Counting Votes in Independence Hall

As quoted yesterday, Edward Rutledge hoped that John Jay would return to the Continental Congress by 1 July so he could help to argue against declaring independence, at least at that time.

Jay didn’t make it, and on that date the delegations in Philadelphia took a test vote in their committee of the whole.

Nine colonies voted for independence. Four voted otherwise.

Rutledge’s South Carolina voted against. That colony contained the fourth largest port in North America and was very tied in with trade to the Caribbean and Africa.

Pennsylvania voted against independence. Its large delegation was split. Such heavyweights as John Dickinson and Robert Morris opposed the measure while a minority including Benjamin Franklin favored it.

Delaware had sent three delegates to Congress, but only two were present. Those men, Thomas McKean and George Read, disagreed. As a result, that delegation had to abstain.

New York also abstained because its delegates had received no guidance from its provincial congress. That colony contained the second-largest port along the coast, under imminent threat from the British military.

The vote was thus 9 delegations for independence, 2 against, and 2 abstaining.

The committee of the whole thus supported independence, but a big chunk of the Middle Colonies, including the two largest cities, were missing from the pro-independence bloc. There was no formal requirement that the vote be unanimous, but everyone realized that reporting disunity would hamper any ongoing resistance to the Crown.

The next day, Caesar Rodney returned from Delaware, “detained by thunder and rain,” as he wrote. McKean later said his colleague appeared “at the State-house door, in his boots and spurs.” Rodney’s arrival tipped the Delaware delegation into the pro-independence camp.

10 – 2 – 1.

Rutledge saw the trend. He decided that the danger of displaying disunity was worse than the danger of declaring independence before finishing the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. He moved for a new vote, signaling that South Carolina would switch to approval.

11 – 1 – 1.

Thinking along the same lines, Dickinson and Morris chose not to attend the 2 July session of the Congress. That meant most of the Pennsylvania delegates in the assembly hall supported independence, changing that colony’s vote.

12 – 0 – 1.

The Congress could thus report that the vote for independence was unopposed.

“The Exertions of the Honest and sensible part of the Members”

Last week I shared sources detailing how the Declaration of Independence was drafted.

This post jumps back a few days to a last-ditch effort to head off the vote on independence.

Richard Henry Lee proposed that the Continental Congress declare the thirteen colonies separate from Britain on 7 June.

Delegates debated that measure in a committee of the whole, meaning everyone was involved but secretary Charles Thomson didn’t take official notes.

Meanwhile, Thomas Jefferson and his committee were drafting a Declaration just in case it would be handy, then or later. Other committees worked on what ultimately became the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union and a model treaty with a foreign power like, oh, say, France. (S’il vous plait!)

After a while, it became clear that most colonies favored independence, including Virginia and Massachusetts, populous anchors of their regions. But was that enough? Men on both sides of the question knew that resisting royal power required unity. If a chunk of colonies, or a big central colony, wasn’t ready to leave the British Empire, it would be a weak point for the rest. Thus, opponents of independence could win the argument by showing not that most colonies wanted to stay in the empire but that too many colonies wanted to stay to make leaving safe.

On 29 June, the South Carolina delegate Edward Rutledge (1749–1800, shown above) wrote to John Jay, another delegate known to oppose independence at that time. Jay had gone home to New York to serve in that colony’s legislature. Rutledge wrote frankly:

I write this for the express Purpose of requesting that if possible you will give your Attendance in Congress on Monday next [1 July]. I know full well that your Presence must be useful at New York, but I am sincerely convinced that it will be absolutely necessary in this City during the whole of the ensuing Week.

A Declaration of Independence, the Form of a Confederation of these Colonies, and a Scheme for a Treaty with foreign Powers will be laid before the House on Monday.

Whether we shall be able effectually to oppose the first, and infuse Wisdom into the others will depend in a great Measure upon the Exertions of the Honest and sensible part of the Members. I trust you will contribute in a considerable degree to effect the Business and therefore I wish you to be with us.

Recollect the manner in which your Colony is at this Time represented. [George] Clinton has Abilities but is silent in general, and wants (when he does speak) that Influence to which he is intitled. [William] Floyd, [Henry] Wisner, [Francis] Lewis and [John] Alsop though good Men, never quit their Chairs. You must know the Importance of these Questions too well not to wish to [be] present whilst they are debating and therefore I shall say no more upon the Subject.

