American Revolution : Adams, Samuel (3 results)

First Edition. "(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) ADAMS, Samuel. An Oration Delivered at the State-House, in Philadelphia. Philadelphia Printed; London, Re-printed for: J.Johnson, 1776. Slim octavo, contemporary three-quarter red morocco and marbled boards; pp.(2), 1-42. $6750.First edition of a fascinating Revolutionary work of deliberate political misdirection, misattributed to Samuel Adams, firebrand of the Boston Tea Party, published in the wake of the Declaration "to show that the colonies were bent on independence," issued in London despite the imprint of a fictional Philadelphia printing.This first edition of a 1776 Revolutionary War pamphlet, with its forged misattribution to Samuel Adams and issued in the wake of the Declaration of Independence, is an intriguing example of a key turning point in political rhetoric. It stands out from similar strategies of misdirection even at a time when there was a rise in "the volume of propaganda emitted during the years 1763 to 1776, much of it pseudonymous and anonymous" (Alden, 530). As such this is an exemplary work of calculated political misdirection.Even in the 1800s, questions lingered about this London printing of an Oration, said to be delivered by Samuel Adams on August 1, 1776, in Philadelphia. There would have been no immediate reason to doubt his authorship, given Adams' stature and evidence that "the British kept close watch on his activities" (Stoll, Samuel Adams, 185). As rumors continued to circulate, Adams' grandson, Samuel Adams Wells, wrote to Thomas Jefferson for clarification for Jefferson himself had once "emphatically attested that, if there was a helmsman of the American Revolution, 'Samuel Adams was the man'" (Alexander, Samuel Adams, 156). In Wells' April 14, 1819 letter to Jefferson, he spoke of a planned biography of his famous grandfather and hopes of preserving "the existing facts In my investigations," he wrote, "I have met with contradictory accounts and in some instances with oral narratives entirely at variance with written contemporaneous statements." In particular, he asks Jefferson if he could confirm: "that [Adams] delivered an Oration at Philadelphia in 1776. If so what were its merits and effects?" Jefferson responded to Wells in a May 12, 1819 letter that answered many of Wells' other questions, but with respect to the alleged Oration, simply noted: "neither memory nor memorandums enable me to give any information" (Founders Online). Since then, however, historians have provided an answer. "Of this Oration (never delivered), there was no Philadelphia edition (in spite of its being indicated by title-page); it was, in fact a London forgery designed to show that the colonies were bent on independence" (Howes A72). The misattribution to Samuel Adams indicates he was viewed as "the single most important individual in establishing the Revolution's public voice" (Bradley, xiv-xv). The still-anonymous author of the Oration, clearly versed in revolutionary rhetoric, "extols the merits of the newly independent colonies, but overtones suggest that it was actually written in England. W.V. Wells, in his Life of Samuel Adams, points out that this is spurious. None of the recent writers who have dealt with Samuel Adams have included this among his writings' (Adams 76-106a). First edition: "There is no Philadelphia edition" (Sabin 344). Without scarce half title. Adams 76-106a. Howes A72. ESTC T83257. Preliminary blank with bibliographic marginalia in an unidentified hand. One page with small bit of early marginalia and several words underlined.Text very fresh and clear, minor rubbing to board edges.".

