If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude, than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace.

I feel like there is a tendency to focus on the refined and intellectual Founding Fathers (Jefferson, Adams) and overlook some of the firebrands whose thought processes might have been so knowledgeable and logical but whose fiery rhetoric was highly effective. The cognitive elegance of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams needed the passion of Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams.

I tend to think of Thomas Paine when I think of the passion of the Revolution (Common Sense, on of the greatest best sellers of all time) but I came across this reminder that Samuel Adams was no slouch.

American Independence by Samuel Adams, in a speech delivered at the State House in Philadelphia, August 1, 1776. The whole thing is worth reading.

I love how he defangs critics in his opening statement, saying, essentially, that he is not going to make an empirical argument; he is going to deliver a rhetorical speech. His comments are design to move men's hearts rather than their minds.

COUNTRYMEN AND BRETHREN: I would gladly have declined an honor, to which I find myself unequal. I have not the calmness and impartiality which the infinite importance of this occasion demands. I will not deny the charge of my enemies, that resentment for the accumulated injuries of our country, and an ardor for her glory, rising to enthusiasm, may deprive me of that accuracy of judgment and expression which men of cooler passions may possess. Let me beseech you, then, to hear me with caution, to examine without prejudice, and to correct the mistakes into which I may be hurried by my zeal.

Just as citizens are turning against the self-serving, mealy mouthed Mandarin class across the developed world, Samuel Adams has little regard for those who sacrifice principles for comfort.

From the day on which an accommodation takes place between England and America, on any other terms than as independent States, I shall date the ruin of this country. A politic minister will study to lull us into security, by granting us the full extent of our petitions. The warm sunshine of influence would melt down the virtue, which the violence of the storm rendered more firm and unyielding. In a state of tranquillity, wealth and luxury, our descendants would forget the arts of war, and the noble activity and zeal which made their ancestors invincible. Every art of corruption would be employed to loosen the bond of union which renders our assistance formidable. When the spirit of liberty which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin, and render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye abandoned minions of an infatuated ministry, if peradventure any should yet remain among us! — remember that a Warren and Montgomery are numbered among the dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies of our countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood, and hunt us from the face of the earth?

In case he is unclear, he elaborates on the choice.

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude, than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

Stern stuff. Two hundred and forty two years later, it is still stirring.