I have been much engaged lately upon a plan of a Confederation which [John] Dickenson has drawn. It has the Vice of all his Productions to a considerable Degree; I mean the Vice of Refining too much. Unless it is greatly curtailed it never can pass, as it is to be submitted to Men in the respective Provinces who will not be led or rather driven into Measures which may lay the Foundation of their Ruin. If the Plan now proposed should be adopted nothing less than Ruin to some Colonies will be the Consequence of it.

The Idea of destroying all Provincial Distinctions and making every thing of the most minute kind bend to what they call the good of the whole, is in other Terms to say that these Colonies must be subject to the Government of the Eastern Provinces [i.e., New England].

The Force of their Arms I hold exceeding Cheap, but I confess I dread their over-ruling Influence in Council, I dread their low Cunning, and those levelling Principles which Men without Character and without Fortune in general Possess, which are so captivating to the lower Class of Mankind, and which will occasion such a fluctuation of Property as to introduce the greatest disorder.

I am resolved to vest the Congress with no more Power than what is absolutely necessary, and to use a familiar Expression to keep the Staff in our own Hands, for I am confident if surrendered into the Hands of others a most pernicious use will be made of it.

I don’t think we know when Jay received this letter. However, he was too busy with provincial business to respond until 6 July, and by that time the question of independence had been decided.

TOMORROW: And Rutledge had changed his vote.

“Some among us urge strongly for Independency”

In August 1822, Timothy Pickering invited John Adams to do something the retired President really liked doing: explaining how he was close to the center of the most important decisions of the American Revolution.

Just four days after Pickering sent his letter from Salem, Adams responded with a long account of how the Continental Congress came to declare independence 250 years ago.

He started with a vivid word picture of the Massachusetts delegation to the First Continental Congress being “met at Frankfort [Frankford] by Dr [Benjamin] Rush, Mr [Thomas] Mifflin, Mr [John] Bayard and several others of the most active Sons of Liberty, in Philadelphia.”

That meeting was on 29 Aug 1774, according to Adams’s diary. At that time he wrote:

A Number of Carriages and Gentlemen came out of Phyladelphia to meet us. Mr. Thomas Mifflin, Mr. [Thomas] McKean of the Lower Counties [Delaware], one of their Delegates, Mr. [Edward or John] Rutledge of Carolina, and a Number of Gentlemen from Philadelphia. Mr. [Nathaniel] Folsom and Mr. [John] Sullivan, the N. Hampshire Delegates. We were introduced to all these Gentlemen and most cordially wellcomed to Philadelphia.

We also have Dr. Rush’s recollection in his memoir:

I went as far as Frankford to meet the delegates from Massachusetts, and rode back into town in the same carriage with John Adams, and two of his colleagues. This gentleman’s dress and manners were at that time plain, and his conversation cold and reserved. He asked me many questions relative to the state of public opinion upon politicks, and the characters of the most active citizens on both sides of the controversy.

Rush evidently warned Adams and Robert Treat Paine “against two Gentlemen particularly,” one being the Rev. William Smith of the University of Pennsylvania and the other not. (Adams’s diary preserved only one name.)

In his letter almost fifty years later, Adams stated that the Philadelphia radicals had come out for that meeting to warn the Massachusetts men that people viewed them as “four desperate adventurers.” The locals advised the newcomers to:

• let Virginians and other southerners take the lead on radical measures. 
• “not utter the word Independence, nor give the least hint or insinuation of the idea, neither in Congress or any private conversation.” 

Yet Adams recorded no hint of that warning in 1774. And the presence of a South Carolina delegate in the party would surely have inhibited discussion of how to lead along the south.

Adams’s 1822 letter then skipped ahead to the spring of 1776 as if the same situation still prevailed. Of course, a lot had happened during those eighteen months. By 1776 the Second Continental Congress delegates were discussing independence openly, though they insisted they weren’t pushing for it—rather, the Crown was pushing them toward it.

On 9 Jan 1776, for example, Richard Smith of New Jersey wrote in his diary: “Several Members said that if a Foreign Force shall be sent here, they are willing to declare the Colonies in a State of Independent Sovereignity.”

Robert Morris told a colleague on 15 February:

America has long been charged by her Enemys in England with aiming at Independency. The charge was unjust, but we now plainly see, that the burning of Towns, seizing our Ships, with numerous acts of wanton barbarity & Cruelty perpetrated by the British Forces has prepared Men’s minds for an Independency, that were shock’d at the idea a few weeks ago. This you may depend on, and should this Campaign open with furious Acts of Parliament, you may bid adieu to the American Colonies. They will then assuredly declare for Independency…

Joseph Hewes of North Carolina wrote home on 20 March:

some among us urge strongly for Independency and eternal separation, others wish to wait a little longer and to have the opinion of their Constituents on that subject, you must give us the sentiment of your province when your Convention meets.