First Edition. "(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (HUTCHINSON, Thomas) (ADAMS, John) (ADAMS, Samuel) (HANCOCK, John). A Continuation of the Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay, Relative to the Convening, Holding, and Keeping The General Assembly at Harvard-College, in Cambridge. Published by Order of the House of Representatives. Boston: Edes and Gill, 1770. Slim octavo, period-style full tree calf gilt, red morocco spine label, raised bands, marbled endpapers; pp. (1-3), 4-66. $11,500.First edition of the momentous work that documents powerful legal and philosophical debates in a stand-off between Boston patriots and Hutchinson over his command to remove the Massachusetts Court from Boston amidst fury over the recent Boston Massacre, causing colonial leaders, chief among them Samuel and John Adams, to rage against "the most valuable of our Liberties from being wrested from us," this rare edition "almost certainly a major cause" of the Declaration of Independence "accusing the King of calling 'together legislative bodies at place distance from the repository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance."On March 8, 1770, three days after the Boston Massacre, thousands of mourners attended the funerals of Crispus Attucks, James Caldwell, Samuel Gray and Samuel Maverick. That same day Lt. Governor Hutchinson, who succeeded Francis Bernard as Massachusetts' royal governor, ordered the General Court to be taken from Boston and compelled to meet in Cambridge. With that command, Hutchinson "provoked a constitutional crisis in Massachusetts and instigated a controversy which lasted for more than two years" (Calhoon & Lord, Removal of the Massachusetts General Court, in Tory Insurgents, 28). Hutchinson, whose Boston home had been nearly destroyed in the 1765 Stamp Act riots, was seen by many as "the most villainous, traitorous person in the land he personified, they believed, all the corruption and the incipient tyranny that they were fighting against" (Bailyn, Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson, 282). While Bailyn and other historians offer a more temperate view of his legacy, Founding Father Samuel Adams bluntly called Hutchinson "a 'pimp rather than a governor'" (Calhoon & Lord), and John Adams "considered Hutchinson to be the greatest threat to American liberties" (Webking, 80).Hutchinson, who officially became Governor in 1771, is deemed "the most important figure on the loyalist side in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts" (Wroth & Zobel, eds. Legal Papers of John Adams V1:cii). His removal of "the Court from Boston's turbulent influences" triggered a stand-off with Boston leaders who challenged "the power of the Crown to interfere in the provincial matter of calling, proroguing, and dissolving the assembly Hutchinson knew that the removal was a risky step one which would provide his enemies with a dramatic grievance. At the same time, he was so disturbed by the erosion of royal authority in the province that he was determined to preserve one of the Crown's prerogatives from further deterioration" (Calhoon & Lord, 28). "In Hutchinson's opinion, since Boston's political problems were generated by an unhappy handful of dissidents, if Britain demonstrated a consistently firm hand most of the challenges to authority would soon disappear. As he confided to a superior in London 'if it was not for 2 or 3 Adamses we should do well eno'" (Welmsley, Thomas Hutchinson, 123).This rare first edition of Continuation of the Proceedings begins with Hutchinson's July 25, 1770 speech at the opening of the Court's Second Session. As seen here, the Massachusetts House swiftly answered by refusing to conduct business in Cambridge, and authorized a report of its Committee of Correspondence that "introduced the strongest use of natural law yet attempted by the Court" (Calhoon & Lord, 35). That report, primarily drafted by Samuel Adams, declares: "This House has the same inherent Rights in this Province, as the House of Commons has in Great-Britain and we may constitutionally refuse to grant our Constituents Monies to the Crown or to do any other Act of Government until the Grievances of the People are redressed." The report then proclaims: "We are obliged to prevent the most valuable of our Liberties from being wrested from us, by the subtle Machinations and daring Encroachments of wicked Ministers [including] A Revenue not granted by us, but torn from us, Armies stationed here without our Consent; and the Streets of our Metropolis crimson'd with the Blood of our Fellow Subjects" (emphasis in original).Continuation documents the extensive legal and philosophical debates between Hutchinson and Boston leaders through October of 1770, and concludes with a House resolution in mid-November. That same month, after the Boston Massacre trial and acquittal of British officer Thomas Preston, in which John Adams served as his defense attorney, the House sent separate instructions to Benjamin Franklin, then in London. Franklin was explicitly notified of "the boiling cauldron of resentment in Massachusetts," and in a December 17 message from the Committee of Correspondence, was told to expect, "as soon as it is printed," a copy of this momentous edition of Continuation, "now in the Press" (Founders Online). Ultimately the Court was permitted to return to Boston and in 1774, following the Boston Tea Party, Hutchinson was called back to Britain. The extensive arguments of Hutchinson and Boston leaders this seminal work were "almost certainly the major cause of the grievance in the Declaration of Independence accusing the King of calling 'together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.'" In effect, Hutchinson forced Boston and its Court "to articulate more fully the vague but sweeping doctrine that only the people's representatives c.

