To find any other account, you must read our Revolutionary
history upside down. Our State archives are loaded with arguments
of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British Parliament
unconstitutional--beyond its power. It was not until this was made out
that the men of New England rushed to arms. The arguments of the Council
Chamber and the House of Representatives preceded and sanctioned the
contest. To draw the conduct of our ancestors into a precedent for mobs,
for a right to resist laws we ourselves have enacted, is an insult to
their memory. The difference between the excitements of those days and
our own, which the gentleman in kindness to the latter has overlooked,
is simply this: the men of that day went for the right, as secured
by the laws. They were the people rising to sustain the laws and
constitution of the Province. The rioters of our days go for their
own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay down
principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and
Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing
to the portraits in the Hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the
recreant American--the slanderer of the dead.
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