The Writings of Samuel Adams - Volume 2Adams, Samuel
History
The Writings of Samuel Adams - Volume 2
Adams, Samuel
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1809
renew'd it to his successors, not at the end of every ten years, but
for life. They transfer'd all their right and power to Charles the
Great: In eum transtulit omne suum jus et poteslatem. Thus, they
voluntarily and ignominiously surrendered their own liberty, and
exchanged a free constitution for a TYRANNY!
It is not my design at present to form the comparison between the
state of this country now, and that of the Roman Empire in those
dregs of time; or between the disposition of Caesar, and that of ---;
The comparison, I confess, would not in all parts hold good: The
Tyrant of Rome, to do him justice, had learning, courage, and great
abilities. It behoves us however to awake and advert to the danger we
are in. The Tragedy of American Freedom, it is to be feared is nearly
compleated: A Tyranny seems to be at the very door. It is to little
purpose then to go about cooly to rehearse the gradual steps that
have been taken, the means that have been used, and the instruments
employed, to encompass the ruin of the public liberty: We know them
and we detest them. But what will this avail, if we have not courage
and resolution to prevent the completion of their system?
Our enemies would fain have us lie down on the bed of sloth and
security, and persuade ourselves that there is no danger They are
daily administering the opiate with multiplied arts and delusions,
and I am sorry to observe, that the gilded pill is so alluring to
some who call themselves the friends of Liberty. But is there no
danger when the very foundations of our civil constitution tremble? -
When an attempt was first made to disturb the corner-stone of the
fabrick, we were universally and justly alarmed: And can we be cool
spectators, when we see it already removed from its place? With what
resentment and indignation did we first receive the intelligence of a
design to make us tributary, not to natural enemies, but infinitely
more humiliating, to fellow subjects? And yet with unparallelled
insolence we are told to be quiet, when we see that very money which
is torn from us by lawless force, made use of still further to
oppress us - to feed and pamper a set of infamous wretches, who swarm
like the locusts of Egypt; and some of them expect to revel in wealth
and riot on the spoils of our country. - Is it a time for us to sleep
when our free government is essentially changed, and a new one is
forming upon a quite different system? A government without the least
dependance upon the people: A government under the absolute controul
of a minister of state; upon whose sovereign dictates is to depend
not only the time when, and the place where, the legislative assembly
shall sit, but whether it shall sit at all: And if it is allowed to
meet, it shall be liable immediately to be thrown out of existence,
if in any one point it fails in obedience to his arbitrary mandates.
Have we not already seen specimens of what we are to expect under
such a government, in the instructions which Mr.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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