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A History | Events Leading to the American Revolution | Samuel Adams - American Patriot and Son of Liberty |
Samuel Adams - Rights of the Colonists
Samuel Adams - Rights of the Colonists
A fine impression of this exceedingly rare print. With margins approximately one inch all around. A few creases
are visible in the margins. Generally in very good condition.
Samuel Adams (1722-1803), an important American revolutionary patriot and statesman, active in Massachusetts,
was among the leaders of events leading up to the Boston Tea Party. He was a signer of the Declaration of
Independence and later was elected Governor of Massachusetts.
This portrait was published in Newport, Rhode Island, in April 1775, when the revolutionary ferment in New
England, led in part by Samuel Adams, was at its height. The painting by J. Mitchell after which the mezzotint
was designed was based on J. S. Copley's portrait of Adams now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The
background, unadorned except for a couple of plain columns, and the table littered with books and scrolls
underscores the air of determination and sincerity so effectively embodied by the forthright figure of Adams.
This portrait along with Okey's two other signed engravings, was published by his business partner, the printer
Charles Reak.
The London engraver Samuel Okey arrived in Newport, Rhode Island in 1773, several years before the
Revolutionary War. He was among several British engravers seeking opportunities to practice their craft in
Colonial America. But in the end, he must have found it too difficult to make a living and returned to England
some time before 1778, the year his work was published in London. In Newport Okey engraved and published only
four or five mezzotints. Other than the prints he engraved in Rhode Island, there is very little known about
him.
Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists
The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting, Nov. 20, 1772
Old South Leaflets no. 173 (Boston: Directors of the Old South Work, 1906) 7: 417-428.
Benjamin Franklin's Preface to the English Edition
Editor's Notes and Comments
I. Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men.
Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to
property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident
branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of
nature.
All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable
oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another.
When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent; and they have a right to demand and insist upon the
performance of such conditions and previous limitations as form an equitable original compact.
Every natural right not expressly given up, or, from the nature of a social compact, necessarily ceded,
remains.
All positive and civil laws should conform, as far as possible, to the law of natural reason and equity.
As neither reason requires nor religion permits the contrary, every man living in or out of a state of civil
society has a right peaceably and quietly to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.
"Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty," in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing
that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature, (418)as well as by
the law of nations and all well-grounded municipal laws, which must have their foundation in the former.
In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds
in all ages have ever practised, and, both by precept and example, inculcated on mankind. And it is now
generally agreed among Christians that this spirit of toleration, in the fullest extent consistent with the
being of civil society, is the chief characteristical mark of the Church. Insomuch that Mr. Locke has asserted
and proved, beyond the possibility of contradiction on any solid ground, that such toleration ought to be
extended to all whose doctrines are not subversive of society. The only sects which he thinks ought to be, and
which by all wise laws are excluded from such toleration, are those who teach doctrines subversive of the civil
government under which they live. The Roman Catholics or Papists are excluded by reason of such doctrines as
these, that princes excommunicated may be deposed, and those that they call heretics may be destroyed without
mercy; besides their recognizing the Pope in so absolute a manner, in subversion of government, by introducing,
as far as possible into the states under whose protection they enjoy life, liberty, and property, that solecism
in politics, imperium in imperio, leading directly to the worst anarchy and confusion, civil discord, war, and
bloodshed.
The natural liberty of man, by entering into society, is abridged or restrained, so far only as is necessary for
the great end of society, the best good of the whole.
In the state of nature every man is, under God, judge and sole judge of his own rights and of the injuries done
him. By entering into society he agrees to an arbiter or indifferent judge between him and his neighbors; but
he no more renounces his original right than by taking a cause out of the ordinary course of law, and leaving
the decision to referees or indifferent arbitrators.
In the last case, he must pay the referees for time and trouble. He should also be willing to pay his just
quota for the support of government, the law, and the constitution; the end of which is to furnish indifferent
and impartial judges in all cases that may happen, whether civil, ecclesiastical, marine, or military.
(419)The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or
legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.