Carter Braxton of Virginia reported on 14 April:

Independency & total Seperation from Great Britain are the interesting Subjects of all ranks of Men & often agitate our Body.

Notably, Morris and Braxton both opposed independence that spring. But they weren’t averse to discussing it.

Nonetheless, the next part of Adams’s letter was an almost necessary part of his post-Presidency memories: everyone disliking him because of his far-sighted and courageous stances.

It soon became rumoured about the City that John Adams was for Independence; the Quakers & Proprietary Gentlemen, took the alarm; represented me as the worst of men, the true-blue Sons of Liberty pitied me; all put me under a kind of Coventry. I was avoided like a man infected with the Leprosy. I walked the streets of Philadelphia in solitude, born down by the weight of care and unpopularity. But every ship for the ensuing year, brought us fresh proof of the truth of my prophesies and one after another became convinced of the necessity of Independence. I did not sink under my discouragements; I had before experienced enough of the Wantonness of popularity in the trial of Preston and the Soldiers, in Boston.

I’ve previously noted how there’s actually no contemporaneous evidence of Bostonians shunning Adams in the early 1770s because he represented Capt. Thomas Preston and the soldiers after the Massacre. 

Likewise, documents from 1775 and early 1776 show that Adams’s fellow Congress delegates continued to put him on many committees and to dine with him. No doubt it was awkward when the royal authorities intercepted and published letters in which he criticized colleagues like John Dickinson, but really Adams brought that on himself.

TOMORROW: Drafting the Declaration at last.

Three Podcast Episodes

Producing a podcast strikes me as a lot of work, but speaking about Boston history on other folks’ podcasts is always fun.

Here are three episodes I’ve recorded in the last few months. Enjoy all you can.

“The Spark: How Boston Ignited the American Revolution” on The Object of History from the Massachusetts Historical Society

We ask several historians for their thoughts on why Boston helped light the spark of the American Revolution. Was there something unique about Boston's community or geography that made it prone to a rebellious spirit? We sit down with J. L. Bell, Historian of the Revolutionary Era in Massachusetts, Garrett Dash Nelson, President & Head Curator at the Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, and Kathryn Lasdow, Assistant Professor of History and Director of Public History at Suffolk University, to answer this question.

I’d already been mulling about “Why did the Revolutionary conflict flare up in Boston?” when the invitation to explore that question arrived. Hear my threefold answer and more.

“Boston” on History’s Greatest Cities from History Extra

As one of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston played a pivotal role in the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, as well as the signing of the Declaration of Independence that followed. In this episode of History’s Greatest Cities, Paul Bloomfield is joined by writer John Bell to explore the storied history of the capital of Massachusetts. Together, they wander through Boston’s oldest neighbourhoods, tracing the story of this harbour city from its pre-colonial roots, through Puritan settlement, to its rise as a major port and administrative centre of the British Atlantic world.

This podcast asks its guests to answer a series of questions, from major events to foods a visitor mustn’t miss.

“Not What You Hurd” on Antiques Roadshow Detours from GBH

In the world of rare silver, American Colonial silver is the stuff collectors dream of. So, when a pair of drinking vessels or “canns,” complete with intricate engraving by a master Boston craftsman, were discovered during ROADSHOW’s visit to Akron in 2023, expert Nick Dawes examined the cups’ clues to reveal both the silver’s early-American history and extraordinary value. But does Nick’s tale of the tankards hold water? Join host Adam Monahan as he searches for the untarnished truth, picking through the many stories, half-truths, and wishful legends in a quest for what may or may not have been lost to history forever.

My voice pops up occasionally on this episode, leaving more time for the fine local historians Joel Bohy and Caitlin DeAngelis.

A New Fight at Bunker Hill

With the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill coming up on 17 June, the central office of the National Park Service has ordered Boston National Historical Park to remove much of a display of quotations of Americans commenting on the battle in the context of their times.

This incident began with the Trump administration ordering parks to post Q.R. codes to collect feedback from visitors in a new channel. This was clearly an attempt to trawl for political objections, but I heard that most of the comments were positive.

As reported by the Washington Post, “A visitor at the [Bunker Hill] site complained to park staff about a quote related to women’s suffrage as being ‘woke’ feminist ideology, the people familiar said, and the visitor later sent an email complaint.”

