April 26, 2024 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, what we are about to do now is precise. Instead of telling the all-encompassing story of John Adams, we are going to dial it in on one specific moment in his life; one that best captures this man’s humanity and ideals more than any other. And as you will soon learn, Adams himself will agree with our selection.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories.
We tell stories about everything here on this show, from
sports to arts, and from business to history. And this story,
well it's the latter.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's history.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
In the nation's capital, the sun glitters on stone monuments
to our first president, George Washington and our third, Thomas Jefferson.
John Adams, the second President of the United States, was
every bit as brave as the former and as brilliant
as the latter. But there is no such monument for
him yet, no one, not even Washington or Jefferson. It
(00:46):
is much to convince the colonies to break from England.
Perhaps this is fitting because stone is cold and he
was anything but Alas we must see that the United
States alone serves as the proper living monument to this intense, cranky,
warm heart on his sleeve founding father. What we are
(01:06):
about to do now is precise. Instead of telling the
all encompassing story of John Adams, we are going to
dial it in on one specific moment in his life,
one that best captures this man's humanity and ideals more
than any other. And as we will soon learn, Adams
himself will agree with our selection here to give us
(01:29):
a quick, overarching readers digest like version of Adams is
none other than author and historian David McCullough, the man
who's written The Definitive Biography of John Adams, the book
in which HBO based its two thousand and eight award
winning mini series. Here's McCullough answering the question what event
most personified the life and character of John Adams.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I think it's the defense of the British soldiers in
the Boston massacre trial. That's where you see what that
man's made of. Here was a man who was on
the political rise. He was brilliant, he was well read,
he was tenacious, he was a very skillful practicing lawyer,
(02:20):
and young still and then the soldiers were captured and
everybody in the whole Commonwealth were looking forward to having
them executed. But they had to be represented in the trial,
and no one would represent them, no one would defend them.
And Adam said, if we really believe that everybody deserves
(02:43):
a legal defense in a trial, we better live up
to what we say. We believe. I'll defend them, and
he did so, certain that it was going to ruin
any ambitious He had to play.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
A part.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
And he had a terrific wife. He's the only founding father.
Most people don't know this, but I think it's so important,
the only founding father who never owned a slave as
a matter of principle, and his wife felt the same way.
She saw that slavery was a sin, evil, unjust an
(03:21):
American and they never changed in that point of view whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Let's now take a deep dive into the story of
John Adams and his legendary defense of the British soldiers
at the seventeen to seventy trial of the Boston Massacre.
Here's Greg Henry.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
By seventeen sixty, one hundred and thirty years after being
founded by the Puritans, Boston is thriving. While in theory
its commerce is regulated by the British trade laws, in
fact these laws are rarely enforced. That changes in seventeen
sixty one, with England's a con enemy struggling thanks to
(04:02):
the ten thousand British troops protecting their American colonies from
the French. Here's historian Andrew O'Shaughnessy and screenwriter of the
two thousand and eight HBO mini series John Adams.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Kirk ellis.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
The reason that they text America was because of the
French and Indian War.
Speaker 7 (04:24):
It's so bankrupted the British treasury that there had to
be ways in which they could make up for this
lost revenue, and they decided to tax the colonies.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
But as they've always done, Americans ignore the taxes, so
Britain takes action. New tax laws and anti smuggling searches
turn revenue collection into combative encounters. Here's historian Andrew Nelson, and.
Speaker 8 (04:51):
This includes something called the writs of Assistance, which is
essentially a warrant where the British can search anyone's properly freely.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
The British Army is no longer in America to protect colonists.
It has become an occupying force. Along with invasive laws
allowing search and caizure. England responds with a Stamp Act
of seventeen sixty five, a broad tax targeting every American colonist.
Speaker 8 (05:19):
The Stamp Act required that all official correspondents, from newspapers
to documentation, even playing cards, had to be produced on
paper that bore an official stamp purchased from a customs agent.
Even though it isn't described as attacks, is of course attacks,
and this leads to opposition.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
When most people think of the Founding Fathers, they envisioned
whig wearing politicians debating on the floor of some legislative body.
But they in fact did their organizing in a bar,
a tavern in Boston called the Green Dragon. The Boston
Tea Party was planned here, and Paul Revere was sent
from the Green Dragon to Lexington on his famous ride.
(06:04):
It is here where their fight begins, not yet for independence,
but for the equal treatment under the law as the
British citizens.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
They believe they are.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Behind the power of these laws, English customs agents begin
ransacking homes and businesses. A group of patriots formed to
fight British oppression, most notably the Stamp Act. They call
themselves the Sons of Liberty.
Speaker 7 (06:33):
The Sons of Liberty is an association of men who
are looking to prompt situations that will lead to a
disturbance that will force the attention of the Crown. The
Sons of Liberty weren't just in Boston who They were
very quickly organized and streamed throughout the original Thirteen Colonies.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
The founder of what could be called General of the
Sons of Liberty is John Adams's cousin forty three year
old Samuel Adams. Colonial historian Marvin Kittman.
