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- [00:00]
Podcast Host
This is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human.
- [00:05]
Fitness Show Announcer
10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract worth $250,000.
- [00:24]
Narrator
This is where mindset comes in.
- [00:26]
Fitness Show Announcer
Someone will be eliminated.
- [00:28]
Advertisement Voice
Pressure is coming down.
- [00:30]
Sponsor Representative
Trainer Games on Prime Video. Watch the trailer on trainergames.com did you.
- [00:35]
Technology Advertisement Voice
Know Microsoft has officially ended Support for Windows 10? Upgrade to Windows 11 with an LG Gram laptop voted PCMag's Reader's Choice Top Laptop Brand for 2025. Thin and ultra lightweight, the LG Gram keeps you productive anywhere and Windows 11 gives you access to free security updates and ongoing feature upgrades. Visit LGUSA.com iHeart for great seasonal savings on LG Gram laptops with Windows 11 PC Mag Reader's Choice Used with permission. All rights reserved.
- [01:05]
Podcast Host
Season two of Unrivaled Basketball is here and the talent is unreal. The best women's players on the planet are running it back with even bigger moments and bigger stakes. Don't miss as Paige Beckers, Nafiza Collier, Kelsey Plumb, Brianna Stewart and more take the court and redefine the game. This isn't your regular season. This is unrivaled, where the pace is faster, the energy is higher and every athlete shines. Unrivaled basketball sports season two, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5 on TNT, TruTV and HBO.
- [01:34]
Sponsor Representative
Max support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA S I P C Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only. And is not investment, recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available@public.com Disclosures A new year.
- [02:45]
Advertisement Voice
Is on the horizon, and your 2026 savings start here. Right now. You can access the Washington post for just $2 every four weeks. Head into the new year with six months of savings at the special intro rate. After that, it'll cost $12 every four weeks. Cancel anytime. You'll get unlimited access to trusted journalism that helps you understand the year ahead and the world around you. Now's the perfect time to subscribe because great habits and great savings start together. Go to washingtonpost.com iheart that's washingtonpost.com iheart and start your year informed with the Post.
- [03:25]
Narrator
On this episode of Newts World. The lives of these men are essential to understand the American form of government and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played key roles in securing American independence from Great Britain and in the creation of the government of the United States of America. And now, the Life of Samuel Adams. When you go back to the beginning, you realize that Samuel Adams was almost born to be a rebel and a troublemaker. In college, he was reprimanded for missing morning prayer. His senior year, he was caught drinking on campus, a much more shocking event back then, although his father owned a brewery, so maybe drinking on campus wasn't all that surprising. He was born to a very wealthy and religious family on September 27, 1722. He was the 10th of 12 children. We tend to forget sometimes both how many children colonial families had and also how many they lost. Only Sam let himself. Two of his siblings made it past childhood. That's three out of 12. Nine did not survive childhood. His father, Sam Adams Senior, was a deacon of the Congregational Church, ran a brewery and was deeply involved in politics. Remember, by the way, that back in a time when we did not have clean, drinkable water, beer really matters. And it's very significant. In fact, Guinness Stout, which is one of my favorite beers, was actually invented in Ireland as a health drink because it was better for you than either hard liquor or water. The founder of Guinness Stout actually got an award for doing something involving public health. So when you talk about people running breweries, it's a much different world. In the 18th century, Sam Adams was growing up and he loved politics. Now, I think that's a key part of this. You know, this is a guy who likes people. He's involved with people. He's also pretty well educated. And when he was young, he attended the Boston Latin School, which has historically been a remarkably good school. He learned Latin and Greek. He attended Harvard College at the age of 14. He earned his undergraduate degree in 1740 and a graduate degree in 1743. Just a smart guy and a pretty learned guy. Although unlike John Adams, his central impact in history is not because of his calculated writing and his calculated capacity as a literary person, but rather because he could really organize and arouse people. Now, his father attempted to establish a land bank in Boston. It was popular in the colonies, but the British Parliament opposed it and ruled the bank illegal in 1741, which led to the Adams family going bankrupt. Dealing with the lawsuits that followed. And