Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was an American statesman and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was an influential interpreter and promoter of the U. S. Constitution, as well as the founder of the nation's financial system, the Federalist Party, the United States Coast Guard, the New York Post newspaper; as the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was the main author of the economic policies of George Washington's administration. He took the lead in the Federal government's funding of the states' debts, as well as establishing a national bank, a system of tariffs, friendly trade relations with Britain, his vision included a strong central government led by a vigorous executive branch, a strong commercial economy, a national bank and support for manufacturing, a strong military. Thomas Jefferson was his leading opponent, arguing for smaller government. Hamilton was born out of wedlock in Nevis, he was taken in by a prosperous merchant. When he reached his teens, he was sent to New York to pursue his education.
He took an early role in the militia. In 1777, he became a senior aide to General Washington in running the new Continental Army. After the war, he was elected as a representative from New York to the Congress of the Confederation, he founded the Bank of New York. Hamilton was a leader in seeking to replace the weak national government under the Articles of Confederation, he helped ratify the Constitution by writing 51 of the 85 installments of The Federalist Papers, which are still used as one of the most important references for Constitutional interpretation. Hamilton led the Treasury Department as a trusted member of President Washington's first Cabinet. Hamilton argued that the implied powers of the Constitution provided the legal authority to fund the national debt, to assume states' debts, to create the government-backed Bank of the United States; these programs were funded by a tariff on imports, by a controversial whiskey tax. He mobilized a nationwide network of friends of the government bankers and businessmen, which became the Federalist Party.
A major issue in the emergence of the American two-party system was the Jay Treaty designed by Hamilton in 1794. It established friendly trade relations with Britain, to the chagrin of France and supporters of the French Revolution. Hamilton played a central role in the Federalist party, which dominated national and state politics until it lost the election of 1800 to Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party. In 1795, he returned to the practice of law in New York, he called for mobilization against the French First Republic in 1798–99 under President John Adams, became Commanding General of the disbanded U. S. Army, which he reconstituted and readied for war; the army did not see combat in the Quasi-War, Hamilton was outraged by Adams' diplomatic success in resolving the crisis with France. His opposition to Adams' re-election helped cause the Federalist party defeat in 1800. Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied for the presidency in the electoral college in 1801, Hamilton helped to defeat Burr, whom he found unprincipled, to elect Jefferson despite philosophical differences.
Hamilton continued his legal and business activities in New York City, was active in ending the legality of the international slave trade. Vice President Burr ran for governor of New York State in 1804, Hamilton campaigned against him as unworthy. Taking offense, Burr challenged him to a duel on July 11, 1804, in which Burr shot and mortally wounded Hamilton, who died the following day. Alexander Hamilton was born and spent part of his childhood in Charlestown, the capital of the island of Nevis in the Leeward Islands. Hamilton and his older brother James Jr. were born out of wedlock to Rachel Faucette, a married woman of half-British and half-French Huguenot descent, James A. Hamilton, a Scotsman, the fourth son of Laird Alexander Hamilton of Grange, Ayrshire. Speculation that Hamilton's mother was of mixed race, though persistent, is not substantiated by verifiable evidence, she was listed as white on tax rolls. It is not certain whether the year of Hamilton's birth was in 1755 or 1757. Most historical evidence, after Hamilton's arrival in North America, supports the idea that he was born in 1757, including Hamilton's own writings.
Hamilton listed his birth year as 1757 when he first arrived in the Thirteen Colonies, celebrated his birthday on January 11. In life, he tended to give his age only in round figures. Historians accepted 1757 as his birth year until about 1930, when additional documentation of his early life in the Caribbean was published in Danish. A probate paper from St. Croix in 1768, drafted after the death of Hamilton's mother, listed him as 13 years old, which has caused some historians since the 1930s to favor a birth year of 1755. Historians have speculated on possible reasons for two different years of birth to have appeared in historical documents. If 1755 is correct, Hamilton might have been trying to appear younger than his college classmates, or wished to avoid standing out as older. If 1757 is correct, the single probate document indicating a birth year of 1755 may have included an error, or Hamilton might once have given his age as 13 after his mother's death in an attempt to appear older and more employable.