Speaker 9 (07:03):
Sam Adams was a real rebel with a cause, and
the reason for it was in his personal life. He
had been a failure in everything that he did until
the Revolution. His father gave him a lot of money
to start of business. He lost all the money. He's
(07:26):
one of these people who become obsessed with a cause
and just put their personal life aside.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
If Sam Adams is the general of the Sons of Liberty,
his colonels are John Hancock, the wealthiest man in Boston
and the second wealthiest in the colonies in.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Goldsmith Paul Revere.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
Legend relegates Revere as a mere lookout who shouts from
the top of a horse. But Paul Revere is both
a salesman and a strategist, a multi talented patriot who
organizes tough men into a force for liberty. As the
atmosphere in Boston turns incendiary, Paul Revere leads something about
(08:08):
guerrilla army that uses tactics of fear and violence intent
on intimidating the King's tax collectors out of existence. What
is known as the Stamp Act. Riots spread quickly throughout
the thirteen colonies. Here's historian extraordinaire Tony Williams.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
They were tearing down the stamp collector's homes. They were
burning these customs officials and the Royal governor in effigy,
and so there's a great deal of popular enthusiasm and
even violence.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
The stamp ack riots renders the man enforcing British rule
in Massachusetts, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, powerless to collect taxes.
With no colonial taxes being collected, the British Parliament is
in a state of panic. Here's historian David Eisenbach.
Speaker 10 (08:59):
You have to remember at Parliament they're dealing with an
empire that is stretching all around the world. If they
allow the abuse of tax collectors in Boston, that would
encourage lawlessness all around. They decided, we've got to make
an example by putting more troops in Boston.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
To kind of clamp down on the trouble mirrors.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
And what a story. And when we come back, this
story setting up well like a showdown, like high noon,
and we're putting you where we always put you, right
there on the streets in the context, in the history itself.
When we come back more of John Adams's story, more
of the story of the Boston massacred trial and the
(09:42):
circumstances that brought us there. John Adams's story. Here on
our American story. This is our American stories, and we
(10:13):
return where we last left off. Boston is under military
occupation by the British troops, trying to clamp down on
colonial troublemakers. Here's Greg hengler Oh noting back for me.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
England dispatches two military regiments to Massachusetts from New York
to keep order, adding fuel to the fire. Boston is
now under military occupation at.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Four thousand on two.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
In seventeen sixty eight, four more regiments sail from England
to Boston. By seventeen seventy, two thousand British troops occupied
this city of fifteen thousand. For Paul Revere, the occupation
of British military presents an opportunity. He creates a propaganda
piece he calls the troops. As it travels throughout the colonies,
(11:03):
so does the fear of military occupation. With a British
army camp in the center of their city, Bostonians have
a constant reminder of their own repression. While rank and
file British soldiers start to wonder who has it worse.
Here's historians HW Brands, Andrew Nelson and Denver Brunsman.
Speaker 7 (11:26):
These British soldiers are a long way from home, young
men who are frightened. Most of them have hardly the
slightest idea of what the political debate is. They're told
by their officers, you need to keep the peace.
Speaker 8 (11:39):
For many of the soldiers arriving, America had been a
far away place that you read about in the newspaper.
But when they get there they see what all the
fuss was about. This really is a suggestion of a
much better life than America. So desertion becomes a serious problem.
Speaker 11 (11:57):
One hallmark of a professional army at this time is
a high state of discipline, physical corporal punishment for various crimes,
and the punishment of choice was the lash.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Punishment for desertion could bring up to two hundred and
fifty lashes. Contrary to popular history, the derogatory term of
lobster back for British soldiers doesn't have anything to do
with the red coats they wear. The term comes from
the welts and the scars many men have on their backs.
From being whipped. The flame that will ignite the American
(12:36):
Revolution is lit on Thursday morning, February twenty second, seventeen seventy, when,
according to the Boston Gazette, a barbarous murder was committed
on the body of a young lad of about eleven
years of age. Christopher Sider is a young rebel in
a Sons of Liberty offshoot group known as the Liberty Boys.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
So Sam adams idea to protest the taxes is to
get all the colonies together to join in on a
boycott against English merchants.
Speaker 7 (13:12):
The Sons of Liberty proclaims that no British goods will
be sold. Not everybody adheres to that boycott. Samuel Adams
and the Sons of Liberty are not above marking that
place with manure on the door. They're not above breaking
the windows at that place.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
That dark morning, cider and a crowd of sixty young
men marched defiantly through Boston's cobblestone streets with a cart
overflowing with rotten fruit, used to mark the windows of
those merchants who refuse to respect the boycott of all
British goods. These British sympathizers are known as loyalists or toriess.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Walking down the street, the mob sees Emily's or Richardson,
who was an informant to the Customs House about various
merchants who were not paying their taxes Yea.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Stopping in front of Ebenezer Richardson's house, the young men
begin throwing rubbish into his yard. The rubbish is thrown
back by Richardson's wife, Kezio, but soon rocks are hurled
in the Richardson's retreat into their secure home. As the
intensity grows, windows are shattered and an egg hits Kesio.
(14:23):
Richardson grabs his musket loaded with Swan shot, and stands defiantly,
musket high at his second story window. He fires once.
It is intended to be a warning, he later swears,
but Christopher Cider is hit in his chest an abdomen
by eleven pieces of shot the size of large peas.
(14:44):
Most people believe the Revolutionary War is triggered by a
shot from a British soldier on Lexington Green, but the
conflict is actually set into motion five years earlier, when
liberty Boy Christopher's Cider becomes the first American Martin to
die for the cause of freedom.