that may have been part of why you begin to get the strong sense in Sam Adams that the British Parliament is anti American. He writes his master's thesis whether it be lawful to resist the supreme magistrate if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved. In other words, he's intellectually laying the base for the principle that in order to protect Americans rights, they may have to, in fact, to use his language, resist the supreme magistrate. Of course, the supreme magistrate ultimately is the King, and he's questioning in his master's thesis whether England really legally has the right to impose taxes on the colonies. Part of what's happened, of course, is when the English win the French and Indian War, or the Seven Years War, as it's called in Europe, and the French are driven out of Canada, all of a sudden the Americans aren't faced with any kind of significant threat. And at the same time, the British have this huge debt they've run up in fighting the Seven Years War, which was a genuinely worldwide war, started, by the way, by George Washington as a very young man in western Pennsylvania, they want to raise taxes. At the very moment that the Americans think, hey, everything's worked out fine. We don't need your protection and we don't need to give you money. So Sam Adams, in that sense, coming off the grievance of the British Parliament, having destroyed his father's family wealth, decided that he would, in fact, become more and more militant in favor of freedom. Now, when he did graduate, he was going to practice law, which his cousin John Adams does do brilliantly. But his mother was against Sam Adams becoming a lawyer, so she convinced him to become a clerk at Accounting House, essentially a bank. His father tried to get his son into business by giving him a thousand pounds to start his own business. But Adams wasn't a businessman. He lost the money because that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to focus on politics. And while he's working at the brewery, Adams, at the age of 26. And a group of his friends started, quote, the Independent Advertisers, a newspaper where anonymously they questioned England's rule and demanded more rights for the colonies. Paper lasted about a year. The first edition of the paper was published by in Boston on January 4, 1748. The first edition started with the. Upon the encouragement we have already received and agreeable to our printed proposals, the Independent Advertiser now makes its entrance into the world. And as it will doubtless be expected upon its first appearance, that we should more fully explain our design and show what the public may expect of it. We would accordingly observe that we shall by no means endeavour to recommend this out paper by depreciating the merit of other performances of the same kind. Neither would we flatter the expectations of the public by any pompous promises which we may not be likely to fulfil. But this our reader may depend upon that we shall take the utmost care to procure the freshest and best intelligence and publish it in such an order as that every reader may have the cleanest and most perfect understanding of it. And for the benefit of those who are unacquainted with the geography of foreign parts, we may insert such descriptions as may enlighten them therein. Now, part of what they're saying is Boston is a great port. People are showing up in Boston. Ships are coming into Boston from all over the Atlantic. And what they want to do is they want to get the news before anybody else print it, so you can learn what's happening around the world because of that. Now he also makes a political commitment. In this very first newspaper, he says, quote, as our present political state matter for a variety of thoughts of peculiar importance to the people of New England, we propose to insert everything of that nature that may be pertinently and decently wrote for ourselves. We declare we are no party, neither shall we promote the private and narrow designs of any such. We are ourselves free, and our paper shall be free. Free as the Constitution we enjoy. Free to truth, good manners and good sense, and at the same time free from all licentious reflections. Insolence and abuse. Now, notice here, because this will come up again and again, and Sam Adams is one of the people who is a great propagandist. The emphasis on free, the word free. We are ourselves free. Our paper will be free. Free as the Constitution we enjoy. Notice he's already claiming that there's a Constitution, and in British tradition, it's unwritten but understood. Free to truth, good manners and good sense. And at the same Time free from all licentious reflections, insolence and abuse. So think about that. In this one paragraph, he comes back to the word free again and again, and he asserts that there is a constitution, which is why when the British Parliament begins to impose taxes, they are violating an already existing constitution. The Americans, in their view, do not have to fight for liberty. They are born into liberty. They are born into a constitution. Now, as an activist and