No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.

Finding itself deep in debt and looking for new sources of revenue the British Parliament sought for the first time to directly tax the colonies of British America. A graduate of Harvard College he was an unsuccessful businessman and tax collector before concentrating on politics. (1678–1737) the leader of the "popular party" a faction that resisted any encroachment by royal officials on the colonial rights embodied in the Massachusetts Charter of 1691.

Adams returned to Massachusetts after the American Revolution where he served in the state senate and was eventually elected governor. Samuel Adams (September 27 [O. Continued resistance to British policy resulted in the 1773 Boston Tea Party and the coming of the American Revolution.