There appear to be two quotations on display that address the situation of American women in the late 1800s:

“The battle is celebrated for the justice of the cause, which, because it was just, was triumphant. The woman sufferance battle is like that of Bunker Hill—not won today, but sure to be later. Meantime, Bunker Hill Monument is our monument.”
—Lucy Stone, The Woman’s Journal, 22 June 1889

“Once, as we were passing by in the train, we saw the lofty shaft on Bunker Hill outlined against the sunset glow. [Lucy Stone] spoke eloquently of all it commemorates, and said in substance: ‘We are still battling for the principle it stands for. My spirit kindles whenever I see that monument. It is our monument.‘”
—Florence M. Adkinson, The Woman’s Journal, 1893

Stone’s claim on the monument probably derived from how women had been crucial to raising the funds to complete it in the early 1800s.

One might think that American women having the right to vote is no longer the sort of “corrosive ideology” that Trump’s appointees claim to oppose in federal historic sites and museums. They could read the U.S. Constitution and find it’s been part of our electoral system for over a century now.

Nevertheless, that visitor’s complaint cued “a wider review of material at the site.” N.P.S. officials in Washington ordered the removal of three quotations—though, ironically, not any about women.

The quotations in jeopardy are likewise all over fifty years old:

“As we drew near to Boston, there stood Bunker Hill Monument, towering up towards the heavens, as if in silent, bitter mockery of the millions of slaves guarded by the professed lovers of Liberty, who reared its lofty column.”
—G. F. Stebbins to William Lloyd Garrison, published in The Liberator, 22 May 1846

“Now that a public orator has declared that foreign-born men have no association with the men of the Revolution, it is our duty to show that in love of freedom and loyalty to the republic, the citizens of foreign birth take no second place…”
—“To Our Irish Societies,” The Pilot (published by Boston’s Roman Catholic archdiocese), 8 May 1875

“We find, upon reflection, that our duty to our country has not ended... We as Vietnam Veterans, strongly feel that the United States should cease to build memorials to death and begin to glorify life.”
—Arthur Johnson and Bestor Cram, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, published in the Boston Globe, 23 May 1971

Again, it’s hard to see what’s “corrosive” about supporting emancipation, immigrants showing loyalty to their new country, and life itself. But this is an administration now focused on observing the President’s birthday with gladiatorial games next to the ruins of the East Wing. They think in strange ways.

“The wider transatlantic workers’ struggle that helped make the American Revolution”?

Jacobin just published Tom Cutterham’s essay “Class Struggle Was a Crucial Part of the American Revolution,” reflecting his upcoming book, Empire Ablaze: The American Revolution and the Atlantic Working Class.

The article begins:

Late in 1776, with the War of Independence underway in the American colonies, a twenty-four-year-old housepainter named James Aitken walked into Britain’s most important naval dockyard and set it on fire. The damage was significant: estimates for repairs were twice the value of the tea destroyed at Boston harbor three years earlier.

The sense of threat experienced by Britain’s ruling elite was also profound. Few people today remember Aitken’s acts of sabotage against the British war machine. But they deserve recognition as part of the wider transatlantic workers’ struggle that helped make the American Revolution.

Aitken is the subject of one of my favorite books on the Revolution, Jessica Warner’s The Incendiary. But I’m not convinced he’s good evidence of a transatlantic political movement, even though he did start his life in working-class Scotland, was in Pennsylvania during the first years of the Continental Congress, and then returned to Britain to support the American cause. Aitken didn’t connect with other activists, except for Silas Deane in Paris. He seems to have been socially inept. Aitken was a movement of one.

Likewise, something seems to be missing from the article’s description of the Gordon Riots:

In London too, the long-standing collaboration between laborers, artisans, and the commercial middle class proved a point of fracture as the possibility of revolution grew too close for comfort. When huge crowds took to the streets in the summer of 1780, burning the home of the Lord Chief Justice, throwing open prison gates, and attacking centers of imperial power like the East India Company offices, it seemed as though the “general effort” [Catharine] Macaulay had called for might finally be at hand.

Those riots were spurred by support for a rather mad aristocrat’s protest against a new British law granting more political rights to Catholics. Though the violence threatened the political establishment, was it really for the benefit of the working class?

I expect Cutterham’s longer book addresses the details of these cases. And I don’t disagree that economic friction between the working class and their employers (still called “masters” in many fields) was part of the Revolutionary era. But so were a bunch of other factors that may have driven events more and certainly muddy the waters. Cutterham’s points are worth considering with care.