somebody who was very good at working with people, in 1747, Adams is elected to his first political position as one of the clerks of the Boston Market, where He served for nine years. A year later, 1748, both his parents died, leaving him with their estate and in charge of the family's brewery business. He was also left with the numerous lawsuits connected to the land bank that his father had tried to establish. Adam's just not a good businessman. He's unable to make ends meet. He loses the brewery business. The government foreclosed on his family's estate. But Adams used his ability in writing to threaten potential buyers and was able to keep the estate while the government was trying to sell it. People just wouldn't buy it. In 1749, Samuel Adams married Elizabeth Checkley. According to Adams, quote, she was a rare example of virtue and piety blended with a retiring and modest demeanor and the charms of elegant womanhood. Three years his junior, Elizabeth was the daughter of Samuel Checkley, his pastor at the Old South Meeting House. The couple had six children, only two of which reached maturity before Elizabeth Adams passed in 1757 due to complications of childbirth. After her death, Adams immersed himself in politics. He worked briefly as a tax collector in 1756, but since he often failed to collect the required taxes and was lenient with many who could not pay higher rates, he was fired and held liable for the lost income. Once again, he's angry at the government. However, this gave him the change to establish connections which served him in the future. He wed his second wife, Elizabeth Wells, in 1764. Wells was the daughter of his good friend Frances Wells, a successful Boston merchant. The couple had no children together, but she embraced her stepchildren as her own and supported her husband throughout his political career. In 1764, the British government, trying to pay for the debts that had built up, passed the sugar act. As a member of the town meeting, Adams was vocal against the Act. On May 24, 1764, he wrote to the representatives of Boston, quote, for if our trade may be taxed, why not our lands? Why not the produce of our lands and everything we possess or make use of this we apprehend annihilates our Charter right to govern and tax ourselves. It strikes at our British privileges, which, as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common with our fellow subjects who are natives of Britain. If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves? So here you have already, in 1764, the core argument. The argument is we are British by definition. We are part of the British Constitution. The British Constitution, of course, goes all the way back to the signing of the Great Charter, the Magna Carta, and therefore people are not allowed to be taxed unless they give their approval. And so they see this as an assault on existing rights. They're not claiming new rights. They're claiming that their rights go back in history for hundreds and hundreds of years, and it is the government which is assaulting them.
- [15:03]
Fitness Show Announcer
10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000.
- [15:22]
Narrator
This is when Mindset comes in.
- [15:24]
Fitness Show Announcer
Someone will be eliminated.
- [15:26]
Advertisement Voice
Pressure is coming down.
- [15:29]
Sponsor Representative
Trainer Games on Prime Video January 8th.
- [15:31]
Technology Advertisement Voice
Watch the trailer on trainergames.com did you know Microsoft has officially ended Support for Windows 10? Upgrade to Windows 11 with an LG Gram laptop voted PCMag's Reader's Choice Top Laptop Brand for 2025. Thin and ultra lightweight, the LG Gram keeps you productive anywhere and Windows 11 gives you access to free security updates and ongoing feature upgrades. Visit lgusa.com iheart for great seasonal savings on LG Gram laptops with Windows 11. PCMag reader's choice used with permission. All rights reserved.
- [16:03]
Podcast Host
Season 2 of unrivaled basketball is here and the talent is unreal. Paige Beckers, Nafiza Collier, Kelsey Plumb, Brianna Stewart and more are back to redefine the game. Unrivaled basketball season two, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5 on TNT, TruTV and HBO.
- [16:18]
Sponsor Representative
Max support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally, literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA SIP Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available@public.com Disclosures A new year.
- [17:28]
Advertisement Voice
Is on the horizon and your 2026 savings start here. Right now. You can access the Washington post for just $2 every four weeks. Head into the new year with six months of savings at this special intro raid. After that it'll cost $12 every four weeks. Cancel anytime. You'll get unlimited access to trusted journalism that helps you understand the year ahead and the world around you. Now's the perfect time to subscribe because great habits and great savings start together. Go to washingtonpost.com iheart that's washingtonpost.com iheart and start your year informed with the.