In the state of nature men may, as the patriarchs did, employ hired servants for the defence of their lives,
liberties, and property; and they should pay them reasonable wages. Government was instituted for the purposes
of common defence, and those who hold the reins of government have an equitable, natural right to an honorable
support from the same principle that " the laborer is worthy of his hire." But then the same
community which they serve ought to be the assessors of their pay. Governors have no right to seek and take
what they please; by this, instead of being content with the station assigned them, that of honorable servants
of the society, they would soon become absolute masters, despots, and tyrants. Hence, as a private man has a
right to say what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a community to determine what they will
give and grant of their substance for the administration of public affairs. And, in both cases, more are ready
to offer their service at the proposed and stipulated price than are able and willing to perform their duty.
In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering
into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the
grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and
defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property.
If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the
eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to
freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily
become a slave.
II. The Rights of the Colonists as Christians.
These may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law Giver and Head
of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.
(420)By the act of the British Parliament, commonly called the Toleration Act, every subject in England, except
Papists, &c., was restored to, and re-established in, his natural right to worship God according to the
dictates of his own conscience. And, by the charter of this Province, it is granted, ordained, and established
(that is, declared as an original right) that there shall be liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of
God to all Christians, except Papists, inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within, such Province
or Territory. Magna Charta itself is in substance but a constrained declaration or proclamation and
promulgation in the name of the King, Lords, and Commons, of the sense the latter had of their original,
inherent, indefeasible natural rights, as also those of free citizens equally perdurable with the other. That
great author, that great jurist, and even that court writer, Mr. Justice Blackstone, holds that this recognition
was justly obtained of King John, sword in hand. And peradventure it must be one day, sword in hand, again
rescued and preserved from total destruction and oblivion.
III. The Rights of the Colonists as Subjects.
A commonwealth or state is a body politic, or civil society of men, united together to promote their mutual
safety and prosperity by means of their union.
The absolute rights of Englishmen and all freemen, in or out of civil society, are principally personal
security, personal liberty, and private property.
All persons born in the British American Colonies are, by the laws of God and nature and by the common law of
England, exclusive of all charters from the Crown, well entitled, and by acts of the British Parliament are
declared to be entitled, to all the natural, essential, inherent, and inseparable rights, liberties, and
privileges of subjects born in Great Britain or within the realm. Among those rights are the following, which
no man, or body of men, consistently with their own rights as men and citizens, or members of society, can for
themselves give up or take away from others.
(421)First, "The first fundamental, positive law of all common wealths or states is the establishing the
legislative power. As the first fundamental natural law, also, which is to govern even the legislative power
itself, is the preservation of the society."
Secondly, The Legislative has no right to absolute, arbitrary power over the lives and fortunes of the people;
nor can mortals assume a prerogative not only too high for men, but for angels, and therefore reserved for the
exercise of the Deity alone.
"The Legislative cannot justly assume to itself a power to rule by extempore arbitrary decrees; but it is
bound to see that justice is dispensed, and that the rights of the subjects be decided by promulgated, standing,
and known laws, and authorized independent judges"; that is, independent, as far as possible, of Prince
and people. "There should be one rule of justice for rich and poor, for the favorite at court, and the
countryman at the plough."
Thirdly, The supreme power cannot justly take from any man any part of his property, without his consent in
person or by his representative.
These are some of the first principles of natural law and justice, and the great barriers of all free states and
of the British Constitution in particular. It is utterly irreconcilable to these principles and to many other
fundamental maxims of the common law, common sense, and reason that a British House of Commons should have a
right at pleasure to give and grant the property of the Colonists. (That the Colonists are well entitled to all
the essential rights, liberties, and privileges of men and freemen born in Britain is manifest not only from the
Colony charters in general, but acts of the British Parliament.) The statute of the 13th of Geo. 2, C. 7,
naturalizes even foreigners after seven years' residence. The words of the Massachusetts charter are these:
"And further, our will and pleasure is, and we do hereby for us, our heirs, and successors, grant,
establish, and ordain, that all and every of the subjects of us, our heirs, and successors, which shall go to,
and inhabit within our said Province or Territory, and every of their children, which shall happen to be born
there or on the seas in going thither or returning from thence, shall have and enjoy all liberties and
immunities of free and natural subjects within any of the dominions (422)of us, our heirs, and successors, to
all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever as if they and every one of them were born within this our
realm of England."
Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent ? Can it be said with any color of
truth and justice, that this continent of three thousand miles in length, and of a breadth as yet unexplored,
in which, however, it is supposed there are five millions of people, has the least voice, vote, or influence
in the British Parliament? Have they all together any more weight or power to return a single member to that
House of Commons who have not inadvertently, but deliberately, assumed a power to dispose of their lives,
liberties, and properties, than to choose an Emperor of China? Had the Colonists a right to return members to
the British Parliament, it would only be hurtful; as, from their local situation and circumstances, it is
impossible they should ever be truly and properly represented there. The inhabitants of this country, in all
probability, in a few years, will be more numerous than those of Great Britain and Ireland together; yet it is
absurdly expected by the promoters of the present measures that these, with their posterity to all generations,
should be easy, while their property shall be disposed of by a House of Commons at three thousand miles'
distance from them, and who cannot be supposed to have the least care or concern for their real interest; who
have not only no natural care for their interest, but must be in effect bribed against it, as every burden they
lay on the Colonists is so much saved or gained to themselves. Hitherto, many of the Colonists have been free
from quit rents; but if the breath of a British House of Commons can originate an act for taking away all our
money, our lands will go next, or be subject to rack rents from haughty and relentless landlords, who will ride
at ease, while we are trodden in the dirt. The Colonists have been branded with the odious names of traitors and
rebels only for complaining of their grievances. How long such treatment will or ought to be borne, is
submitted.
Benjamin Franklin's Preface to the English Edition of the Report
All accounts of the discontent so general in our colonies have of late years been industriously smothered and
concealed here; it seeming to suit the views of the American minister [Lord Hillsborough], to have it
understood that by his great abilities all faction was subdued, all opposition suppressed, and the whole
country quieted. That the true state of affairs there may be known, and the true causes of that discontent well
understood, the following piece (not the production of a private writer, but the unanimous act of a large
American city), lately printed in New England, is republished here. This nation, and the other nations of
Europe, may thereby learn, with more certainty, the grounds of a dissension that possibly may, sooner or later,
have consequences interesting to them all.
The colonies had from their first settlement been governed with more ease than perhaps can be equalled by any
instance in history of dominions so distant. Their affection and respect for this country, while they were
treated with kindness, produced an almost implicit obedience to the instructions of the Prince, and even to
acts of the British Parliament; though the right of binding them by a legislature in which they were
unrepresented was never clearly understood. That respect and affection produced a partiality in favor of
everything that was English; whence their preference of English modes and manufactures; their submission to
restraints on the importation of foreign goods, which they had but little desire to use; and the monopoly we
so long enjoyed of their commerce, to the great enriching of our merchants and artificers.
The mistaken policy of the Stamp Act first disturbed this happy situation; but the flame thereby raised was
soon extinguished by its repeal, and the old harmony restored, with all its concomitant advantage to our
commerce. The subsequent act of another administration, which, not content with an established exclusion of
foreign manufactures, began to make our own merchandise dearer to the consumers there, by heavy duties, revived
it again; and combinations were entered into throughout the continent to stop trading with Britain till those
duties should be repealed. All were accordingly repealed but (424)one, the duty on tea. This was reserved
(professedly so) as a standing claim and exercise of the right assumed by Parliament of laying such duties.
The colonies, on this repeal, retracted their agreement, so far as related to all other goods, except that on
which the duty was retained. This was trumpeted here by the minister for the colonies as a triumph; there it
was considered only as a decent and equitable measure, showing a willingness to meet the mother country in
every advance towards a reconciliation, and a disposition to a good understanding so prevalent that possibly
they might soon have relaxed in the article of tea also. But the system of commissioners of customs, officers
without end, with fleets and armies for collecting and enforcing those duties, being continued, and these
acting with much indiscretion and rashness (giving great and unnecessary trouble and obstruction to business,
commencing unjust and vexatious suits, and harassing commerce in all its branches, while that the minister kept
the people in a constant state of irritation by instructions which appeared to have no other end than the
gratifying his private resentments), occasioned a persevering adherence to their resolutions in that
particular; and the event should be a lesson to ministers not to risk through pique the obstructing any one
branch of trade; since the course and connection of general business may be thereby disturbed to a degree
impossible to be foreseen or imagined. For it appears that the colonies finding their humble petitions to have
this duty repealed were rejected and treated with contempt, and that the produce of the duty was applied to the
rewarding with undeserved salaries and pensions every one of their enemies, the duty itself became more odious,
and their resolution to share it more vigorous and obstinate.