Historians have pointed out that the probate document contained other proven inaccuracies, demonstrating it was not re
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America that served as its first constitution. It was approved, after much debate, by the Second Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, sent to the states for ratification; the Articles of Confederation came into force on March 1, 1781, after being ratified by all 13 states. A guiding principle of the Articles was to preserve the sovereignty of the states; the weak central government established by the Articles received only those powers which the former colonies had recognized as belonging to king and parliament. The Articles formed a war-time confederation of states, with an limited central government. While unratified, the document was used by the Congress to conduct business, direct the American Revolutionary War, conduct diplomacy with foreign nations, deal with territorial issues and Native American relations; the adoption of the Articles made few perceptible changes in the federal government, because it did little more than legalize what the Continental Congress had been doing.
That body was renamed the Congress of the Confederation. As the Confederation Congress attempted to govern the continually growing American states, delegates discovered that the limitations placed upon the central government rendered it ineffective at doing so; as the government's weaknesses became apparent after Shays' Rebellion, some prominent political thinkers in the fledgling US began asking for changes to the Articles. Their hope was to create a stronger national government; some states met to deal with their trade and economic problems. However, as more states became interested in meeting to change the Articles, a meeting was set in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787; this became the Constitutional Convention. It was agreed that changes would not work, instead the entire Articles needed to be replaced. On March 4, 1789, the government under the Articles was replaced with the federal government under the Constitution; the new Constitution provided for a much stronger federal government by establishing a chief executive and taxing powers.
The political push to increase cooperation among the then-loyal colonies began with the Albany Congress in 1754 and Benjamin Franklin's proposed Albany Plan, an inter-colonial collaboration to help solve mutual local problems. Over the next two decades, some of the basic concepts it addressed would strengthen. With civil disobedience resulting in coercive and quelling measures, the passage of what the colonials referred to as the intolerable acts in the English Parliament, armed skirmishes which resulted in dissidents being proclaimed rebels; these actions eroded the number of Crown Loyalists (aka Tories amongst the colonials and together with the effective propaganda campaign of the Patriot leaders, they caused an increasing number of colonists to begin agitating for independence from the mother country. In 1775, with events outpacing communications, the Second Continental Congress began acting as the provisional government that would run the American Revolutionary War and gain the colonies their collective independence.
It was an era of constitution writing—most states were busy at the task—and leaders felt the new nation must have a written constitution. During the war, Congress exercised an unprecedented level of political, diplomatic and economic authority, it adopted trade restrictions and maintained an army, issued fiat money, created a military code and negotiated with foreign governments. To transform themselves from outlaws into a legitimate nation, the colonists needed international recognition for their cause and foreign allies to support it. In early 1776, Thomas Paine argued in the closing pages of the first edition of Common Sense that the "custom of nations" demanded a formal declaration of American independence if any European power were to mediate a peace between the Americans and Great Britain; the monarchies of France and Spain in particular could not be expected to aid those they considered rebels against another legitimate monarch. Foreign courts needed to have American grievances laid before them persuasively in a "manifesto" which could reassure them that the Americans would be reliable trading partners.
Without such a declaration, Paine concluded, "he custom of all courts is against us, will be so, until, by an independence, we take rank with other nations."Beyond improving their existing association, the records of the Second Continental Congress show that the need for a declaration of independence was intimately linked with the demands of international relations. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution before the Continental Congress declaring the colonies independent. Congress created three overlapping committees to draft the Declaration, a Model Treaty, the Articles of Confederation; the Declaration announced the states' entry into the international system. On June 12, 1776
United States Army
The United States Army is the land warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States, is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution; as the oldest and most senior branch of the U. S. military in order of precedence, the modern U. S. Army has its roots in the Continental Army, formed to fight the American Revolutionary War —before the United States of America was established as a country. After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army; the United States Army considers itself descended from the Continental Army, dates its institutional inception from the origin of that armed force in 1775. As a uniformed military service, the U. S. Army is part of the Department of the Army, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense; the U. S. Army is headed by a civilian senior appointed civil servant, the Secretary of the Army and by a chief military officer, the Chief of Staff of the Army, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
It is the largest military branch, in the fiscal year 2017, the projected end strength for the Regular Army was 476,000 soldiers. S. Army was 1,018,000 soldiers; as a branch of the armed forces, the mission of the U. S. Army is "to fight and win our Nation's wars, by providing prompt, land dominance, across the full range of military operations and the spectrum of conflict, in support of combatant commanders"; the branch participates in conflicts worldwide and is the major ground-based offensive and defensive force of the United States. The United States Army serves as the land-based branch of the U. S. Armed Forces. Section 3062 of Title 10, U. S. Code defines the purpose of the army as: Preserving the peace and security and providing for the defense of the United States, the Commonwealths and possessions and any areas occupied by the United States Supporting the national policies Implementing the national objectives Overcoming any nations responsible for aggressive acts that imperil the peace and security of the United StatesIn 2018, the Army Strategy 2018 articulated an eight-point addendum to the Army Vision for 2028.