- [18:11]
Narrator
A year later it got worse. The British government passed the Stamp act again, an effort to get money to pay off all these various debts. Adams at that point took the streets, united his political party, the Country Party, with two opposing parties, North Boston and South Boston, led by John Hancock and James Otis, to form the Sons of Liberty Notice. Again, the language the Sons of Liberty. Adams wrote instructions of the town of Boston to its representatives in the General Court in September 1764, and he's really laying out their argument. They are alarmed and astonished at the tact called the Stamp act, by which a very grievous and we apprehend unconstitutional tax is to be laid upon the colony. So notice they are literally arguing that they already have what they called our invaluable rights and liberties. And so they see this as an attack on existing rights. They're not arguing for new rights, they are defending what they see as old rights. That rebellion led to the Stamp Act Congress, where all but four of the colonies demanded that the King repeal the tax. This worked. The British gave up in 1766 and never collected the taxes. Adam was elected that year, in 1766 to the House of Representatives as a clerk. As clerk he was responsible for basic record keeping and communicating with the colony's agent in london and with other legislative assemblies in other colonies. This is where he met john hancock for the first time. Although most representatives did not receive a salary, Adam, as clerk did and had a steady income. This allowed him to focus even more on politics. In 1767, Parliament approved a series of taxes on items imported in the colonies. Known as the towns annex, this act also created an american board of customs commissioners to enforce collection, which established their headquarters in boston. It's almost as though the parliament is so desperate for money, and their reasoning is pretty simple. They had fought a large war against france in part to protect the americans. They borrowed all this money in order to wage the war to protect the americans. And the americans were now the beneficiaries of having Canada to the north be a british colony. So why weren't the americans grateful and generous? And apparently in parliament, they just couldn't get through their head how much this was infuriating and alienating the americans. When news of the townshend acts reaches massachusetts in the autumn of 1767, Adams immediately employed the boston town meeting to organize protests and boycotts. In January of 1768, he motioned the general court to draft a petition to the king, urging that he respects the charter rights of massachusetts. Notice they're not creating rights. They want the king to respect existing rights. The motion faced opposition from rural town representatives who aligned with the parliament. So adams waited until the end of the legislative session, when many of those who opposed departed back home, before putting the motion forth. It easily passed. So here you see him maneuvering, thinking, becoming a pretty effective politician. The general court sent the letter, the petition, with the letter to other colonies. It was known as the massachusetts circular letter, which Adams was one of the authors Alongside James otis. The letter read, the house of representatives of this province have taken into their serious consideration the great difficulties that must accrue to themselves and their constituents by the operation of several acts of parliament imposing duty and taxes on the american colonies. So they are really into this issue of the constitution which they assert already exists. And they are really into the concept that the british parliament is now usurping their powers and threatening them in very, very serious ways. And they assert, quote, in all free states, the constitution is fixed. And as the supreme legislative derives its power and authority from the constitution, it cannot overleap the bounds of it without destroying its own foundation. That the constitution ascertains and limits both sovereignty and allegiance. And therefore his majesty's american subjects, who acknowledge themselves bound by the ties of allegiance have an equitable claim to the full enjoyment of the fundamental rules of the British Constitution. That it is an essential, unalterable right in nature and grafted into the British Constitution as a fundamental law and ever held sacred and irrevocable by the subjects within the realm. That what a man has honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, but cannot be taken from him without his consent. That the American subjects may therefore, exclusive of any consideration of charter rights, with a decent firmness adapted to the character of free men and subjects, assert this natural and constitutional right. So they're saying we literally have, under natural law, we have achieved this. This is the forerunner of what Jefferson will write in the Declaration of Independence when he says, we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Well, that's exactly what Adams has beaten to drift towards. That these rights existed outside of any kind of specific contract. They are inherent. They're part of being British. And the result was that they had put together a real opposition that was a threat to the core of the British system. Lord Hillsborough, who's the Secretary of State for the colonies, received the letter and then ordered that the letter be taken back. Hillsborough threatened them, said if they refused, he would order Massachusetts governor Francis Bernard to dissolve the General Court. Despite that threat, the legislative voted to refuse to rescind the letter by 92 to 17. Governor Bernard, in response, dissolved them. They did not reconvene for another year. In other words, faced with a direct order from the British government by 92 to 17, the legislatures are voting to defy the British government. Now, this is the beginning of really moving towards a serious confrontation. Troops arrive in Boston on October 1, 1768. And while they're arriving, Adams is authoring over 20 newspaper articles, usually under the pen