozen volumes. This transcendent genius threw all the weight of his
great fame into the scale of his country in 1761, and maintained it
there with zeal and ardor till his death, in 1766. In 1763 appeared
the controversy between him and Mr. Apthorp, Mr. Caner, Dr. Johnson,
and Archbishop Secker, on the charter and conduct of the Society for
Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. To form a judgment of this
debate, I beg leave to refer to a review of the whole, printed at the
time and written by Samuel Adams, though by some, very absurdly and
erroneously ascribed to Mr. Apthorp. If I am not mistaken, it will be
found a model of candor, sagacity, impartiality, and close, correct
reasoning.
If any gentleman supposes this controversy to be nothing to the
present purpose, he is grossly mistaken. It spread an universal alarm
against the authority of Parliament. It excited a general and just
apprehension, that bishops, and dioceses, and churches, and priests,
and tithes, were to be imposed on us by Parliament. It was known that
neither king, nor ministry, nor archbishops, could appoint bishops in
America, without an act of Parliament; and if Parliament could tax us,
they could establish the Church of England, with all its creeds,
articles, tests, ceremonies, and tithes, and prohibit all other
churches, as conventicles and schism shops.
Nor must Mr. Cushing be forgotten. His good sense and sound judgment,
the urbanity of his manners, his universal good character, his
numerous friends and connections, and his continual intercourse with
all sorts of people, added to his constant attachment to the liberties
of his country, gave him a great and salutary influence from the
beginning in 1760.
Let me recommend these hints to the consideration of Mr. Wirt, whose
Life of Mr. Henry I have read with great delight. I think that, after
mature investigation, he will be convinced that Mr. Henry did not "give
the first impulse to the ball of independence," and that Otis,
Thacher, Samuel Adams, Mayhew, Hancock, Cushing, and thousands of
others, were laboring for several years at the wheel before the name
of Henry was heard beyond the limits of Virginia.
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