“Politicians are alarmed at nothing so much as attempts to awaken the people to jealousy [for liberty] and watchfulness; and it has been an old game played over and over again, to hold up the men who rouse their fellow citizens and countrymen to a sense of their real danger, and spirit them to the most zealous activity in the use of all proper means for the preservation of the public liberty, as 'pretended patriots,' intemperate politicians', rash, hot-headed men, Incendiaries, wretched desperadoes, who, as was said of the best of men, would turn the world upside down, or have done it already.”-- Samuel Adams
Essay in the Boston Gazette
1771
This is my goal, dear patriots: to awaken “we, the people,” to jealousy for liberty and vigilance for the same. This is, indeed, a time of grave danger and we must give heed to every proper means for the preservation of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