Broadside, 13 x 12 inches. Signed in manuscript "William Cooper" and addressed in ink to the Select-Men of "Kingston" below the text. Ink notation on verso reading: "To the Select Men of Kingston." A few areas of paper loss, most significantly to the right side of the document, affecting all or part of some eighty-seven words. Some portions expertly backed with archival tissue to stabilize losses. Minor toning, some bleedthrough from ink notation on verso. In a half morocco and cloth folding case, leather label. An astonishing survival from the early years of the American Revolutionary movement, this is the circular letter issued by Boston's Committee of Correspondence, which had formed less than three weeks earlier at the behest of Samuel Adams. The Committee called for close coordination between the colonies, and as such, this broadside circular letter can be considered one of the earliest attempts to unite colonial protest against the British Crown. The call prompted other colonies to create their own Committees of Correspondence and helped galvanize resistance to imperial authority. Printed evidence of the activities of the Committees of Correspondence - especially at such an early moment and with content of such high import - is extraordinarily rare in the market. As tensions between the British Crown and its American colonies were growing in the early 1770s, the need for unity and concerted action among the rebellious Americans was becoming ever more apparent. At a town meeting in Boston on November 2, 1772 a standing "Committee of Correspondence" was formed to encourage and facilitate collective resistance, and to assert the rights of American colonists. This text, dated November 20, is a reaction to British attempts to provide salaries to judges in Massachusetts, thereby making them entirely dependent on the Crown for their appointment and continued support. The Committee decries such a strategy, stating that "we cannot but be extremely alarm'd at the mischievous Tendency of this Innovation; which, in our Opinion is directly contrary to the Spirit of the British Constitution, pregnant with innumerable Evils, & hath a direct Tendency to deprive us of every thing valuable as Men, as Christians, and as Subjects, entitled, by the Royal Charter, to all the Right, Liberties and Privileges of native Britons." "Drafted by Samuel Adams, this letter is addressed to the several towns of the Province and urges a united front against British maladministration. This effort of Adams to arouse the populace against British tyranny constituted, according to historians, probably his greatest contribution to the Revolution. Declaring that 'We are not afraid of Poverty, but disdain Slavery,' the incendiary Adams reminded the colonists of their forefathers' ardor for civil and religious liberty, and warned of the dire results to be expected if the measures of the British court are allowed to pass unchecked" - Rosenbach. The town of Kingston, Massachusetts, to whose selectmen this broadside is addressed, was an early and ardent supporter of the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the revolutionary movement. By 1774 the town had established its own committee, headed by John Thomas. During the course of the next year, Kingston armed and equipped thirty-three Minutemen to serve with a company from Plymouth County headed by Theophilus Cotton. By the end of the war almost 100 Kingston men would serve in the Continental Army. Kingston was also the site of the construction of the legendary American warship, the Independence, which wreaked havoc on the British Navy throughout 1776 before being defeated off the coast of Nova Scotia. The copy of this broadside at the American Antiquarian Society (addressed to the Selectmen of Concord), as well as the copy sold by Rosenbach in 1948 (sent to the Selectmen of Milton), are both somewhat defective, as is the present copy. Considering the purpose and nature of this document, it is not surprising that copies survive in less than ideal condition, especially given the fact that the text would have been positively inflammatory to British colonial authorities, and therefore was likely to be destroyed by Royal authorities. A rare and explosive colonial American broadside that helped unite the colonies and spark the Revolutionary War. BRISTOL B3428 (citing 5 copies). SHIPTON & MOONEY 42317. FORD 1608. ESTC W9556 (recording 4 copies). ROSENBACH 14:12.