Contemporary Writings Many of the most important documents for this period are in the following brief collections: W. Macdonald, “Select Charters and Other Documents,” 1906 H. W. Preston, “Documents Illustrative of American History,” 5th ed., 1900 H. Niles, “Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America,” 1822 J. Almon, “Collection of Papers Relative to the…
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All posts by Carl Becker
The Eve of the Revolution, Chapter VI: Testing the Issue
The die is now cast; the colonies must either submit or triumph.–George III. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among, these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.–Thomas Jefferson. Two months and ten days after…
The Eve of the Revolution, Chapter V: A Little Discreet Conduct
It has been his [Thomas Hutchinson’s] principle from a boy that mankind are to be governed by the discerning few, and it has been ever since his ambition to be the hero of the few.–Samuel Adams. We have not been so quiet these five years …. If it were not for two or three Adamses,…
The Eve of the Revolution, Chapter IV: Defining the Issue
A pepper-corn, in acknowledgement of the right, is of more value than millions without it.–George Grenville. A perpetual jealousy respecting liberty, is absolutely requisite in all free states.–John Dickinson. Good Americans everywhere celebrated the repeal of the Stamp Act with much festivity and joyful noises in the streets, and with “genteel entertainments” in taverns, where…
The Eve of the Revolution, Chapter III: The Rights of a Nation
British subjects, by removing to America, cultivating a wilderness, extending the domain, and increasing the wealth, commerce, and power of the mother country, at the hazard of their lives and fortunes, ought not, and in fact do not thereby lose their native rights.–Benjamin Franklin. It was the misfortune of Grenville that this “interweaving,” as Pownall…