Samuel Adams (and Dr Thomas Young?) – "The Rights of the Colonists" (1772)

Also known as The Votes and Proceedings of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, this was authored by Samuel Adams - some sources say that he was assisted in it by Dr Thomas Young. It's sparkling stuff. Adams is said to have been "vehemently Christian" whereas Young, despite his parents being Presbyterians from Ireland, was a Deist.

Here is the text. Much of it is straight out of John Locke's Two Treatises of Government - which is no surprise as it's known that Thomas Young discussed Locke with Ethan Allen in the 1760s, with whom he co-wrote Reason, The Only Oracle of Man.

Young relocated to Boston where he forged his revolutionary friendship with Samuel Adams. In one of Young's letters to Adams, he signed it off as "your friend and fellow countryman, fellow sufferer and incessant fellow laborer, Thos. Young.” 

The Rights of the Colonists states that there are three types of liberty: Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men; Natural Rights of the Colonists as Christians; Natural Rights of the Colonists as Subjects. It strongly hinted at independence for America –

"Our Ancestors received from King William and Queen Mary a Charter, by which it was understood by both Parties in the contract, that such a proportion or balance was fixed; and therefore every thing which renders any one Branch of the Legislative more independent of the other two than it was originally designed, is an alteration of the Constitution as settled by the Charter; and as it has been, until the establishment of this Revenue, the constant practice of the general Assembly to provide for the support of Government, so it is an essential part of our Constitution, as it is a necessary means of preserving an Equilibrium, without which we cannot continue a free State."

And this, against the establishment of a state religion which would empower one denomination over all of the others –

"As our Ancestors came over to this Country that they might not only enjoy their civil but their religious Rights, and particularly desired to be freed from the Prelates, who in those times cruelly persecuted all who differed in sentiment from the established Church; we cannot see without concern, the various at|tempts which have been made, and are now making, to establish an American Episcopate. Our Episcopal brethren of the Colonies do en|joy, and nightfully ought over to enjoy, the free exercise of their Religion; but as an American Episcopate is by no means essential to that free exercise of their Religion, we can|not help fearing that they who are so warmly contending for such an Establishment, have Views altogether inconsistent with the universal and peaceful enjoyment of our Christian privileges: And doing or attempting to do any thing which has even the remotest tendency to endanger this Enjoyment, is justly looked upon a great Grievance, and also an Infringement of our Rights; which is not barely to exercise, but peaceably and securely to enjoy, that Liberty with which CHRIST hath made us free." 

 

It was published under the auspices of the Boston Committee of Correspondence. Check it out online at the Massachusetts Historical Society website here.

• Then Again: Vermont wouldn’t have been Vermont without Thomas Young - article about Thomas Young on VTDigger.org here, by Mark Bushnell

• Then Again: American Revolution’s ‘necessary man’ mentored Ethan Allen - article about Thomas Young's friendship with Ethan Allan on VTDigger.org here, by Mark Bushnell