“Declaring Independence: Declaration to Constitution” in Boston, 1 June

On Monday, 1 June, the Massachusetts Historical Society will host a panel discussion titled “Declaring Independence: Declaration to Constitution.” The guiding question will be whether the promises of the Declaration of Independence shaped the Constitution.

The event description says:

America’s founding documents have echoed throughout global history and culture for more than two centuries. Join us to learn more about how these two documents are related—and how they differ. Why did revolutionaries like John Adams and his peers draw on the past as they drafted the Declaration and crafted the Constitution? What ideas shaped the United States’ working definition of liberty, and how did that translate to audiences abroad? Explore how “we the people” imagined a new political vocabulary to interpret the American experiment, which we continue today.

The panelists will be:

• Emily Sneff, author of When the Declaration of Independence Was News
• Mary Sarah Bilder, professor at Boston College Law School and author of Madison’s Hand
• Sara Georgini, series editor at the Adams Papers, moderator

For in-person attendees, the evening will start with a chance to view the exhibit “1776: Declaring Independence” and a reception starting at 5:30 P.M. The conversation and its livestream will begin at 6 P.M.

Register from this page. Attending in person costs $10, free for M.H.S. members and Card to Culture participants. Listening in online will be free, and the society usually posts recordings of its events on YouTube a few days afterward.

“How the Shooting Began in 1774” in Hampstead, N.H., on 2 June

On Tuesday, 2 June, I’ll be at the Hampstead, New Hampshire, public library, speaking to the Hampstead Historical Society about “How the Shooting Began in 1774: The Start of the Revolutionary War in New Hampshire.”

Here’s our event description:

Officially the Revolutionary War began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, but the first exchange of fire between the king’s government and the Patriots came the previous December in New Hampshire. The bloodless fight over Fort William & Mary in Portsmouth harbor was one stage of a months-long “arms race” as New England’s royal governors and political resistance vied to seize cannon and other artillery supplies in preparation for a war. This talk explores the mass demonstrations, armory break-ins, shadow governments, and espionage that brought on the war.

I’ll be drawing on The Road to Concord and more recent research to pander to the local audience speak bold truths about the start of the Revolutionary War—a story that starts months before the 19th of April and involves events hundreds of miles apart.

This free event is scheduled to take place from 6:30 to 8 P.M. at the library.

This talk is made possible by New Hampshire Humanities, N.H.P.B.S., and the Cogswell Benevolent Trust. It’s part of the “By the People: Conversations Beyond 250” series of community events developed by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

“After Evacuation” in Cambridge, 19 Mar.

On Thursday, 19 March, I’ll speak at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site on the topic “After Evacuation: What Came Next for General Washington and the American Colonies.”

Back in January I spoke in that same space about Col. Henry Knox’s “Fine Train of Artillery” and the end of the siege of Boston. Here’s the video of that presentation. This talk will pick up when that left off.

Here’s our event description:

On March 17, 1776, the British military pulled out of Boston, giving General George Washington his first victory of the Revolutionary War. Already, however, he was positioning the Continental Army for the redcoats to return. Meanwhile, the political atmosphere had changed, sending the thirteen colonies in a new direction. This year’s annual Evacuation Day talk explores how much changed during the siege and what lay ahead as the Washingtons left Cambridge.

One detail I haven’t decided whether to include is the honorary doctorate that Harvard College conferred on Washington on 3 Apr 1775, as discussed back here. This was the first time the college gave an LL.D. degree.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper wrote in his diary about signing the handwritten diploma on 4 April. Then Cooper went to Cambridge to say farewell to the general and presumably help to deliver that document, only to find that Washington was already on his way south. No word about how the diploma eventually made its way to the man.

To reserve a seat at my talk on Thursday, or learn about how to look in online, go to this page.

“Without the leave of the Governor”

Earlier this month the Journal of the American Revolution ran an article by Ray Raphael about colonial Massachusetts’s constitution and how the royal government tried to curtail it.

Here’s a taste:

Of the four punitive acts passed in response to the Boston Tea Party, closing the port of Boston receives most attention in textbooks today—but at the time, with 95 percent of the colony’s population living outside Boston, it was “An Act for the Better Regulating the Government of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay”—known today as the Massachusetts Government Act—that sparked the people’s fury and led them to cast off British rule.

Under the 1691 Charter, “freeholders” could call a town meeting whenever they saw fit—but no longer: “Whereas a great abuse has been made of the power of calling such meetings, and the inhabitants have, contrary to the design of their institution, been misled to treat upon matters of the most general concern, and to pass many dangerous and unwarrantable resolves,” the 1774 act declared, “no meeting shall be called by the Selectmen, or at the request of any number of freeholders of any township, district, or precinct, without the leave of the Governor, or, in his absence, of the Lieutenant Governor, in writing, expressing the special business of the said meeting.”

