During a three-year interval of calm, a relatively small
number of radicals strove energetically to keep the controversy alive,
however. They contended that payment of the tax constituted an acceptance
of the principle that Parliament had the right to rule over the colonies.
They feared that at any time in the future, the principle of parliamentary
rule might be applied with devastating effect on all colonial liberties.
The radicals' most effective leader was Samuel Adams
of Massachusetts, who toiled tirelessly for a single end: independence.
From the time he graduated from Harvard College in 1740, Adams was a
public servant in some
capacity -- inspector of chimneys, tax-collector and
moderator of town meetings. A consistent failure in business, he was
shrewd and able in politics, with the New England town meeting his theater
of action.
Adams's goals were to free people from their awe of
social and political superiors, make them aware of their own power and
importance and thus arouse them to action. Toward these objectives,
he published articles in newspapers and made speeches in town meetings,
instigating resolutions that appealed to the colonists' democratic impulses.
In 1772 he induced the Boston town meeting to select
a "Committee of Correspondence" to state the rights and grievances of
the colonists. The committee opposed a British decision to pay the salaries
of judges from customs revenues; it feared that the judges would no
longer be dependent on the legislature for their incomes and thus no
longer accountable to it -- thereby leading to the emergence of "a despotic
form of government." The committee communicated with other towns on
this matter and requested them to draft replies. Committees were set
up in virtually all the colonies, and out of them grew a base of effective
revolutionary organizations. Still, Adams did not have enough fuel to
set a fire.