While the Army Mission remains constant, the Army Strategy builds upon the Army's Brigade Modernization by adding focus to Corps and Division-level echelons. Modernization, reform for high-intensity conflict, Joint multi-domain operations are added to the strategy, to be completed by 2028; the Continental Army was created on 14 June 1775 by the Second Continental Congress as a unified army for the colonies to fight Great Britain, with George Washington appointed as its commander. The army was led by men who had served in the British Army or colonial militias and who brought much of British military heritage with them; as the Revolutionary War progressed, French aid and military thinking helped shape the new army. A number of European soldiers came on their own to help, such as Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who taught Prussian Army tactics and organizational skills; the army fought numerous pitched battles and in the South in 1780–1781, at times using the Fabian strategy and hit-and-run tactics, under the leadership of Major General Nathanael Greene, hit where the British were weakest to wear down their forces.
Washington led victories against the British at Trenton and Princeton, but lost a series of battles in the New York and New Jersey campaign in 1776 and the Philadelphia campaign in 1777. With a decisive victory at Yorktown and the help of the French, the Continental Army prevailed against the British. After the war, the Continental Army was given land certificates and disbanded in a reflection of the republican distrust of standing armies. State militias became the new nation's sole ground army, with the exception of a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Point's arsenal. However, because of continuing conflict with Native Americans, it was soon realized that it was necessary to field a trained standing army; the Regular Army was at first small and after General St. Clair's defeat at the Battle of the Wabash, the Regular Army was reorganized as the Legion of the United States, established in 1791 and renamed the United States Army in 1796; the War of 1812, the second and last war between the United States and Great Britain, had mixed results.
The U. S. Army did not conquer Canada but it did destroy Native American resistance to expansion in the Old Northwest and it validated its independence by stopping two major British invasions in 1814 and 1815. After taking control of Lake Erie in 1813, the U. S. Army seized parts of western Upper Canada, burned York and defeated Tecumseh, which caused his Western Confederacy to collapse. Following U. S. victories in the Canadian province of Upper Canada, British troops who had dubbed the U. S. Army "Regulars, by God!", were able to capture and burn Washington, defended by militia, in 1814. The regular army, however proved they were professional and capable of defeating the British army during the invasions of Plattsburgh and Baltimore, prompting British agreement on the rejected terms of a status quo ante bellum. Two weeks after a treaty was signed, Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans and Siege of Fort St. Philip, became a national hero. U. S. troops and sailors captured HMS Cyane and Penguin in the final engagements of the war.
Per the treaty, both sides (the United S
Major general (United States)
In the United States Army, United States Marine Corps, United States Air Force, major general is a two-star general-officer rank, with the pay grade of O-8. Major general ranks below lieutenant general. A major general commands division-sized units of 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers. Major general is equivalent to the two-star rank of rear admiral in the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard, is the highest-permanent rank during peacetime in the uniformed-services. Higher ranks are technically-temporary ranks linked to specific positions, although all officers promoted to those ranks are approved to retire at their highest earned rank; the United States Code explicitly limits the total number of general officers that may be on active duty at any given time. The total number of active duty general officers is capped at 231 for the Army, 62 for the Marine Corps, 198 for the Air Force; some of these slots are finitely set by statute. For example, the Deputy Judge Advocate General of the Army is a major general in the Army.
The United States Code limits the total number of general officers that may be on the Reserve Active Status List in the Reserve Component, defined in the case of general officers as the Army National Guard, Army Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve. To be promoted to the permanent grade of major general, officers who are eligible for promotion to this rank are screened by an in-service promotion board comprising other general officers from their branch of service; this promotion board generates a list of officers it recommends for promotion to general rank. This list is sent to the service secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff for review before it can be sent to the President, through the Secretary of Defense for consideration; the President nominates officers to be promoted from this list with the advice of the Secretary of Defense, the service secretary, if applicable, the service's chief of staff or commandant. The President may nominate any eligible officer, not on the recommended list if it serves in the interest of the nation, but this is uncommon.