The Dutch, the Danes, and French took this opportunity thus offered them by our imprudence, and began to smuggle
their teas into the plantation. At first this was something difficult; but at length, as all business is
improved by practice, it became easy. A coast fifteen hundred miles in length could not in all parts be guarded,
even by the whole navy of England; especially when their restraining authority was by all the inhabitants
deemed unconstitutional, the smuggling of course considered as patriotism. The needy wretches, too, who, with
small salaries, were trusted to watch the ports day and night, in all weathers, found it easier and more
profitable not only to (425)wink, but to sleep in their beds; the merchant's pay being more generous than the
King's. Other India goods, also, which, by themselves, would not have made a smuggling voyage sufficiently
profitable, accompanied tea to advantage; and it is feared the cheap French silks, formerly rejected, as not
to the tastes of the colonies, may have found their way with the wares of India, and now established themselves
in the popular use and opinion.
It is supposed that at least a million of Americans drink tea twice a day, which, at the first cost here, can
scarce be reckoned at less than half a guinea a head per annum. This market, that in the five years which have
run on since the act passed, would have paid two million five hundred thousand guineas for tea alone, into the
coffers of the Company, we have wantonly lost to foreigners.
Meanwhile it is said the duties have so diminished that the whole remittance of the last year amounted to no
more than the pitiful sum of eighty-five pounds, for the expense of some hundred thousands, in armed ships
and soldiers, to support the officers. Hence the tea, and other India goods, which might have been sold in
America, remain rotting in the Company's warehouses; while those of foreign ports are known to be cleared by
the American demand. Hence, in some degree, the Company's inability to pay their bills; the sinking of their
stock, by which millions of property have been annihilated; the lowering of their dividend, whereby so many
must be distressed; the loss to government of the stipulated four hundred thousand pounds a year, which must
make a proportionable reduction in our savings towards the discharge of our enormous debt; and hence, in part,
the severe blow suffered by credit in general, to the ruin of many families; the stagnation of business in
Spitalfields and Manchester, through want of vent for their goods; with other future evils, which, as they
cannot, from the numerous and secret connections in general commerce, easily be foreseen, can hardly be
avoided.
Editor's Notes and Comments
Note from Wells, Life of Samuel Adams
(425)Mr. Adams's motion, creating the Committee of Correspondence, had specified three distinct duties to be
performed, -to draw up a statement of the rights of the Colonists as men, as Christians, and as subjects; a
declaration of the infringement and violation of those rights; and a letter to be sent to the several towns
in the Province and to the world as the sense of the town. The drafting of the first was assigned to Samuel
Adams, the second to Joseph Warren, and the last to Benjamin Church.
When the reports of the several committees were prepared, they were presented on the 20th of November to a town
meeting at Faneuil Hall by James Otis, who now, as chairman, made his final appearance in public, --the wreck
of one of the most brilliant men of genius that America has produced, but yet sustained by the care and
sympathy of some friends and the tender reverence of the people, whose cause he had ever ardently and
sincerely supported.
"Samuel Adams," says Hutchinson, writing to a friend, " had prepared a long report, but he let
Otis appear in it"; and again, in another letter: "the Grand Incendiary of the Province prepared a
long report for a committee appointed by the town, in which, after many principles inferring independence were
laid down, many resolves followed, all of them tending to sedition and mutiny, and some of them expressly
denying Parliamentary authority."
The report created a powerful sensation, both in America and in England, where it was for some time attributed
to Franklin, by whom it was republished. It is divided into the three subjects specified in the original motion.
The first, in three subdivisions, considering the rights of the Colonists as men, as Christians, and as
subjects, was from the pen of Samuel Adams; his original draft, together with the preparatory rough notes or
headings, being in perfect preservation. It is important, not only as a platform upon which were afterwards
built many of the celebrated state papers of the Revolution, but as the first fruits of the Committee of
Correspondence.