Speaker 6 (15:02):
There's nothing I can do. Samuel Adams made this into
a huge public spectacle, and there was this great deal
of anger in Boston.
Speaker 7 (15:12):
They stage an incredibly elaborate funeral with a bedecked coffin
that gains mourners as it passes through tannel.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
Among the more than two thousand Bostonians who attend the
funeral is John Adams. Here he is from his diary.
Speaker 12 (15:31):
Mine eyes have never seen such a funeral. The shows
that there are many more lives to be spent, if wanted,
in service to their country. This shows too, that the
faction is not yet expiring, and that the ardor of
the people is not to be quilled by the slaughter
of one child.
Speaker 8 (15:49):
It's in full view, this outpouring of sentiment over the
loss of one individual who symbolizes the promise of what
many people think should be an independent nation.
Speaker 7 (16:00):
This boy's death becomes propaganda for Samuel Adams and the
Sons of Liberty, and this is like a match to
light the fuse that will explode into the American Revolution.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
In the days that follow the funeral, tension in Boston
reaches a climax on the frigid, moonlit evening of March fifth,
seventeen seventy, less than two weeks after Cider's burial, an angry, boisterous,
and mostly intoxicated citizen mob roam through the snow covered,
cobbled streets, hurling insults in threats at British soldiers. Two
(16:38):
Bostonians break into two meeting houses and begin ringing the
church bells the alarm for fire, and almost at once,
crowds come pouring into the streets.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
The city is alive with danger.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
By eight o'clock two British soldiers are attacked and beaten.
Then a large mob of colonists, as many as two
hundred it's strong and armed with sticks and clubs, gather
in front of the custom House on King Street, guarded
by a lone British sentry. The time is shortly after.
Nine words are exchanged and the sentry strikes a Bostonian
(17:15):
with the butt of his musket, knocking him to the ground.
Speaker 10 (17:18):
The British want to demonstrate that we hold the power
and you guys better.
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Do what we tell you we do. Captain Preston leaves
out the guard. They form around the front of the
customs house and At that point, the situation escalates and
a mob starts to grow.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
British Captain Thomas Preston dispatches seven men to the custom
house two, as he says, protect the sentry in the
King's money.
Speaker 10 (17:44):
The more forced the British men to bear, the more
radical the situation gets.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
The mob launches oyster shells and rocks packed in snowballs
at the soldiers and dare them to shoot, yelling fire fire.
The soldiers, with muskets drawn and fixed bandtes, are in
a state of panic when suddenly a British private receives
a severe blow to the head with a club and
falls to the ground, causing his musket to discharge.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
In the melee, the soldiers open fire.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
Just days after Christopher Sider is buried, five more American
colonists join him as martyrs in the struggle for freedom.
What will be known as the Boston Massacre will be
the rallying cry for colonists to fight for the unalienable
rights we cherish today. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
We will all regret this day.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
And when we come back, we'll continue with the final
segment of this remarkable story and we're picking the Boston
massacred trial and honing in on this one particular point
in John Adams's life because it reveals so much about
his nature, about his character, and what he really believed in.
In the end, the deep principles that helped him and
(19:05):
so many like him formulate the founding principles of our
country hard ones to live by at the time. Though,
when we continue the life of John Adams, the Boston
massacre trial, and the story of our nation's founding, here
on our American story. And we continue with the story
(19:38):
of John Adams. Just days after Liberty Boy Christopher Sider
is buried, five more American colonists join him as martyrs
in the struggle for freedom. What will be known as
the Boston Massacre will be the rallying cry for colonists
to fight for the unalienable rights we cherish today, life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. Here's Greg Hangwood.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
We will all regret to day.
Speaker 7 (20:03):
The Boston Massacre becomes a huge propaganda effort for Samuel
Adams and the Sons of Liberty. You've got an immediately
famous engraving by Paul Revere. It is one of the
most inaccurate pieces of propaganda ever produced by an American press.
Almost nothing in it is correct.
Speaker 8 (20:21):
This is an early instance in the colonies of the
power of what we now call media to shape the
public opinion.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Paul Revere's sensationalized engraving is considered one of the most
effective pieces of propaganda in American history, showing an orderly
line of redcoats firing in unison into an unprovoked and
unarmed crowd of patriots with blood spurting.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Out of their bodies.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
Boston newspapers are quick to print and distribute Revere's version.
John Adams is a short, chubby, and very pious, fifth
generation descendant of Puritans who settled in the mass Massachusetts
Bay Colony in sixteen thirty two. After twelve years of
practicing law. The thirty four year old Adams is working
(21:07):
in his office when a prosperous merchant named James Forrest
knocks on his door the day after the massacres.
Speaker 13 (21:15):
Rodham's my name is Forrest, what happened to you?
Speaker 5 (21:17):
With tears streaming in his eyes, as Adam writes years later,
the loyalist desperately asks Adams to defend Captain Preston and
his men against the murder charges. Not even a single
Royalist would take the case.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
No one else would tay this case.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
As Boston's most respected attorneys and political leaders, it would
appear inconceivable that he would risk his reputation and his
own safety, as well as the safety of his pregnant wife,
Abigail and their young son and future sixth President of
the United States, John Quincy Adams, by agreeing to defend
British men who are considered cold blooded killers of American patriots.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It will be adams first murder trial.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
On the surface, it would appear that the distinction between
adams cousins is made clearer when John takes the case
to defend British soldiers. But behind the scenes, Samuel adams
belief in the rights of man are deeper than is
in the open, rough and tumble political tactics.
