The Rights of the Colonists

Adams wrote this essay as a member of the Boston Committee of Correspondence. Adams and other “patriots,” as they were and are often still called, established this group in response to developments in tax and fiscal policy between the British Crown and colonial legislatures in North America. Colonists feared growing British influence in the colonies as the Crown (among other things) seized responsibility for paying officials like judges and governors. This structure aligned officials in the colonies with the Crown rather than with the colonists whom they supposedly served. In an era when the Crown and the colonists had diverging social and political goals, the potential for corruption within the British imperial system was significant.

Adams’s arguments in the essay reflect the teachings of the European Enlightenment and specifically of English philosopher John Locke. Adams cites Locke by name and presents Locke’s teachings as settled assumptions without arguing for their validity. Locke’s body of work was centrally concerned with personal liberty and rights as well as questions about how society and governments protect or infringe on rights. These themes were particularly pertinent to Adams, who wrote the essay after several years of resisting British taxation in the period leading to the American Revolution. Although Adams does not call for outright independence from the English Crown—that appeal came four years later in the Declaration of Independence, penned primarily by Thomas Jefferson—he expresses the belief that English colonists living in the American colonies should have the benefit of these Enlightenment principles and foundational British political texts.

The exclusion of “Papists” from legislation that protects “the worship of God to all Christians” is consistent with larger themes in British history (Paragraph 15). Once Henry VIII established the Church of England with the British monarch at the head, Catholicism became a liability in that it gave authority to the Pope, Henry’s rival for power. The tension between Protestants and Catholics would continue for centuries in many forms throughout the British Empire. (For example, religious tension between these groups was a major driver of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland in the late 20th century).

Adams’s statement about being entitled to all the rights and privileges of British subjects in England and throughout the empire reveals the general sentiment of leaders in the American colonies in the years prior to the Declaration of Independence. Colonists wanted to be treated as equal British subjects and maintain the protection of the British government and military. The closing lines of the third section of the essay argue that the colonists “have been branded with the odious names of traitors and rebels only for complaining of their grievances” (Paragraph 24). Adams then submits the question of “how long such treatment will or ought to be borne” (Paragraph 24). Adams does not make a direct statement about what the colonists should do to resist their oppression, but he had already by this time established the Sons of Liberty to coordinate resistance to British taxes. The heart of Adams’s essay is the claim that the British Crown already violated British law. The colonists wanted, according to Adams and other contemporaries, to exercise the proper control over their communities allowable by their rights as men, Christians, and British subjects.