The Senate must confirm the nominee by a majority vote before the officer can be promoted. Once confirmed, the nominee is promoted to that rank on assuming a position of office that requires an officer to hold the rank. For positions of office that are reserved by statute, the President nominates an officer for appointment to fill that position. For all three of the applicable uniformed services, because the grade of major general is a permanent rank, the nominee may still be screened by an in-service promotion board to add their input on the nominee before the nomination can be sent to the Senate for approval. Since the grade of major general is permanent, the rank does not expire when the officer vacates a two-star position. Tour length varies depending on the position, by statute, and/or when the officer receives a new assignment or a promotion, but the average tour length per two-star billet is two to four years. In the Army, Major Generals serve as division commanders, training center commanders, joint task force commanders, deputy commanding generals to 3-star generals, chief of staff in 4-star commands, senior directors on Army and joint staffs, and, in the case of the Army National Guard, as The Adjutant General for their state, commonwealth or territory.
In the Marine Corps, Major Generals serve as commanding generals or deputy commanding generals of Marine Expeditionary Forces, Marine Divisions, Marine Aircraft Wings, Joint Task Force Commanders, or senior directors on Marine Corps and joint staffs. In the Air Force, Major Generals serve as Numbered Air Force commanders, vice commanders of 3-star commands, joint task force commanders, warfare center, training center, weapons center, or logistics center commanders, or senior directors on Air Force and joint staffs. In the case of the Air National Guard, they may serve as The Adjutant General for their state, commonwealth or territory. Other than voluntary retirement, statute sets a number of mandates for retirement of general officers. All major generals must retire after five years in grade or 35 years of service, whichever is unless appointed for promotion or reappointed to grade to serve longer. Otherwise, all general officers must retire the month after their 64th birthday; the Continental Army was established on June 15, 1775 when the Continental Congress commissioned George Washington as a general and placed him in command of the Army of Observation besieging Boston.
The rank of major general was first established two days on June 17, 1775 when two major generals were commissioned by Congress soon followed by two more major generals being appointed on June 19. Following the disbanding of the Continental Army at the end of 1783 only one major general, Henry Knox, remained in service until his resignation in June 1784; the rank was revived on March 4, 1791 when Arthur St. Clair was appointed as major general in command of the U. S. Army. St. Clair was succeeded by Major General Anthony Wayne who commanded the Army until his death on December 15, 1796; the rank was revived on July 19, 1798 when Alexander Hamilton and Charles C. Pinckney were commissioned as major generals during the Quasi War with France; the expanded Army was demobilized on June 15, 1800 when it was reduced to
United States Secretary of the Treasury
The Secretary of the Treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, concerned with financial and monetary matters, until 2003 included several federal law enforcement agencies. This position in the federal government of the United States is analogous to the Minister of Finance in many other countries; the Secretary of the Treasury is a member of the President's Cabinet, is nominated by the President of the United States. Nominees for Secretary of the Treasury undergo a confirmation hearing before the United States Senate Committee on Finance before being voted on by the United States Senate; the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense are regarded as the four most important cabinet officials because of the importance of their departments. The Secretary of the Treasury is a non-statutory member of the U. S. National Security Council and fifth in the United States presidential line of succession; the Secretary of the Treasury is the principal economic advisor to the President and plays a critical role in policy-making by bringing an economic and government financial policy perspective to issues facing the government.
The Secretary is responsible for formulating and recommending domestic and international financial and tax policy, participating in the formulation of broad fiscal policies that have general significance for the economy, managing the public debt. The Secretary oversees the activities of the Department in carrying out its major law enforcement responsibilities; the Chief Financial Officer of the government, the Secretary serves as Chairman Pro Tempore of the President's Economic Policy Council, Chairman of the Boards and Managing Trustee of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds, as U. S. Governor of the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; the Secretary along with the Treasurer of the United States must sign Federal Reserve notes before they can become legal tender. The Secretary manages the United States Emergency Economic Stabilization fund.