Speaker 7 (22:23):
John Adams was not eager to take the task, but
Samuel persuaded his cousin on the basis of.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Justice that these men deserved the best defense.
Speaker 12 (22:38):
That was an argument that could always sway John Adams.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
The trial, in front of a packed courtroom, begins on
October twenty fourth at Boston's new courthouse on Queen Street.
John Adams draws upon his personal mistrust of mobs to
construct a masterful defense of the British soldiers. Here's Kirk
Ellis and John Adams from his autobiography and from the trial.
Speaker 7 (23:06):
He develops a defense that is based on the fact
that this was a mob that was created and a
situation of escalating violence was building.
Speaker 12 (23:19):
The part I took in defense of Captain Preston and
the soldiers was the most exhausting and fatiguing cause I
ever tried, for hazarding my popularity and for incurring suspicions
and prejudices which will never be forgotten as long as the.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
History of this period is read.
Speaker 8 (23:35):
Got Adams, as in the Whole Trials, is a deathbed
confession from Patrick Carr?
Speaker 12 (23:42):
And what was it he said? He said he fired
to defend himself, to defend himself.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
The doctor's testimony of Patrick Carr recounting a dying man's
last words would be concented inadmissible hearsay, but puritanical thinking
gives John Adams an advantage. Justice Peter Oliver in the
jury except the deathbed testimony as irrefutable since it is
believed that no one would dare lie so close before
(24:17):
stepping into eternity to face God's final judgment. In instructing
the jury, Justice Oliver addresses the complexities of the case
when he tells them, if upon the whole ye are
in any reasonable doubt of their guilt, ye must then
declare them innocent. It marks the first known time a
(24:39):
judge has used the phrase reasonable doubt in an American courtroom.
Adam's defending argument to the jury includes this statement that
has echoed throughout American courtrooms for longer than two centuries.
Speaker 13 (24:53):
Fact a stubborn things. Whatever our wishes, our incarnations are
the victims of our passions. They cannot alter the state
of facts and evidence.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
We the joy The trial of Captain Preston last six
days and that of his troops last nine not guilty.
These will be the first criminal trials in the colony's
history to extend more than a single day.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Not guilty.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
Adam's compelling defense wins an acquittal for six of the soldiers,
and two are found guilty of manslaughter, for which they
are branded with an M for murder on their thumbs.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
This session adjourned.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
It is not only the soldiers adams defense, but the
law itself, which must remain free from man's politics, passions,
and ever shifting beliefs. Far from ruining his career, Bostonians
realize that John Adams has won a victory for the colonies.
He has shown England that colonists understand what justice means.
(26:07):
The trial solidifies John Adams as the most respected and
gifted legal mind in Boston, perhaps all of the colonies.
For his part, Adams remembers the case with pride as
one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered,
one of the most.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Gallant, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and
one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered
my country.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
But to put that brilliant mind to use towards American independence,
Sam Adams and his Sons of Liberty must first convince
him to join them in open rebellion, because when their
struggle turns to war, they will need John Adams to
persuade a people to defy their king and define the
ideals of freedom and liberty upon which America will be built.
(26:57):
Let's end this story with the man who started it.
Here again is historian and John Adams biographer David McCullough.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I like to give credit where credits due, in many
cases long overdue. I felt that way with John Adams.
You remember the great scene in Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid when the posse is chasing them, and the
posse is not only keeping up with them, is starting
(27:25):
to gain a little bit, and one of them says
to the other, who are those guys? And then they
look again, and they're getting closer, and they're writing as
well or better than Butch and Sundance are, And the
other one said, who are those guys? And then who
are those guys? Well, that's the way I feel very often.
Who were those founding fathers? And the more you know them,
(27:48):
the better you know them, the more you realize how
extraordinary what they did is because they were so human,
and they had flaws and failings and had moments of
gloom and despair, just like all of us, and yet
they kept going. I know that it lifts us in spirit,
(28:11):
It lifts us in our love of appreciation of those
to whom we owe so much, But it also lifts
us in an outlook on life that, for lack of
another word, I would call optimistic. Now it's not fashionable
intellectually to be an optimist, but I am because I've
(28:32):
seen in my work again and again and again it
works out. They do it, They get there, and if
there's a problem, there's an overwhelming calamity the nation's whole
security and future's estate. We've come through it. And so
when people start to say, oh, it's a country's going
(28:53):
to hell, well, sure it always has been, and we're
doing just fine. And then when people say, well, the
taxes are too high in the cost of this in
these damn politicians, I say, would you rather live somewhere else?
Oh no, no, of course not. Aren't we lucky? Aren't
we really lucky to live in this country? And isn't
(29:16):
it wonderful sometimes to be reminded that we are a
good people and we've had great people bring us to
where we are. Yes, there were terrible, rotten people, of course,
and there were scoundrels and scamps and crooks and murderers,
but there always have been, always will be, and just
don't haven't let us get so down about what might
(29:39):
be happening at the moment in the way of less
than admirable human beings. But remember how many good people
there are, and how much progress is being made in
our own time beneficial to a better life.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
And great job is always Greg and it's always a
pleasure to hear from David McCullough. And this story, well,
it tells you every thing about John Adams, that one
moment in your life and it's you and your principles
and how you act upon them, Well, it determines who
you are. John Adams' story, the Boston massacred Trial. Here
on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories.
