Debate and procedure which have the qualitative character are followed by voting of the quantitative character, and the result represents average intelligence and capacity for self-government. But that result, because it is the product of the expressed will of all, has an authority more enduring and inspiring than any that the autocracies, oligarchies, or constitutional monarchies of Europe have ever displayed or now possess. Using the town-meeting as a rapier, Samuel Adams “fenced with the British ministry; it was the claymore with which he smote their counsels; it was the harp of a thousand strings that he swept into a burst of passionate defiance, or an electric call to arms, or a proud pæan of exulting triumph, defiance, challenge, and exultation--all lifting the continent to independence. His indomitable will and command of the popular confidence played Boston against London, the provincial town-meeting against the royal Parliament, Faneuil Hall against St. Stephen’s.”[59] This popular government not only enabled the New England Colonies to lead all the others in the War of the Revolution, it also furnished men and ideas for the formidable task of constitution-making after the Revolution was over and independence won. As early as 1773, the rustic Solons of the town of Mendon, Massachusetts, had resolved in town-meeting: “That all men have an equal right to life, liberty, and property. “Therefore all just and lawful government must originate in the free consent of the people. “That a right to liberty and property, which are natural means of self-preservation, is absolutely inalienable, and can never lawfully be given up by ourselves or taken from us by others.” Naturally, a section of the country where such sentiments were held by village Hampdens had a preponderant influence, when the time came to draft the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the readiness of the towns to submit to taxation and to give their sons when the call to arms came is a matter of unimpeachable record. In the army of 231,791 soldiers, furnished by the Thirteen Colonies to combat the forces of Great Britain in the Revolution, the four New England Colonies sent 118,251 men, Massachusetts contributing 67,907, Connecticut 31,939, New Hampshire 12,497, and Rhode Island 5,908.