Samuel Adams and the radicalism of the American Revolution

I like it when historians make connections between the past and events of today -- creating a usable past. It is not easy business, but when it works the juxtapositions can illuminate both past and present. Poputonian does that today in discussing the class basis of the American Revolution -- e.g. Samuel Adams was far ahead of the John Hancock and the international merchant and monied class in calling for revolution:

We The People - Part Two

The Money Divide

by poputonian

Several posts ago someone pointed out that the corporate media fell on the other side of the money divide, and thus could not be relied on to advocate the People's cause. Samuel Adams, the man who almost single handedly triggered the American revolution with the Committees of Correspondence, faced a similar issue back in the early 1770s. John Galvin, in his superb book Three Men of Boston, detailed how Adams was losing his way with the monied interests, and thus shifted his focus away from Boston merchants, the most prominent being John Hancock, and toward the Boston mechanics and rural farmers.

When the Boston merchants hired Otis to represent them in 1761, they were aggressive in their desire to fight the imposition of new rules on trade. The decade that followed, however, brought many bitter lessons. Nonimportation, which at first seemed a good answer that would bring quick results, had stifled all trade. Many of the best businessmen were bankrupted by the stagnation of trade in 1765, caused by the tightening customs stranglehold on the port of Boston. The merchants showed their dissatisfaction in a steadfast avoidance of any further affiliation with the radicals of the town: no more nonimportation, they said, no more support for Boston violence, no more attacks in the provincial administration. Hancock, who had inherited the leadership of the Boston merchants, led the way. He broke off his close friendship with Samuel Adams and made his peace with Hutchinson.

As long as Otis had been the dominant figure in Boston opposition o contemporary Parliamentary policy, the merchants were willing to commit themselves to his leadership. He was a radical, yes, but a constructive politician, in background and in philosophy a fellow merchant who might edge near the brink of defiance but whose uppermost concern was the betterment of the empire and consequently Massachusetts. He was, for the merchants, a force for good -- meaning a mutually profitable relationship with the mother country under a very liberal trade policy with increasing power for American colonies without repudiation of the old institutions. Aberration in his thinking were forgiven him and charged to the pressures of the time. (Otis himself had recognized this toleration and used it to extricate himself when trapped by his own inconsistencies.)

Adams had no such inconsistencies, nor did he possess any constructive view of the British empire as the potential salvation of mankind. He did not seek stability above all -- in fact, he was willing to sacrifice a prosperous American trade, at least temporarily, in order to gain other ends. In the eyes of the merchants, Adams was much less predictable than Otis; they saw that the end at which he aimed was increasing independence -- and perhaps even total independence -- of Great Britain. What this would mean now one knew. Additionally, Adams' obstructionism in the House, forcing adherence to the refusal to do business until the governor move the General Court back to Boston, was beginning to cost too much. Without taxes and legislation, the province could not function, and without good government, commerce suffered. Continued exasperation of the Crown was certain to bring added punishment to Boston. Even more liberal businessmen began to hope fervently for a return of a healthy Otis to the scene.

Recognizing the reluctance of the merchants to cast their lot with him, Adams had already begun to transfer the basis of political power of the Boston radicals away from the merchants and toward the people. The merchants, he said, had been too long the "unconcerned spectators" on the political scene, who could be depended on only when their close interests were seen by them to be threatened. It was "the body of the people" who must decide the acceptance or rejection of Parliamentary decisions. He would base the fight on them..

Adams thus lost the support of the powerful and influential Merchant's Society, a fact discernible in his poor showings in the elections of 1772.
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His refusal to compromise, however, did not cost him his influence over the Sons of Liberty. He had seen to it that the small group, the Loyal Nine of 1766, was expanded into the Sons of Liberty (with 355 members) by 1769. These were the mechanics and small tradesmen of Boston, who now began to dominate the town meeting while the merchants grew ever more fearful of them.

Samuel Adams would eventually flood the small rural Massachusetts towns with letters, successfully drawing them into the revolutionary movement. In a similar way, the impeachment movement today isn't coming from the business class, the major media, or from New York, Chicago, LA, or Dallas. It's coming from the states, and towns such as Brattleboro, VT, Boca Raton, FL, Portland, ME, Hanover, NH, Iowa City, IA, Minneapolis, MN, San Diego, CA, Parma, OH, Santa Fe, NM, Nashua, NH, St. Cloud, MN, Newark, NJ, Dunellen, NJ, Oakland, CA, Albany, OR, Lompoc, CA, Winchester, MA, Bowling Green, OH, and Galveston, TX. Perhaps this is a case of don't follow the money.

(Subscription link to The Remedy, an impeachment newsletter, is at the bottom of the afterdowningstreet link above.)

Interestingly, the very act of blogging is itself an updating of the Committees of Correspondence.