We tell stories about everything here on this show, from
sports to arts, and from business to history. And this story,
well it's the latter.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's history.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
In the nation's capital, the sun glitters on stone monuments
to our first president, George Washington and our third, Thomas Jefferson.
John Adams, the second President of the United States, was
every bit as brave as the former and as brilliant
as the latter. But there is no such monument for
him yet, no one, not even Washington or Jefferson. It
(00:46):
is much to convince the colonies to break from England.
Perhaps this is fitting because stone is cold and he
was anything but Alas we must see that the United
States alone serves as the proper living monument to this intense, cranky,
warm heart on his sleeve founding father. What we are
(01:06):
about to do now is precise. Instead of telling the
all encompassing story of John Adams, we are going to
dial it in on one specific moment in his life,
one that best captures this man's humanity and ideals more
than any other. And as we will soon learn, Adams
himself will agree with our selection here to give us
(01:29):
a quick, overarching readers digest like version of Adams is
none other than author and historian David McCullough, the man
who's written The Definitive Biography of John Adams, the book
in which HBO based its two thousand and eight award
winning mini series. Here's McCullough answering the question what event
most personified the life and character of John Adams.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I think it's the defense of the British soldiers in
the Boston massacre trial. That's where you see what that
man's made of. Here was a man who was on
the political rise. He was brilliant, he was well read,
he was tenacious, he was a very skillful practicing lawyer,
(02:20):
and young still and then the soldiers were captured and
everybody in the whole Commonwealth were looking forward to having
them executed. But they had to be represented in the trial,
and no one would represent them, no one would defend them.
And Adam said, if we really believe that everybody deserves
(02:43):
a legal defense in a trial, we better live up
to what we say. We believe. I'll defend them, and
he did so, certain that it was going to ruin
any ambitious He had to play.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
A part.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
And he had a terrific wife. He's the only founding father.
Most people don't know this, but I think it's so important,
the only founding father who never owned a slave as
a matter of principle, and his wife felt the same way.
She saw that slavery was a sin, evil, unjust an
(03:21):
American and they never changed in that point of view whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Let's now take a deep dive into the story of
John Adams and his legendary defense of the British soldiers
at the seventeen to seventy trial of the Boston Massacre.
Here's Greg Henry.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
By seventeen sixty, one hundred and thirty years after being
founded by the Puritans, Boston is thriving. While in theory
its commerce is regulated by the British trade laws, in
fact these laws are rarely enforced. That changes in seventeen
sixty one, with England's a con enemy struggling thanks to
(04:02):
the ten thousand British troops protecting their American colonies from
the French. Here's historian Andrew O'Shaughnessy and screenwriter of the
two thousand and eight HBO mini series John Adams.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Kirk ellis.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
The reason that they text America was because of the
French and Indian War.
Speaker 7 (04:24):
It's so bankrupted the British treasury that there had to
be ways in which they could make up for this
lost revenue, and they decided to tax the colonies.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
But as they've always done, Americans ignore the taxes, so
Britain takes action. New tax laws and anti smuggling searches
turn revenue collection into combative encounters. Here's historian Andrew Nelson, and.
Speaker 8 (04:51):
This includes something called the writs of Assistance, which is
essentially a warrant where the British can search anyone's properly freely.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
The British Army is no longer in America to protect colonists.
It has become an occupying force. Along with invasive laws
allowing search and caizure. England responds with a Stamp Act
of seventeen sixty five, a broad tax targeting every American colonist.
Speaker 8 (05:19):
The Stamp Act required that all official correspondents, from newspapers
to documentation, even playing cards, had to be produced on
paper that bore an official stamp purchased from a customs agent.
Even though it isn't described as attacks, is of course attacks,
and this leads to opposition.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
When most people think of the Founding Fathers, they envisioned
whig wearing politicians debating on the floor of some legislative body.
But they in fact did their organizing in a bar,
a tavern in Boston called the Green Dragon. The Boston
Tea Party was planned here, and Paul Revere was sent
from the Green Dragon to Lexington on his famous ride.
(06:04):
It is here where their fight begins, not yet for independence,
but for the equal treatment under the law as the
British citizens.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
They believe they are.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Behind the power of these laws, English customs agents begin
ransacking homes and businesses. A group of patriots formed to
fight British oppression, most notably the Stamp Act. They call
themselves the Sons of Liberty.
Speaker 7 (06:33):
The Sons of Liberty is an association of men who
are looking to prompt situations that will lead to a
disturbance that will force the attention of the Crown. The
Sons of Liberty weren't just in Boston who They were
very quickly organized and streamed throughout the original Thirteen Colonies.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
The founder of what could be called General of the
Sons of Liberty is John Adams's cousin forty three year
old Samuel Adams. Colonial historian Marvin Kittman.