Likewise, on the provincial level, power was wrested from the people. No longer would the incoming “general court or assembly” choose the Governor’s Council:

Whereas the said method of electing such counsellors or assistants. . . hath been so far from contributing to the attainment of the good ends and purposes thereby intended, and to the promoting of the internal welfare, peace, and good government of the said province, or to the maintenance of the just subordination to, and conformity with, the laws of Great Britain, . . . the said method of annually electing the counsellors or assistants . . . should no longer be suffered to continue . . .

Be it therefore enacted . . . that the council, or court of assistants, shall be composed of such of the inhabitants or proprietors of lands within the same as shall be thereunto nominated and appointed by his Majesty.

All other officers would also be appointed by the governor, who could remove them at will…

The voters of Massachusetts didn’t like to see Gov. Thomas Gage implement the new law. Soon they were protesting against it—and shutting down the colonial government to do so.

The next courts were scheduled for Springfield, shiretown of Hampshire County, two weeks later, on August 30—but some 1,500 citizens made sure they did not sit. One eyewitness, Joseph Clarke of Northampton, gave a vivid account: “The people of each town being drawn into separate companies marched with staves & musick . . . The trumpets sounding, drums beating, fifes playing and Colours flying, struck the passions of the soul into a proper tone, and inspired martial courage into each.”

The judges and justices of the peace offered no resistance to “the body of the county,” as Clarke called the men who marched with their town’s militia companies. When a committee asked them “whether they meant to hold their commissions and exercise their authority according to the new act of parliament for altering the constitution of the province,” they all said they would not.

One corrective for the article: The Boston Port Bill went into effect on 1 June 1774. The Massachusetts Government Act may have been drafted to start at the same time, but the final language said it took effect on 1 August. And then the text didn’t arrive in Salem until a few days after that.

In other words, it took only about two weeks from the start of the law for people in western Massachusetts to organize major protests and shut down a branch of the royal government. That’s how much people wanted to maintain their constitution.

Sestercentennial for Sale

Here’s an excerpt from Dan Friedman and Amanda Moore’s article “Trump’s War on History,” in the March–April Mother Jones:

Uniformed troops were handing out free bottles of Phorm Energy—a beverage launched nationally the month before by Anheuser-Busch and Dana White, a vocal Trump supporter who runs the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Phorm, which bills itself as the “ultimate energy drink,” is an official sponsor of America250, a government-funded nonprofit organizing a series of celebrations for the country’s 250th birthday, culminating on July 4 this year.

When asked, a soldier explained he had been ordered to hand out the samples—despite Defense Department rules that bar the military from endorsing “a particular company, product, service, or website.” The Pentagon didn’t answer questions about this apparent violation.

So it goes with the Trump administration’s approach to the country’s semiquincentennial. Congress is expected to allocate some $150 million for the festivities, but that’s not enough to fulfill Trump’s vision. So corporations with links to the president or his inner circle—UFC, Palantir, Oracle, Amazon, Coinbase—have signed on as sponsors, pouring in millions of dollars alongside companies like Chrysler, Coca-­Cola, and General Mills.

The promise of all that cash and spectacle helped America250 lure a flock of political operatives with Trump ties. Chris LaCivita, who helped steer Trump’s 2024 campaign, joined as a strategic adviser. Campaign Nucleus, founded in 2021 by former Trump campaign honcho Brad Parscale, helped organize America250 events. So did Event Strategies, which staged Trump campaign gatherings in 2020 and 2024, as well as the January 6, 2021, rally near the White House that preceded the attack on the US Capitol. America250 said in January that it’s no longer working with these contractors but hasn’t disclosed how much they were paid.

America250 and the White House insist they are planning nonpartisan festivities for all Americans, rather than creating a slush fund to throw the president militarized birthday parties and advance hard-right ideology. But in reality, American history is being subordinated to Trump’s cult of personality. The president’s face is suddenly ­everywhere—next to George Washington on America250-themed National Parks passes; alongside Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on giant banners hanging from federal buildings; on a $1 coin under consideration by the US Treasury.

Faced with sporadic pushback from a congressional commission overseeing America250 and from career officials at various agencies, Trump is now seeking to evade even these modest constraints. In December, he launched a new organization, Freedom 250, that could implement his most outlandish anniversary events without the inconvenience of legislative oversight or mandatory bipartisanship. For the president’s 80th birthday this year, Freedom 250 will help organize a UFC fight on the White House lawn.

