“If taxes are laid upon us without our having a legal representation where they are laid, we are reduced from the character of free subjects to the state of tributary slaves.”
— Samuel Adams
“Shame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble and expense at the price of their own posterity’s liberty!”
— Samuel Adams
“Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that “if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom,” it is a very serious consideration … that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.”
— Samuel Adams
“But there are some persons who would persuade the people never to make use of their constitutional rights.”
— Samuel Adams
“If our Trade be taxed, why not our Lands, or Produce in short, everything we possess? They tax us without having legal representation.”
— Samuel Adams
“The right to freedom being the gift of God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave….”
— Samuel Adams
“I believe that no people ever yet groaned under the heavy yoke of slavery but when they deserved it.”
— Samuel Adams
“Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.”
— Samuel Adams
“I would advise persisting in our struggle for liberty, though it were revealed from Heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine men were to perish, and only one of a thousand to survive and retain his liberty. One such freeman must possess more virtue, and enjoy more happiness, than a thousand slaves.”
— Samuel Adams