Most of the Department's law enforcement agencies such as the U. S. Customs Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Explosives, the U. S. Secret Service were reassigned to other departments in 2003 in conjunction with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security; the salary of the Secretary of the Treasury is $205,700 annually. Parties No party Federalist Democratic-Republican Democratic Whig Republican Status 1 William Jones served as acting secretary between the resignation of Alexander J. Dallas and appointment of William H. Crawford. 2 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury M. Peter McPherson served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from August 17, 1988, to September 15, 1988. 3 Because of the resignation of Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Roger Altman in August 1994, Under Secretary of Treasury for Domestic Finance Frank N. Newman served from December 22, 1994, to January 11, 1995 as Acting Secretary of the Treasury. 4 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Kenneth W. Dam served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from December 31, 2002, to February 3, 2003.
5 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert M. Kimmitt served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from June 30, 2006, to July 9, 2006. 6 Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart A. Levey served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from January 20, 2009, until the confirmation of Timothy Geithner, which occurred January 26, 2009. 7 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Neal Wolin served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from January 25, 2013, until the confirmation of Jack Lew which occurred February 28, 2013. 8 Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam J. Szubin served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from January 20, 2017, until the confirmation of Steven Mnuchin which occurred February 13, 2017. If both the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury are unable to carry out the duties of the office of Secretary of the Treasury whichever Treasury official of Under Secretary rank sworn in earliest assumes the role of Acting Secretary. Positions listed on the Department of the Treasury website include the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, the Under Secretary for International Affairs, the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
As of April 2019, there are eleven living former Secretaries of the Treasury, the oldest being George P. Shultz; the most recent Secretary of the Treasury to die, as well as the most serving Secretary to die, was Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. on May 23, 2006. "Secretaries of the Treasury". History of the Treasury. United States Department of the Treasury. Retrieved April 9, 2006. Official website
Chief of Staff of the United States Army
The Chief of Staff of the Army is a statutory office held by a four-star general in the United States Army. As the most senior uniformed officer assigned to serve in the Department of the Army, the CSA is the principal military advisor and a deputy to the Secretary of the Army. In a separate capacity, the CSA is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, thereby, a military advisor to the National Security Council, the Secretary of Defense, the President of the United States; the CSA is the highest-ranking officer on active-duty in the U. S. Army unless the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are Army officers; the Chief of Staff of the Army is an administrative position based in the Pentagon. While the CSA does not have operational command authority over Army forces proper, the CSA does exercise supervision of army units and organizations as the designee of the Secretary of the Army; the current Chief of Staff of the Army is General Mark A. Milley; the senior leadership of the Department of the Army consists of two civilians, the Secretary of the Army and the Under Secretary of the Army, two military officers, the Chief of Staff of the Army and the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army.
The Chief of Staff reports directly to the Secretary of the Army for army matters and assists in the Secretary's external affairs functions, including presenting and enforcing army policies and projections. The CSA directs the Inspector General of the Army to perform inspections and investigations as required. In addition, the CSA presides over the Army Staff and represents army capabilities, policy and programs in Joint fora. Under delegation of authority made by the Secretary of the Army, the CSA designates army personnel and army resources to the Commanders of the Combatant Commands; the CSA performs all other functions enumerated in 10 U. S. C. § 3033 under the authority and control of the Secretary of the Army, or delegates those duties and responsibilities to other officers in his administration in his name. Like the other service counterparts, the CSA has no operational command authority over army forces, dating back to the passage of the Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1958.
The CSA is served by a number of Deputy Chiefs of Staff of the Army, such as G-1, Personnel. The CSA base pay is $21,147.30 per month plus Personal Money Allowance of $333.33, basic allowance for subsistence of $253.38, basic allowance for housing from $50.70–1923.30. The Chief of Staff of the Army must be confirmed by the Senate. By statute, the CSA is appointed as a four-star general; the Chief of Staff of the Army has an official residence, Quarters 1 at Joint Base Myer–Henderson Hall, Virginia. The Chief of Staff holds. Prior to 1903, the senior military officer in the army was the Commanding General, who reported to the Secretary of War. From 1864 to 1865, Major General Henry Halleck served as "Chief of Staff of the Army" under the Commanding General, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, thus serving in a different office and not as the senior officer in the army; the first chief of staff moved his headquarters to Fort Myer in 1908. The rank listed is the rank. Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army Army Staff Senior Warrant Officer Sergeant Major of the Army Bell, William Gardner.