More about Freedom 250 appeared in the 8 February New York Times article “For $1 Million, Donors to U.S.A. Birthday Group Offered Access to Trump” by Kenneth P. Vogel, Lisa Friedman, and David A. Fahrenthold:

President Trump’s allies are offering access to him and other perks to donors who give at least $1 million to a new group supporting flashy initiatives he is planning around the nation’s 250th birthday, according to documents and interviews. . . .

Freedom 250 has also emerged as another vehicle, akin to the White House ballroom project, through which people and companies with interests before the Trump administration can make tax-deductible donations to gain access to, and seek favor with, a president who has maintained a keen interest in fund-raising, and a willingness to use the levers of government power to reward financial supporters.

Several of Freedom 250’s planned events and monuments lack obvious connections to the Boston Tea Party, the signing of the Declaration of Independence or other seminal moments in the nation’s founding. Rather, they are tailored to Mr. Trump’s political agenda and his penchant for spectacle, personal branding and legacy. They include the construction of an arch overlooking Washington, an IndyCar race through the nation’s capital, a national prayer event and an Ultimate Fighting Championship match on the White House lawn to coincide with the president’s 80th birthday.

Meredith O’Rourke, the president’s top fund-raiser, is amassing private donations for Freedom 250. Her team is circulating a solicitation, obtained by The New York Times, offering “bespoke packages” for donors.

While there are inconsistencies in the solicitation language, the detailed breakdowns of packages for donors indicate that those who give $1 million or more will get invitations to a “private Freedom 250 thank you reception” hosted by Mr. Trump, with a “historic photo opportunity.” Those who give $2.5 million or more also are being offered speaking roles at an event in Washington on July 4.

TOMORROW: Team of rivals?

(The photo above shows the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C., displaying a large portrait of a man convicted of multiple felonies intended to influence a Presidential election.)

“Acts of government could be resisted when they threatened the essential rights”

Jack Rakove is the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies emeritus at Stanford University, with parallel appointments in political science and law.

He’s the author of respected books of Revolutionary-era history, including Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1997), James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic, and Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America.

In other words, Rakove has worked largely in political history and how the Framers translated ideas into laws and policies for the new nation. When he uses the term radical, as in his 2020 book Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience: The Radical Significance of the Free Exercise of Religion, he’s talking about the ideas of the Founders in their eighteenth-century context, not about the importance of now noting how hierarchical those men’s lifestyles were.

That’s something to bear in mind while reading Rakove’s essay for the Washington Monthly earlier this month, “Playing the Grinch at America’s 250th Birthday Party.”

In that essay Rakove writes:

Last June, I attended a conference on The American Revolution and the Constitution held at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. It was the seventh of eight conferences that AEI has been holding on the 250th anniversary of independence. Given its conservative orientation, any conference sponsored by AEI would predictably take a celebratory turn, and so did this one. My own paper on “The Invention of American Constitutionalism” fits well within that framework. . . .

Yet at the conference dinner that followed, I became the grinch who wanted to rob the other happy campers of their semiquincentennial joy. Yuval Levin, our gracious host and convenor, started our post-dessert conversation by asking me, “What do you think the celebration of the 250th anniversary of independence will be like?”

“I think it is going to be a complete disaster,” I replied, and offered a few reasons to support that view. The most important one, directly relevant to our subject, was that the constitutional system is lurching toward collapse and outright failure.

That link leads to Rakove’s article from last June, “It’s Not Just a Constitutional Crisis in the Trump Era. It’s Constitutional Failure.” Having spent a career studying how the Constitution was supposed to work, he’s watching it not work that way at all.

Rakove discerns some hope in what his graduate-school colleague Pauline Maier described as “extra-legal resistance” in her excellent book From Resistance to Revolution:

In the colonies as in Britain, communities believed that certain acts of government could be resisted when they threatened the essential rights and interests of the king’s subjects. Various kinds of uprisings, riotous events, and militant protests did occur during the colonial era of our history. From the perspective of imperial officials representing the British crown, these protests were illegal acts to be repressed or punished. Ship captains in the Royal Navy believed they were acting legally when they forcefully impressed sailors for their warships. Merchant seamen, shipyard workers, or ordinary individuals innocently strolling the streets thought otherwise. When anti-impressment riots occurred, they enjoyed the community’s full support.

