The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-10
THE MAKERS
 OF THE NATION
(By Clark Brink Mills. Ph. D.
ARTICLE I. Samuel Adams, the Agitator of Liberty.

must know the great men of that coun- try. For what is history but the rec ord of human lives? To no nati5n IS this principle more applicable than to our own. If we would know the past of the United States we must know the men who have made the United States
 the men who awakened the spirit of independence. who presided at the birth of the young republic, who shaped it's Constitution and who have guided it's destinies through all the stirring scenes of its career down to our own genera ton.
 make much of family trees. The req son. perhaps, may be discovered in the fact that so few American families have been prominent for more than a single generation. A marked exception to this rule is found in the Adams fam lily. As agitators. as diplomats, as presidents, as ambassadors, as mem bers of the cabinet, as college profes- sors, as distinguished lawyers, this re- markable family has helped to render our history illustrious for century and a half. Not the best known, but surely not the least worthy to be known of this distinguished family is he who forms the subject of this sketch.
 Samuel Adams-or Sam Adams, as he was called by his admirers as we'll as by his enemies-was distant cousin to John Adams. the second of our Presi- dents. Born in 1722, ten years before the birth of Washington, he grew to manhood in Boston. his native city, and when twenty-one years of age did what was then thought to be the only proper thing for Boston youths-grad- uated from Harvard College. He main tained for his graduating production the idea that "it is lawful to resist the supreme magistrate. if the common wealth cannot be otherwise preserved" When we remember that this was thir- ty-three years before the Declaration of Independence was written. when all the colonists were loyal subjects of Great Britain. we must be impressed with the bold spirit of the young man.
 Yet. notwithstanding this early American attitude, Samuel Adams can not be said to have become political leader among the colonists until he reached middle life. If he had died at the age of forty he would have been forgotten before his bones had crum- bled to dust in the Old Granary bury ing ground, where at last he was laid close by the victims of the so-called Boston massacre. All that need be said of his early years after leaving college is that they were years of repeated failure. Not liking theology, for which he was at first designed, he began the study of law. Disguised with law. he entered the counting house of a promi- nent merchant. Having no taste or talent for business, he soon left this position Receiving S5,000 from his fa- ther to enter trade for himself. he lent half the sum to a friend. who never repaid him, and lost the rest in unsuc- cessful speculations. Then. going into the brewing business with his father. he went steadily from bad to worse financially until. after his fathers death. in 174S, he soon brought the brewery to the verge of bankruptcy. He must. indeed, have been poor man of business who could not take an un- incumbered brewery and sell beer enough to make a living.
 But the fates that presided over his destiny had not been wholly unkind. Though they had bestowed upon him little capacity for business, they had not been unmindful of the law of com- pensation and had granted him other gifts. Sam Adams was born poll tician. Shrewd, far-seeing, foxy. he did more, perhaps, than any other man in New England to arouse the colonists to resentment against the aggressions of the mother country and to kindle and keep blazing in their hearts the fires of independence. He first actiVe- ly engaged in politics on a paper-mon- ey question then receiving much atten- tion in Massachusetts, and soon became one of the most influential men in the colony. His wife supported the family while he helped manage the analrs or the Commonwealth.
 In 1764 the English Government be- gan that course of taxation which cul- minated a few years later in the rebel lion of the colonies and in the loss to England of the brightest jewel in her crown. The town of Boston ap- pointed a committee, Of which Adams was a member to instruct the general court-or Colonial Assembly-in regard to the proposed scheme. The report or this committee was drawn up in the handwriting of Samuel Adams himself. It is a memorable document in that 1t sets forth two principles which were fundamental in the subsequent struggle for political liberty-the doctrine that the British Parliament had no right to tax the colonies without their consent. and the suggestion that the colonies SnOuIu ullllc TUT lhC puA ROSS OL DPPOo ing by force if need be, all attempts at aggression These declarations were significant, also. as being the first for maj public assertions of these ideas of which there is any record. They were made a full year before Patrick Henry presented the Virginia Resolves de- nying the right of Parliament to tax America. If therefore. any man de- serves the credit of first formulating the statement of the principle on which the war of the Revolution was fought, and of suggesting the means by which alone success could be achieved, that man Is Sameul Adams. He set the pitch to which the grand march of in- dependence was playedl
 Tn the following year (I765) Parlia- nent passed the famous stamp act. a measure providing that slll legal doc uments, such as deeds, contracts, mar riage licenses, etc. \ must be provided with stamps. Adams became the same year a member of the general court, as the deputy from Boston. To him was assigned the task of drafting the pa pers expressive of the attitude of Mas sachusetts toward the principles set forth in the stamp act. One paper was an address to the English Parliament, through the Governor courteously but firmly setting forth the limitations of the English Government and declaring that the Assembly refuses to execute the stamp act. The other was the fa- nous Massachusetts Resolves" pro- claiming to the world the sentiments of N%M achusetts regarding the ques- tions at issue.
 Soon. however, the sturdy patriot was engaged in a work even more import ant in preparing America for the ap-