Samuel Adams: Taxation Without Representation

It was on December 16, 1773, that Samuel Adams led the Boston Tea Party. They dumped tea from British ships into Boston Harbor to protest taxes. As a member of the Sons of Liberty, Adams and his friends resisted the British government throughout the Revolutionary War era.

Born on September 27, 1722, in Boston, Adams is remembered as a revolutionary and a beer brewer, but he was also well-educated - he earned both his undergraduate and master's degrees from Harvard, and he practiced law for a short time. He was a cousin of John Adams.

From 1765 to 1764, he was a tax collector and a brewer in Boston. He was a member of the Massachusetts General Court in 1768 when he made the famous argument that the Townsend Acts were invalid because Massachusetts was not represented in Parliament. Taxation without representation became one of the bases of the Declaration of Independence, which he signed. The Boston Massacre occurred because citizens like Adams were protesting taxation, and the British occupied the city with soldiers. His cousin John Adams defended the British soldiers at trial.

As one of those who first argued against taxation without representation, Sam Adams wrote: "For if our Trade may be taxed, why not our Lands? Why not the Produce of our Lands & everything we possess or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our Charter Right to govern & tax ourselves."

He understood the way some pervert language to impose oppression: "How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!" A review of history quickly reveals how legislators, judges, and kings modify the meaning of language for their own ends.

Sam Adams served as a member of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1781. In 1779, he was a member of the Massachusetts state constitutional convention, and he became President of the Massachusetts state senate in 1781. He was a member of the Massachusetts state constitutional convention that ratified in 1788, Lieutenant Governor of the state from 1789 to 1794, and Governor from 1794 to 1797.

He died in 1803.