The error of John Adams, when, fifty years afterwards, he attributed this pamphlet to James Otis, gave rise to
some interesting letters from both Jefferson and Adams a few years before their death. John Adams, while
questioning the credit due to Jefferson, as the author of the Declaration of Independence, had called that
document a "recapitulation" of the Declaration of Rights by the Congress of 1774; and, again,
writing to Mr. Pickering, he says: "As you justly observe, there is not an idea in it [the Declaration
of Independence] but what had been hackneyed in Congress two years before. The substance of it is contained
in the Declaration of Rights, and the Violations of those Rights, in the journals of Congress in 1774. Indeed,
the essence of it is contained in a pamphlet voted and printed by the town of Boston before the first Congress
met, composed by James Otis, as I suppose, in one of his lucid intervals, and pruned and polished by Samuel
Adams." (John Adams's Works, II. 514).
The fact that Otis was allowed to present the report as his final public act may have given John Adams this
impression; for, at this time (1772), he himself took no part in public affairs, but devoted his time to
professional pursuits. Otis, however, had nothing to do with preparing the paper, and, to the grief of his
friends and his country, had long been incapable of any public service. Jefferson, adopting (427)the
"supposition" of John Adams as to the authorship of the "Rights of the Colonists," wrote
to Mr. Madison a year later that the "Otis pamphlet he never saw," and upon this his biographer,
continuing the subject in defence of Jefferson's originality, refers repeatedly to the pamphlet in question
as the production of Otis. (Randall's Jefferson, I. 189.) There certainly is a similarity between the
"Rights of the Colonists" in 1772 and the "Declaration of Rights" in 1774, and between
them both and the Declaration of Independence; but, as all are founded on the time-honored principles of
Locke, Hooker, Sydney, and Harrington, some of whom are duly quoted by Samuel Adams in his treatise, the
disputes as to the originality are needless.
But John Adams's memory failed him in relation to the Declaration of Rights made by the first Congress, as well
as in attributing the pamphlet now under consideration to James Otis. He implies that there were two
Declarations, the one of Rights, and the other of Violations, which is manifestly incorrect. It would seem,
too, that any attempt to lessen the credit of Jefferson, by showing that the essence of the Declaration of
Independence was contained in Samuel Adams's pamphlet of 1772 and the Declaraton of Rights in 1774, must
reflect upon whoever claims the authorship of the latter (since the sentiments are identical), unless it be
conceded that Samuel Adams, as is more than probable, was largely engaged in composing the Declaration of
Rights, and introduced into that paper the same principles he had advanced in 1772.
Here [in the paper of 1772] is embodied the whole philosophy of human rights, condensed from the doctrines of
all time, and applied to the immediate circumstances of America. Upon this paper was based all that was written
or spoken on human liberty in the Congress which declared independence; and the immortal instrument itself is,
in many features, but a repetition of the principles here enunciated, and of Joseph Warren's list of grievances,
which followed the Rights of the Colonists in the report. -Wells, Life of Samuel Adams.
From the Editor Sparks.
(427)The report was the boldest exposition of the American grievances which had hitherto been made public, and
was drawn up with as much ability as freedom. Hutchinson says of this report of the committee, that,
"although at its first appearance it was considered as their own work, yet they had little more to do than
to make the necessary alterations in the arrangement of materials prepared for them by their great director in
England, whose counsels they obeyed, and in whose wisdom and dexterity they had an implicit faith. Such
principles in government were avowed as would be sufficient to justify the colonies in revolting, and forming
an independent state; and such instances were given of the infringement of their rights by the exercise of
Parliamentary authority as, upon like reasons, would justify an exception to the authority in all cases
whatever; nevertheless, (428)there was color for alleging that it was not 'expressly' denied in 'every' case.
The whole frame of it, however, was calculated to strike the colonists with a sense of their just claim to
independence, and to stimulate them to assert it."
The person alluded to by Governor Hutchinson, as "the great director in England," was Dr. Franklin,
and it is insinuated that he was in effect the author of the report, but this is in no sense true; nor did he
wholly approve the measures adopted at that meeting. He thought the affair was carried a little farther than
the occasion required at the time, and was afraid that ill consequences would result. It was only the time
and manner of bringing the subject forward, however, upon which he had any doubts. To the sentiments expressed
in the report of the committee, and adopted by the inhabitants of the town, he fully assented. This is proved
by his sending a copy of the proceedings to the press, as soon as he received it in London, with a prefatory
notice written by himself. The pamphlet was entitled "The Votes and Proceedings of the Freeholders and
other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Town Meeting assembled, according to Law. Published by Order of
the Town."-Sparks.
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