Robert Morrison writes:
Samuel Adams was quick to take advantage of this bloody outrage. He called for trials for the British soldiers. He agitated for citizen resistance to the taxes on tea and other goods. Adams regarded the actions of the British ministry—the parliamentary leadership that supported King George III’s increasing demands upon American colonists—as unconstitutional.
Unconstitutional? Before the Constitution? Yes. Harvard graduate Sam Adams knew his English history and he was keenly aware of his rights. Englishmen claimed that their unwritten constitution had come down to them from the time of Magna Carta (1215) and that specific rights were recognized during England’s “Glorious Revolution” of 1688-89. Modern scholars often look to that Glorious Revolution as the precursor of our own American Revolution. Author Michael Barone has written perhaps the best popular study of that event with a keen eye to its import for Americans.
What if you knew them and found them dead on the snow?
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