Speaker 9 (07:03):
Sam Adams was a real rebel with a cause, and
the reason for it was in his personal life. He
had been a failure in everything that he did until
the Revolution. His father gave him a lot of money
to start of business. He lost all the money. He's
(07:26):
one of these people who become obsessed with a cause
and just put their personal life aside.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
If Sam Adams is the general of the Sons of Liberty,
his colonels are John Hancock, the wealthiest man in Boston
and the second wealthiest in the colonies in.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Goldsmith Paul Revere.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
Legend relegates Revere as a mere lookout who shouts from
the top of a horse. But Paul Revere is both
a salesman and a strategist, a multi talented patriot who
organizes tough men into a force for liberty. As the
atmosphere in Boston turns incendiary, Paul Revere leads something about
(08:08):
guerrilla army that uses tactics of fear and violence intent
on intimidating the King's tax collectors out of existence. What
is known as the Stamp Act. Riots spread quickly throughout
the thirteen colonies. Here's historian extraordinaire Tony Williams.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
They were tearing down the stamp collector's homes. They were
burning these customs officials and the Royal governor in effigy,
and so there's a great deal of popular enthusiasm and
even violence.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
The stamp ack riots renders the man enforcing British rule
in Massachusetts, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, powerless to collect taxes.
With no colonial taxes being collected, the British Parliament is
in a state of panic. Here's historian David Eisenbach.
Speaker 10 (08:59):
You have to remember at Parliament they're dealing with an
empire that is stretching all around the world. If they
allow the abuse of tax collectors in Boston, that would
encourage lawlessness all around. They decided, we've got to make
an example by putting more troops in Boston.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
To kind of clamp down on the trouble mirrors.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
And what a story. And when we come back, this
story setting up well like a showdown, like high noon,
and we're putting you where we always put you, right
there on the streets in the context, in the history itself.
When we come back more of John Adams's story, more
of the story of the Boston massacred trial and the
(09:42):
circumstances that brought us there. John Adams's story. Here on
our American story. This is our American stories, and we
(10:13):
return where we last left off. Boston is under military
occupation by the British troops, trying to clamp down on
colonial troublemakers. Here's Greg hengler Oh noting back for me.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
England dispatches two military regiments to Massachusetts from New York
to keep order, adding fuel to the fire. Boston is
now under military occupation at.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Four thousand on two.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
In seventeen sixty eight, four more regiments sail from England
to Boston. By seventeen seventy, two thousand British troops occupied
this city of fifteen thousand. For Paul Revere, the occupation
of British military presents an opportunity. He creates a propaganda
piece he calls the troops. As it travels throughout the colonies,
(11:03):
so does the fear of military occupation. With a British
army camp in the center of their city, Bostonians have
a constant reminder of their own repression. While rank and
file British soldiers start to wonder who has it worse.
Here's historians HW Brands, Andrew Nelson and Denver Brunsman.
Speaker 7 (11:26):
These British soldiers are a long way from home, young
men who are frightened. Most of them have hardly the
slightest idea of what the political debate is. They're told
by their officers, you need to keep the peace.
Speaker 8 (11:39):
For many of the soldiers arriving, America had been a
far away place that you read about in the newspaper.
But when they get there they see what all the
fuss was about. This really is a suggestion of a
much better life than America. So desertion becomes a serious problem.
Speaker 11 (11:57):
One hallmark of a professional army at this time is
a high state of discipline, physical corporal punishment for various crimes,
and the punishment of choice was the lash.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Punishment for desertion could bring up to two hundred and
fifty lashes. Contrary to popular history, the derogatory term of
lobster back for British soldiers doesn't have anything to do
with the red coats they wear. The term comes from
the welts and the scars many men have on their backs.
From being whipped. The flame that will ignite the American
(12:36):
Revolution is lit on Thursday morning, February twenty second, seventeen seventy, when,
according to the Boston Gazette, a barbarous murder was committed
on the body of a young lad of about eleven
years of age. Christopher Sider is a young rebel in
a Sons of Liberty offshoot group known as the Liberty Boys.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
So Sam adams idea to protest the taxes is to
get all the colonies together to join in on a
boycott against English merchants.
Speaker 7 (13:12):
The Sons of Liberty proclaims that no British goods will
be sold. Not everybody adheres to that boycott. Samuel Adams
and the Sons of Liberty are not above marking that
place with manure on the door. They're not above breaking
the windows at that place.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
That dark morning, cider and a crowd of sixty young
men marched defiantly through Boston's cobblestone streets with a cart
overflowing with rotten fruit, used to mark the windows of
those merchants who refuse to respect the boycott of all
British goods. These British sympathizers are known as loyalists or toriess.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Walking down the street, the mob sees Emily's or Richardson,
who was an informant to the Customs House about various
merchants who were not paying their taxes Yea.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Stopping in front of Ebenezer Richardson's house, the young men
begin throwing rubbish into his yard. The rubbish is thrown
back by Richardson's wife, Kezio, but soon rocks are hurled
in the Richardson's retreat into their secure home. As the
intensity grows, windows are shattered and an egg hits Kesio.
(14:23):
Richardson grabs his musket loaded with Swan shot, and stands defiantly,
musket high at his second story window. He fires once.
It is intended to be a warning, he later swears,
but Christopher Cider is hit in his chest an abdomen
by eleven pieces of shot the size of large peas.
(14:44):
Most people believe the Revolutionary War is triggered by a
shot from a British soldier on Lexington Green, but the
conflict is actually set into motion five years earlier, when
liberty Boy Christopher's Cider becomes the first American Martin to
die for the cause of freedom.
Speaker 6 (15:02):
There's nothing I can do. Samuel Adams made this into
a huge public spectacle, and there was this great deal
of anger in Boston.