names Vindex and Candidas, using the pseudonym Vindex, in the Boston Gazette in December 1768, he writes, quote, while the spirits of the people, as yet unsubdued by tyranny, unawed by the menace of arbitrary power, submit to be governed by military force, no. Let us rouse our attention to the common law, which is our birthright, our great security against all kinds of insult and oppression, the law which, when rightly used, is the curb and the terror of the haughtiest tyrant. So he's really putting together the core argument about the nature of freedom and the idea that freedom belongs to you, it's not given to you by the government. Freedom starts with you and then you may loan part of it to the government, but the center of it is always you, the individual citizen. And Adams advocate that Boston merchants just refuse to import all British goods for a year. They didn't get 100% support for it, but they got enough that all of a sudden the British merchants are complaining to Parliament that the alienation is getting to be expensive to them. And so where the British Parliament had thought, oh, this would be pretty easy, they'll obviously have to pay the taxes. What they're discovering is every time they take a step to oppress those who are angry, there are more people angry. And so there's a whole process underway here in which people are gradually banding together to oppose what the British are doing. Adams wanted to extend it beyond one year, but it just wasn't possible. On February 22, 1770, when harassed by a mob, a minor customs official named Ebenezer Richardson accidentally shot and killed 11 year old Christopher Seder. Although probably an accident, Adams used this as an opportunity to call out the presence of British troops. Adams organized a public funeral that was attended by over 2000 people for this young 11 year old who'd been killed. By March 5, 1779, British soldiers faced off a mob of several hundred angry citizens. They fired into the crowd, killing five and wounding six citizens. That began to be the Boston Massacre. On March 6, Adams led a committee to demand the removal of British troops in an emergency session. After Adams addressed the assembly, they unanimously voted for removal of the troops. Now, this is a real, I think, significant repudiation of the British ability to extend power. Governor Hutchinson understands how big a threat this is. On the same day, writes to William Dalrymple, the commander of the military, I am sensible. I have no power to order the troops to the castle. But under the present circumstance of the town and the province, I cannot avoid in consequence of this unanimous advice of the council designing you to order them there, which I must submit to you. Lt. Col. Dalrymple agreed to this and ordered the troops to Castle island in the harbor. So the American citizens feel like they're winning. The soldiers involved in the shooting were arrested and waited trial. But it's fascinating. This is a great story in American history because they wanted a fair trial. Even Samuel Adams, who was one of the hottest and most aggressive of the Americans, knew that it had to be a fair trial. And of course, most attorneys did not want to defend the British. So Adams got his cousin John Adams and Josiah Quincy to defend them. It's a brilliant move. John Adams is a great lawyer at the time. It I think hurts him some in terms of the people of Boston. But they made the argument that the soldiers were only firing out of self defense and it wasn't their fault that they were there. They'd been ordered to go there. So of the soldiers, only two were found guilty of manslaughter. Adams actually opposed the court decision and really was on the side of the American revolutionaries.
- [28:55]
Fitness Show Announcer
10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract worth $250,000.
- [29:14]
Narrator
This is where mindset comes in.
- [29:15]
Fitness Show Announcer
Someone will be eliminated.
- [29:18]
Advertisement Voice
Pressure is coming down.
- [29:20]
Sponsor Representative
Trainer Games on Prime Video January 8th.
- [29:22]
Technology Advertisement Voice
Watch the trailer on trainergames.com did you know Microsoft has officially ended Support for Windows 10? Upgrade to Windows 11 with an LG Gram laptop voted PCMag's Reader's Choice Top Laptop Brand for 2025. Thin and ultra lightweight, the LG Gram keeps you productive anywhere and Windows 11 gives you access to free security updates and ongoing feature Updates upgrades. Visit LGUSA.com iHeart for great seasonal savings on LG Gram laptops with Windows 11. PCMag reader's choice used with permission. All rights reserved.
- [29:55]
Podcast Host
Season 2 of unrivaled basketball is here and the talent is unreal. The best women's players on the planet are running it back with even bigger moments and bigger stakes. Don't miss as Paige Becker, Snafeeza Collier, Kelsey Plumb, Brianna Stewart and more. Take the court and redefine the game. Game this isn't your regular season. This is unrivaled, where the pace is faster, the energy is higher and every athlete shines. Unrivaled basketball season two, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5 on TNT, TruTV and HBO Max support for the.
- [30:26]
Sponsor Representative
Show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis. Not someone else's go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you try transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, LLC SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available@public.com Disclosures A new year.
- [31:35]
Advertisement Voice
Is on the horizon, and your 2026 savings start here. Right now you can access the Washington post for just $2 every four weeks. Head into the new year with six months of savings at this special intro rate. After that, it'll cost $12 every four weeks. Cancel anytime. You'll get unlimited access to trusted journalism that helps you understand the year ahead and the world around you. Now's the perfect time to subscribe because great habits and great savings start together. Go to washingtonpost.com iheart that's washingtonpost.com iheart and start your year informed with the Post.