"Appendix B: Chronological List of Senior Officers of the United States Army". Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff 1775-2005: Portraits & Biographical Sketches of the United States Army's Senior Officer. United States Army Center of Military History. ISBN 0-16-072376-0. CMH Pub 70-14. Bell, William Gardner. Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff 1775-2005:Portraits & Biographical Sketches of the United States Army's Senior Officer. Washington, D. C.: United States Army Center of Military History. ISBN 0-16-072376-0. CMH Pub 70–14. Watson, Mark Skinner. Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations. United States Army in World War II. Washington D. C.: United States Army Center of Military History. - full text The short film Big Picture: Top Soldier is available for free download at the Internet Archive
Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams was an American statesman, political philosopher, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a politician in colonial Massachusetts, a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped the political culture of the United States, he was a second cousin to President John Adams. Adams was born in Boston, brought up in a politically active family. A graduate of Harvard College, he was an unsuccessful businessman and tax collector before concentrating on politics, he was an influential official of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Boston Town Meeting in the 1760s, he became a part of a movement opposed to the British Parliament's efforts to tax the British American colonies without their consent. His 1768 Massachusetts Circular Letter calling for colonial non-cooperation prompted the occupation of Boston by British soldiers resulting in the Boston Massacre of 1770. Adams and his colleagues devised a committee of correspondence system in 1772 to help coordinate resistance to what he saw as the British government's attempts to violate the British Constitution at the expense of the colonies, which linked like-minded Patriots throughout the Thirteen Colonies.
Continued resistance to British policy resulted in the 1773 Boston Tea Party and the coming of the American Revolution. Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in 1774, at which time Adams attended the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, convened to coordinate a colonial response, he helped guide Congress towards issuing the Continental Association in 1774 and the Declaration of Independence in 1776, he helped draft the Articles of Confederation and the Massachusetts Constitution. Adams returned to Massachusetts after the American Revolution, where he served in the state senate and was elected governor. Samuel Adams became a controversial figure in American history. Accounts written in the 19th century praised him as someone, steering his fellow colonists towards independence long before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War; this view gave way to negative assessments of Adams in the first half of the 20th century, in which he was portrayed as a master of propaganda who provoked mob violence to achieve his goals.
Both of these interpretations have been challenged by some modern scholars, who argue that these traditional depictions of Adams are myths contradicted by the historical record. Samuel Adams was born in Boston in the British colony of Massachusetts on September 16, 1722, an Old Style date, sometimes converted to the New Style date of September 27. Adams was one of twelve children born to Samuel Adams, Sr. and Mary Adams in an age of high infant mortality. Adams's parents were devout members of the Old South Congregational Church; the family lived on Purchase Street in Boston. Adams was proud of his Puritan heritage, emphasized Puritan values in his political career virtue. Samuel Adams, Sr. was a prosperous church deacon. Deacon Adams became a leading figure in Boston politics through an organization that became known as the Boston Caucus, which promoted candidates who supported popular causes; the Boston Caucus helped shape the agenda of the Boston Town Meeting. A New England town meeting is a form of local government with elected officials, not just a gathering of citizens.
Deacon Adams rose through the political ranks, becoming a justice of the peace, a selectman, a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He worked with Elisha Cooke, Jr. the leader of the "popular party", a faction that resisted any encroachment by royal officials on the colonial rights embodied in the Massachusetts Charter of 1691. In the coming years, members of the "popular party" became known as Patriots; the younger Samuel Adams attended Boston Latin School and entered Harvard College in 1736. His parents hoped that his schooling would prepare him for the ministry, but Adams shifted his interest to politics. After graduating in 1740, Adams continued his studies, earning a master's degree in 1743. In his thesis, he argued that it was "lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved", which indicated that his political views, like his father's, were oriented towards colonial rights. Adams's life was affected by his father's involvement in a banking controversy.
In 1739, Massachusetts was facing a serious currency shortage, Deacon Adams and the Boston Caucus created a "land bank" which issued paper money to borrowers who mortgaged their land as security. The land bank was supported by the citizenry and the popular party, which dominated the House of Representatives, the lower branch of the General Court. Opposition to the land bank came from the more aristocratic "court party", who were supporters of the royal governor and controlled the Governor's Council, the upper chamber of the General Court; the court party used its influence to have the British Parliament dissolve the land bank in 1741. Directors of the land bank, including Deacon Adams, became liable for the currency still in circulation, payable in silver and gold. Lawsuits over the bank persisted for years after Deacon Adams's death, the younger Samuel Adams had to defend the family estate from seizure by the government. For Adams, these lawsuits "served as a constant personal reminder that Britain's power over the colonies c
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