Speaker 7 (15:12):
They stage an incredibly elaborate funeral with a bedecked coffin
that gains mourners as it passes through tannel.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
Among the more than two thousand Bostonians who attend the
funeral is John Adams. Here he is from his diary.
Speaker 12 (15:31):
Mine eyes have never seen such a funeral. The shows
that there are many more lives to be spent, if wanted,
in service to their country. This shows too, that the
faction is not yet expiring, and that the ardor of
the people is not to be quilled by the slaughter
of one child.
Speaker 8 (15:49):
It's in full view, this outpouring of sentiment over the
loss of one individual who symbolizes the promise of what
many people think should be an independent nation.
Speaker 7 (16:00):
This boy's death becomes propaganda for Samuel Adams and the
Sons of Liberty, and this is like a match to
light the fuse that will explode into the American Revolution.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
In the days that follow the funeral, tension in Boston
reaches a climax on the frigid, moonlit evening of March fifth,
seventeen seventy, less than two weeks after Cider's burial, an angry, boisterous,
and mostly intoxicated citizen mob roam through the snow covered,
cobbled streets, hurling insults in threats at British soldiers. Two
(16:38):
Bostonians break into two meeting houses and begin ringing the
church bells the alarm for fire, and almost at once,
crowds come pouring into the streets.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
The city is alive with danger.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
By eight o'clock two British soldiers are attacked and beaten.
Then a large mob of colonists, as many as two
hundred it's strong and armed with sticks and clubs, gather
in front of the custom House on King Street, guarded
by a lone British sentry. The time is shortly after.
Nine words are exchanged and the sentry strikes a Bostonian
(17:15):
with the butt of his musket, knocking him to the ground.
Speaker 10 (17:18):
The British want to demonstrate that we hold the power
and you guys better.
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Do what we tell you we do. Captain Preston leaves
out the guard. They form around the front of the
customs house and At that point, the situation escalates and
a mob starts to grow.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
British Captain Thomas Preston dispatches seven men to the custom
house two, as he says, protect the sentry in the
King's money.
Speaker 10 (17:44):
The more forced the British men to bear, the more
radical the situation gets.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
The mob launches oyster shells and rocks packed in snowballs
at the soldiers and dare them to shoot, yelling fire fire.
The soldiers, with muskets drawn and fixed bandtes, are in
a state of panic when suddenly a British private receives
a severe blow to the head with a club and
falls to the ground, causing his musket to discharge.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
In the melee, the soldiers open fire.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
Just days after Christopher Sider is buried, five more American
colonists join him as martyrs in the struggle for freedom.
What will be known as the Boston Massacre will be
the rallying cry for colonists to fight for the unalienable
rights we cherish today. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
We will all regret this day.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
And when we come back, we'll continue with the final
segment of this remarkable story and we're picking the Boston
massacred trial and honing in on this one particular point
in John Adams's life because it reveals so much about
his nature, about his character, and what he really believed in.
In the end, the deep principles that helped him and
(19:05):
so many like him formulate the founding principles of our
country hard ones to live by at the time. Though,
when we continue the life of John Adams, the Boston
massacre trial, and the story of our nation's founding, here
on our American story. And we continue with the story
(19:38):
of John Adams. Just days after Liberty Boy Christopher Sider
is buried, five more American colonists join him as martyrs
in the struggle for freedom. What will be known as
the Boston Massacre will be the rallying cry for colonists
to fight for the unalienable rights we cherish today, life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. Here's Greg Hangwood.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
We will all regret to day.
Speaker 7 (20:03):
The Boston Massacre becomes a huge propaganda effort for Samuel
Adams and the Sons of Liberty. You've got an immediately
famous engraving by Paul Revere. It is one of the
most inaccurate pieces of propaganda ever produced by an American press.
Almost nothing in it is correct.
Speaker 8 (20:21):
This is an early instance in the colonies of the
power of what we now call media to shape the
public opinion.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Paul Revere's sensationalized engraving is considered one of the most
effective pieces of propaganda in American history, showing an orderly
line of redcoats firing in unison into an unprovoked and
unarmed crowd of patriots with blood spurting.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Out of their bodies.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
Boston newspapers are quick to print and distribute Revere's version.
John Adams is a short, chubby, and very pious, fifth
generation descendant of Puritans who settled in the mass Massachusetts
Bay Colony in sixteen thirty two. After twelve years of
practicing law. The thirty four year old Adams is working
(21:07):
in his office when a prosperous merchant named James Forrest
knocks on his door the day after the massacres.
Speaker 13 (21:15):
Rodham's my name is Forrest, what happened to you?
Speaker 5 (21:17):
With tears streaming in his eyes, as Adam writes years later,
the loyalist desperately asks Adams to defend Captain Preston and
his men against the murder charges. Not even a single
Royalist would take the case.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
No one else would tay this case.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
As Boston's most respected attorneys and political leaders, it would
appear inconceivable that he would risk his reputation and his
own safety, as well as the safety of his pregnant wife,
Abigail and their young son and future sixth President of
the United States, John Quincy Adams, by agreeing to defend
British men who are considered cold blooded killers of American patriots.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It will be adams first murder trial.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
On the surface, it would appear that the distinction between
adams cousins is made clearer when John takes the case
to defend British soldiers. But behind the scenes, Samuel adams
belief in the rights of man are deeper than is
in the open, rough and tumble political tactics.