- [32:19]
Narrator
In April 1770, in an effort to find a middle ground, Parliament repeals all the towns and taxes except one, the tax on tea. In the late spring of 1771, news came that Parliament would no longer allow the legislature to to pay the governor's salary, but instead the governor's salary would be paid with revenue from the tea tax. At that point, people began to get really upset. By the autumn of 1772, news broke that judges of the Supreme Court would like the governor not be paid by the legislature. Now what's happening is the British Parliament is gradually creating a class of people whose loyalty is to London and who are prepared to impose on the people of Massachusetts. Now Adams, when they learn that the judges as well as the governor are going to be paid directly from the tax, writes an article in the Boston Gazette under the name Valerius Poplicola. He writes this to what a state of infamy, wretchedness and misery shall we be reduced, if our judges shall be prevailed upon to be thus degraded to hirelings, and the body of the people shall suffer their free constitution to be overturned and ruined. Let not the iron hand of tyranny ravish our laws, and seize the badge of freedom, and the murderous rage of lawless power be ever seen on the sacred seat of justice. Now, by the way, it's interesting. I once did a paper in which I realized that reforming judges was the number two demand of the colonists after the right of taxation. They were so angry at the way that the judges had become creatures of the state against the people, that much of what we see in the Constitution in limiting the judges is a function of what they had experienced under the British, where the judges became the tools of the king against the people. By late 1772, Adams is writing a pamphlet, the Rights of the Colonists. And again, this really is a precursor to Jefferson. Listen to it quote. Among the natural rights of the colonists are these. First, a right to life, second, to liberty, third, 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 cases 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. Now notice Adam is going all the way back, basically making the argument which John Locke had made at the turn of the last century in the 1690s, and that is that our rights are natural. They are inherent in the way that God and nature operate. And therefore they're not a function of the state, but rather the state has to be seen in the context of these natural rights. And this begins to be an enormous division because if you are the British king, you can't accept the idea that there are rights outside your kingship. Historically, in the Middle Ages, power came from God through the king down to other people. What they're now saying is no, no, power comes from the God to us. It's a natural right, there's a natural liberty and then we loan the king power. Well, this is a radical violation of the system that had been operated throughout the Middle Ages. And so the result is, you begin to see. Samuel Adams, I think is a real precursor of what Jefferson will write in the Declaration of Independence, laying out a doctrine, he even says at one point, talks about life, liberty and property. Property becomes life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But pursuit of happiness and the 18th century Scottish Enlightenment actually means virtue and wisdom doesn't mean hedonism and getting drunk. So they're talking about you have a right to seek a better life. 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. Now look, this is a head on collision. That's coming right down the road. And Adams is right in the middle of it, and he is describing the base of freedom as it has existed in America ever since. And that is that your rights come from God, that the government cannot infringe on those rights, and that only those things that you're willing to delegate to government can belong to government. In the middle of all this, an East Indian ship, the Dartmouth, arrived in Boston. Adams wanted the ship to return without paying the importation duties, something that was required by law. He held a meeting where according to a letter he wrote to Arthur Lee On December 13, 1773, at least 7,000 men, many coming from outside towns as far as 20 miles away, gathered to support Adams petition. But Governor Hutcheson refused to make the ship return. Faced with this, a group of men disguised themselves as Indians and in less than 4 hours threw all 342 chests of tea into the harbor. This was the famous Boston Tea Party. We're not really sure if Adams was one of the Indians, but we are sure that he was instrumental in publishing what happened through all the colonies and using it as one of the reasons for colonists to fight for independence. Well, the British government goes nuts. They passed the intolerable Acts of 1774, closing the Boston port until the colony paid for the tea they dumped into the harbor, requiring all colonists to house British soldiers in their homes, and made it so the British had control of locally appointed officials. They basically are trying to take over and create a dictatorship based in London. That just leads to even more intense argument. Adams In June of 1774 drafts the resolves of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and makes the case for the rest of the colonies that we are now being oppressed and they're coming for you next. Now, the British are very serious about this. They send General Thomas Gage as military governor. They send 4,000 troops into Boston, and Adams doesn't back down. In fact, In June of 1774, Adams chairs a committee in the House of Representatives which