Sons of Liberty

"What are all the Riches, the Luxeries, and even the Conveniences of Life compared with that Liberty where with God and Nature have set us free, with that inestimable Jewel which is the Basis of all other Employments?"

Alexander McDougall

The Sons of Liberty

"The Constitution shall never be construed … to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."

Samuel Adams

Sons of Liberty - Profiles of Great Americans

Isaac Sears
(b. July 1?, 1730, West Brewster, Massachusetts [U.S.]—d. October 28, 1786, Canton, China), patriot leader in New York City before the American Revolution, who earned the nickname “King Sears” by virtue of his prominent role in inciting and commanding anti-British demonstrations.


A merchant whose shipping activities included privateering, Sears first exhibited his patriot leanings when the Stamp Act crisis erupted in 1765. He became a mob leader during the anti-British riots in New York City, and he belonged to the newly formed patriot organization the Sons of Liberty.

Sears led the boycott of British goods during colonial protests of the Townshend Acts. Repeal of the Townshend Acts produced a period of calm in the colonies from 1770 to 1773, but imposition of the Tea Act in 1773 gave new life to the Sons of Liberty. In 1774 Sears led a New York version of the Boston Tea Party, and he signed the call for a meeting of representatives from the colonies.

Sears was arrested in April 1775 for his activities, but his admirers rescued him at the jailhouse door. Later that month—after the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord—he and his followers drove the loyalist officials out of New York City and seized control of the municipal government. His subsequent attacks on loyalist businessmen elicited official disapproval from patriot committees, but they earned Sears the backing of the New York citizenry.

The capture of New York City by the British compelled Sears to move to Boston from 1777 to 1783, during which time Sears spent time at sea as a privateer. In 1784 and again in 1786 he was elected to the New York state legislature. He was in China on a trading venture when he died there in 1786.

Citations

"Isaac Sears." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 27 Nov. 2010.

The Sons of Liberty

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

Samuel Adams

Quotes from the Sons of Liberty

"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men."

Samuel Adams

Quotes from the Sons of Liberty

"Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

Patrick Henry

Quotes from the Sons of Liberty

"Liberty without virtue would be no blessing to us."

Benjamin Rush

Quotes from the Sons of Liberty

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."

Patrick Henry