Speaker 7 (22:23):
John Adams was not eager to take the task, but
Samuel persuaded his cousin on the basis of.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Justice that these men deserved the best defense.
Speaker 12 (22:38):
That was an argument that could always sway John Adams.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
The trial, in front of a packed courtroom, begins on
October twenty fourth at Boston's new courthouse on Queen Street.
John Adams draws upon his personal mistrust of mobs to
construct a masterful defense of the British soldiers. Here's Kirk
Ellis and John Adams from his autobiography and from the trial.
Speaker 7 (23:06):
He develops a defense that is based on the fact
that this was a mob that was created and a
situation of escalating violence was building.
Speaker 12 (23:19):
The part I took in defense of Captain Preston and
the soldiers was the most exhausting and fatiguing cause I
ever tried, for hazarding my popularity and for incurring suspicions
and prejudices which will never be forgotten as long as the.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
History of this period is read.
Speaker 8 (23:35):
Got Adams, as in the Whole Trials, is a deathbed
confession from Patrick Carr?
Speaker 12 (23:42):
And what was it he said? He said he fired
to defend himself, to defend himself.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
The doctor's testimony of Patrick Carr recounting a dying man's
last words would be concented inadmissible hearsay, but puritanical thinking
gives John Adams an advantage. Justice Peter Oliver in the
jury except the deathbed testimony as irrefutable since it is
believed that no one would dare lie so close before
(24:17):
stepping into eternity to face God's final judgment. In instructing
the jury, Justice Oliver addresses the complexities of the case
when he tells them, if upon the whole ye are
in any reasonable doubt of their guilt, ye must then
declare them innocent. It marks the first known time a
(24:39):
judge has used the phrase reasonable doubt in an American courtroom.
Adam's defending argument to the jury includes this statement that
has echoed throughout American courtrooms for longer than two centuries.
Speaker 13 (24:53):
Fact a stubborn things. Whatever our wishes, our incarnations are
the victims of our passions. They cannot alter the state
of facts and evidence.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
We the joy The trial of Captain Preston last six
days and that of his troops last nine not guilty.
These will be the first criminal trials in the colony's
history to extend more than a single day.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Not guilty.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
Adam's compelling defense wins an acquittal for six of the soldiers,
and two are found guilty of manslaughter, for which they
are branded with an M for murder on their thumbs.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
This session adjourned.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
It is not only the soldiers adams defense, but the
law itself, which must remain free from man's politics, passions,
and ever shifting beliefs. Far from ruining his career, Bostonians
realize that John Adams has won a victory for the colonies.
He has shown England that colonists understand what justice means.
(26:07):
The trial solidifies John Adams as the most respected and
gifted legal mind in Boston, perhaps all of the colonies.
For his part, Adams remembers the case with pride as
one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered,
one of the most.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Gallant, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and
one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered
my country.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
But to put that brilliant mind to use towards American independence,
Sam Adams and his Sons of Liberty must first convince
him to join them in open rebellion, because when their
struggle turns to war, they will need John Adams to
persuade a people to defy their king and define the
ideals of freedom and liberty upon which America will be built.
(26:57):
Let's end this story with the man who started it.
Here again is historian and John Adams biographer David McCullough.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I like to give credit where credits due, in many
cases long overdue. I felt that way with John Adams.
You remember the great scene in Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid when the posse is chasing them, and the
posse is not only keeping up with them, is starting
(27:25):
to gain a little bit, and one of them says
to the other, who are those guys? And then they
look again, and they're getting closer, and they're writing as
well or better than Butch and Sundance are, And the
other one said, who are those guys? And then who
are those guys? Well, that's the way I feel very often.
Who were those founding fathers? And the more you know them,
(27:48):
the better you know them, the more you realize how
extraordinary what they did is because they were so human,
and they had flaws and failings and had moments of
gloom and despair, just like all of us, and yet
they kept going. I know that it lifts us in spirit,
(28:11):
It lifts us in our love of appreciation of those
to whom we owe so much, But it also lifts
us in an outlook on life that, for lack of
another word, I would call optimistic. Now it's not fashionable
intellectually to be an optimist, but I am because I've
(28:32):
seen in my work again and again and again it
works out. They do it, They get there, and if
there's a problem, there's an overwhelming calamity the nation's whole
security and future's estate. We've come through it. And so
when people start to say, oh, it's a country's going
(28:53):
to hell, well, sure it always has been, and we're
doing just fine. And then when people say, well, the
taxes are too high in the cost of this in
these damn politicians, I say, would you rather live somewhere else?
Oh no, no, of course not. Aren't we lucky? Aren't
we really lucky to live in this country? And isn't
(29:16):
it wonderful sometimes to be reminded that we are a
good people and we've had great people bring us to
where we are. Yes, there were terrible, rotten people, of course,
and there were scoundrels and scamps and crooks and murderers,
but there always have been, always will be, and just
don't haven't let us get so down about what might
(29:39):
be happening at the moment in the way of less
than admirable human beings. But remember how many good people
there are, and how much progress is being made in
our own time beneficial to a better life.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
And great job is always Greg and it's always a
pleasure to hear from David McCullough. And this story, well,
it tells you every thing about John Adams, that one
moment in your life and it's you and your principles
and how you act upon them, Well, it determines who
you are. John Adams' story, the Boston massacred Trial. Here
on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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