had left Boston to go to Salem to be able to meet. And they proposed electing individuals to represent Massachusetts at a colonial congress set to meet in Philadelphia. Both Sammy Adams and his cousin John Adams were elected delegates. And to this particular thing, General Gage, with the British back home putting real pressure on him to end the rebellion, didn't want to arrest Adams because he felt this would lead to a backlash. He tried to prevent the Provincial Congress from getting military supplies that led to each side attempted to capture local gunpowder Source. Then on April 14, 1775, a letter from The Secretary of State ordered Gage to disarm the militia and arrest the leaders of the rebellion, which was namely Samuel Adams and John Hancock. A second Continental Congress was deemed necessary in May of 1775. Just a month later, Adams was selected as a delegate. However, in April, before departing, Adams and John Hancock attended a session, the Provincial Congress, meeting in Concord, 15 miles northwest of Boston. Since they were aware of the order to arrest them, they decided to stay in Lexington at the home of Reverend Clark instead of Boston. Because of a very real risk of arrest, Gage orders a column of troops to Concord to seize and destroy a suspected cache of munitions. The march of the soldiers would go through Lexington. It's actually not clear nowadays whether Gage knew that Adams and Hancock were there or whether or not he was even going to try to arrest them. Despite this, fearing capture, Joseph Warren dispatched Paul Revere and William Dawes to warn the delegates to leave. And on April 18, 1775, Paul Revere went on his famous ride, sparking the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The British troops arrive in Lexington the morning of April 19, just as Hancock and Adams escape. Less than a month after the battles of Lexington and Concord, the second Continental Congress took place. In an April 3, 1776 letter to Samuel Cooper, Adams wrote, is not America already independent? Why then not declare it? Can nations at war said to be dependent either upon the other. And so Adams is really working the concept. It's time to declare independence. He's very much in favor of a resolution to declare it. And ultimately he's one of the people who's enthusiastically signing the Declaration of Independence. And again, he's basing all of this on natural rights and on the sense that all we're doing is defining what we already have. And it's the British king who's trying to take it away from us. We're not trying to establish it, we already have it. But the British king now is trying to steal it. It's, I think, a very significant moment. Once they had won the war, Adams supported a state constitution, but he wanted to limit the power of the government. He did not go to the constitutional convention of 1787 because he was afraid that a stronger government would infringe on the people's liberties. He rejected the very concept. He attempted to re enter national politics as a candidate for the U.S. house, but was defeated by Fisher Ames, who was an avid supporter of the Constitution. He went on to serve as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts under Governor John Hancock. And when Hancock died in office, Adams assumed the governorship. Then he was elected to three successive one year terms as Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He officially retired in 1797 because he was unable to write due to the tremors in his hands. He died on October 2, 1803 at the age of 81. In 1819, Thomas Jefferson wrote of Samuel Adams, quote, I can say he was truly a great man, wise in counsel, fertile in resources, immovable in his purposes, although not a fluent elocution. He was so rigorously logical, so clear in his views, abundant in good sense, and master always of his subject, that he commanded the most profound attention whenever he rose in an assembly. And of course, as I have pointed out, Jefferson in many ways was deeply shaped by Adam's understanding of natural law and of the role of God in giving us our liberties. Because Sam Adams was so eloquent in defining the rights of Americans, because he was so consistent and persistent in arguing and fighting for those rights, because he was able to talk in a common language which allowed everyday folks to understand it and to decide for themselves where they were in this great struggle, he really is one of the heroes around whom the American system is built. I'm not sure that we would have gotten nearly as far towards freedom and liberty without Samuel Adams. I am sure he managed to help people all across the colonies come to an understanding that there was an irreconcilable difference between a British king who believed in a divine right of kingship and Americans who believed that that divine right led to sovereignty for the individual, not for the state. And I think Samuel Adams has to be considered one of the genuine immortals who shaped freedom and on whose shoulders we today still stand. Thank you for listening. You can read more about Samuel Adams and get links to my other Founding Fathers episodes on our show page@newtsworld.com Newts World is produced by Gingrich360 and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer producer is Garnzi Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Pendley. Special thanks to the team at Gingrich360 if you've been enjoying Newts World, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my three free weekly columns again. Gingrich360.com Newsletter I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newt's World.
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