Samuel Adams: Community Organizer

excerpted from: “Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto” by Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe

The spark that ignited the modern Tea Party movement was not just a question of bad economics–it cut to the core of the basic American values of individual choice and individual accountability. Millions of Americans were still angry over the new culture of bailouts that had taken Washington by storm since the popping of the housing bubble in 2008 and they were just itching for a fight. They thought that candidate Obama would prove different, having run on a mantra of fiscal responsibility. Regardless of their limited choices at the ballot box, the American people were hungry for accountability, for the American way of doing things.

The entire founding enterprise, including America’s Declaration of Independence from the British Crown in 1776 happened only because of the tea party ethos, the tradition of rising up against tyranny and taking to the streets in protest. Indeed, the period of American history leading up to the signing of the Declaration is the definitive case study in effective grassroots organization and the power of a committed, organized minority to defeat powerful, entrenched interests.

For any activist who fought in the trenches against Obama’s hostile takeover of the healthcare system, the process that produced the Declaration will sound all too familiar: debate inside Continental Congress was often dominated by lies, vote buying, and the influence of deep-pocketed business interests enjoying the favored treatment of the executive branch (King George III, that is). Does any of this ring a bell?

How did the advocates of liberty prevail over the entrenched interests and apathetic citizens that might have stifled the efforts of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin? The answer, of course, is grassroots activism of citizens outside of the formal political process. The Declaration was radical in principle and revolutionary in practice–sweeping political change driven by a grassroots cadre of committed individuals armed only with their passion and their principles. Politics as usual did not stop them, neither did lack of popular support. The political momentum for liberty was in large part created by the efforts of citizen patriots from Massachusetts, later joined by men in the other colonies. These so-called Sons of Liberty, led by a struggling entrepreneur named Samuel Adams–yes, the guy on the beer label–used targeted grassroots activism to undercut the American support for British rule and create the political conditions that made ratification of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution possible.

Speaking truth to power was important, Adams knew, but nothing beat the power of grassroots activism. In the early 1750s Adams began recruiting activists to the cause of liberty, targeting men in taverns and workers in the shipyards and on the streets of Boston. His tactics often involved antitax protests under the Liberty Tree, a large elm across from Boylston Market. Tax collectors were hung in effigy and Crown-appointed governors mocked, belittled, and verbally abused. The Sons of Liberty organized boycotts of British goods and monopolistic practices that were de facto taxes on the colonists. Adams packed town hall meetings at Faneuil Hall, filling the room with patriots so that Tory voices were overwhelmed. Every oppressive new policy handed down by King George and the House of Commons was used to build the ranks of the Sons of Liberty. Taxes imposed by the Stamp Act of 1765, trade duties created by the Townshend Acts–each was an excuse to rally new recruits to the cause of American independence.The most famous act of Whig defiance against the Crown–the Boston Tea Party–is now viewed as a tipping point in the battle for American independence. It had a profound impact on public opinion among the uncommitted population. It was not a spontaneous looting by angry tea drinkers but an operation carefully choreographed by Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty. When a Parliament-granted monopoly to the East India Trading Company dramatically drove up the price of tea in the colonies, Adams saw an opportunity to channel outrage into action. The “Mohawks” who emptied British tea into Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773, were his activists disguised by Indian war paint to protect their identities from Tory spies. Because property was not destroyed (other than the tea) and the ships’ crews were not harmed, the Boston Tea Party gave the Sons of Liberty broader public acceptance in the colonies.

The British response to the antics of the Sons of Liberty inevitably helped galvanize public opposition to British control. A series of political blunders coupled with the Port Act and the British blockade of Boston Harbor in 1774 ultimately led to the gathering of the first Continental Congress at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia.

The grassroots pressure organized by Adams was not reserved for King George and British bureaucrats exclusively. Adams also targets Tory loyalists and “half-patriots” in the Congress. On one occasion, Pennsylvannia delegate Joseph Galloway threatened to derail momentum for American independence with a last-minute proposal to settle disputes with Great Britain. Despite the well-articulated arguments of Patrick Henry and other patriots inside Congress, Galloway gained support among Tory and middle ground interests defending the status quo. Instead of arguing with his peers in the Congress, Delegate Samuel Adams organized outside, in the streets of Philadelphia.

In this classic account of the people and events that led to America’s birth, A. J. Langguth wrote that the “crowds around Carpenter’s Hall soon heard that a faction led by Joseph Galloway was bent on selling out their liberties. Galloway headed a powerful Quaker bloc, and yet he began to fear being attacked by a mob in his own home precincts.” He backed down, knowing that Adams had organized his grassroots opposition. “He eats little”, complained the Pennsylvannia delegate of Adams, “drinks little, sleeps little, thinks much, and is most decisive and indefatigable in the pursuit of his objects.”Poor Samuel Adams. He was a pious man who resented the drinking and carousing of the privileged elite in favor with the British Crown in Boston. Today he is the mascot for a beer company. He was a tireless champion of individual liberty who dedicated his life to the battle for American independence. Today his tactics have been hijacked by leftist radicals hell-bent on tearing down the institutions that make our nation special. How did we lose our cultural heritage of grassroots activism to the big-government crowd? Isn’t it about time we took it back?