Joining with John Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson in forcing issues for complete separation from England and for the formal Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams was himself the author of the celebrated circular letter addressed by the assembly of Massachusetts to the speakers of the several assemblies in other colonies.  In 1774 he was chosen a member of the Continental Congress, where he took a prominent part in preventing the possibility of compromise with England.  In 1794 he succeeded Hancock as governor of Massachusetts, retiring in 1797 because of “the increasing infirmities of age.”

Like many other statesmen of his time he lived the greater part of his life in poverty, but his only son, dying before him, left him a property which supported him in his old age.

It is said that his great oration on American Independence, delivered at Philadelphia in August 1776, and published here, is the only complete address of his which has come down to us.  It was translated into French and published in Paris, and it is believed that Napoleon borrowed from it the phrase, “A Nation of Shopkeepers,” to characterize the English.

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

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 your prejudice, and to correct the mistakes into which I may be hurried by my zeal.

Truth loves an appeal to the common sense of mankind.  Your unperverted understandings can best determine on subjects of a practical nature.  The positions and plans which are said to be above the comprehension of the multitude may be always suspected to be visionary and fruitless.  He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all.

Our forefathers threw off the yoke of Popery in religion; for you is reserved the honor of leveling the popery of politics.  They opened the Bible to all, and maintained the capacity of every man to judge for himself in religion.  Are we sufficient for the comprehension of the sublimest spiritual truths, and unequal to material and temporal ones?

Heaven hath trusted us with the management of things for eternity, and man denies us ability to judge of the present, or to know from our feelings the experience that will make us happy.  “You can discern,” they say, “objects distant and remote, but cannot perceive those within your grasp.  Let us have the distribution of present goods, and cut out and manage as you please the interests of futurity.”