“Always set a good example for others. Be sincere and serious….” Titus 2:7
Sam Adams was the “poster boy” of American independence. So writes Denise Keirnan in the book Signing Their Lives Away. Why? Because once he set the course for independence he saw it through. It could have been otherwise.
Adams was so influential that he was offered a number of bribes by the British to stop his agitation and return to the fold of loyalty to the crown. Adams refused money, property and position. Instead, the man Thomas Jefferson called “the patriarch of liberty” remained true to his convictions and did all that he could to persuade his fellow colonists that the time had come for the creation of a new, independent country. Regardless of how one might feel about his methods or his inflamed rhetoric, his decision to see it through earned him the respect of his fellow patriots and gives posterity a life lesson in integrity.
Adams has been called the “mouth of the Revolution.” It’s safe to say that he put his money where his mouth was by refusing these bribes.
(For more information on Sam Adams and the other signers of the Declaration of Independence, see Denise Kiernan, Signing Their Lives Away, 2009)