This tradition was well established before the Stamp Act Crisis of 1765 disrupted imperial politics. Some of the earliest protests against the Stamp Act were indeed too violent. It was one thing to intimidate individuals who thought they had received lucrative appointments as stamp collectors into resigning their commissions. That was the easiest way to halt the enforcement of the Stamp Act. It was another matter entirely to ransack the residences of royal officials, notably including the Boston mansion of Thomas Hutchinson, lieutenant governor and chief justice of Massachusetts. . . .

In the past few weeks, Minneapolis has become our Boston, and its citizens have become modern Sons of Liberty. Far more important, they and their counterparts in other communities have unknowingly revived the strategy of resistance that American communities deployed between the Stamp Act Crisis of 1765 and the crisis of independence. Blowing whistles, tailing ICE and Border Patrol vehicles, blaring airhorns outside the hotels where their agents are hopefully spending sleepless nights—these are modern versions of the extra-legal resistance that Maier described.

The protesters aren’t the only people behaving outside the law, however. The Trump administration continues to put unconstitutional pressure on Minneapolis, this past week announcing a freeze on paying for medical benefits for anyone in the state of Minnesota. It’s tried that tactic before through the Department of Agriculture, and been stopped by federal courts, repeatedly. That sort of tyrannical action naturally prompts protests.

Museum of African American History Events on the Revolution

The Museum of African American History in Boston has opened a new exhibit called “Black Voices of the Revolution: Liberty, Emancipation, and the Struggle for Independence.”

The museum website says:

What do you do when a country cries out for liberty—but won’t offer it to you? In the shadowed alleys and crowded docks of Revolutionary-era Boston, Black men and women—enslaved and free—listened as white colonists thundered about freedom. They heard the speeches. They read the broadsides. But they knew: the liberty being shouted from the rooftops was not meant for them. Still, they stepped forward.

Interact with AI-driven, holographic images of primary sources, and the men and women who represented the African American community in Massachusetts during the period from the 1620s to 1800. Ask questions of the interactive using a voice activated program or by simply typing your queries on a touchscreen.

Those personages include Lucy Terry Prince, Phillis Wheatley Peters, Chloe Spear, and more.

On Tuesday, 17 February, the museum will host an event called “Digging Deeper into Black Voices of the Revolution.” Chief Curator and Director of Collections Angela Tate and Prof. Nedra Lee will discuss the process of assembling that exhibit. That free event is due to run from 5 to 7 P.M. at the museum on 46 Joy Street. Register to attend here.

On Wednesday, 18 February, the Massachusetts Historical Society will host a panel discussion on the topic “Whose Independence: Black Experiences During the American Revolution.” The panelists will be:

• Dr. Noelle Trent, Museum of African American History | Boston & Nantucket
• Dr. Benjamin Remillard, Providence College
• Dr. Chernoh Sesay Jr., DePaul University
• Dr. Kyera Singleton, Royall House and Slave Quarters

The panel description says:

As cries for liberty and clashes with the British broke out in the American colonies, enslaved and free Black people fought for independence on the battlefield, in courtrooms, and their communities. In petitions and writings, they argued that there were contradictions in a fight for freedom that didn’t include a full abolishment of slavery. Following the promise of freedom advertised, many enslaved men enlisted as soldiers. Many joined the Patriot cause while others volunteered with British forces. Throughout the war and in the years following, free Black leaders built the African Lodge and African Meeting House and established spaces for religion and education in their communities.

That event will run 6 to 7 P.M. Register to attend in person or online starting at this page.

Back at the Museum of African American History, on Thursday, 26 February, it will host the first U.S. showing of “In Search of Phillis Wheatley Peters,” Leslie Askew’s thirty-five-minute documentary about the poet, her work, new discoveries about her life after marriage, and her cultural legacy. That event is scheduled from 6 to 8 P.M. It is free, with donations welcome. Reserve a space here.

Shown above is the first-class stamp featuring Phillis Wheatley, just issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

“How should patriotic Americans think about political violence”?

On 15 January, Prof. Johann Neem shared an essay titled “The Problem of Violence in Authoritarian America.” Here’s a sample:

No American should be shot so easily or blithely. In a country where, as Tom Paine put it, the law is king, we are entitled to due process. Instead, we have become victims of state violence encouraged by the Trump regime’s policies, statements, and values. Trump has permitted federal agents to use illegal amounts of force; ICE agents now regularly assault Americans on the streets, in their cars, and in their homes. . . .

As Trump expands his rule, we must ask ourselves unsettling—and unsettled—questions about the role of violence: How should patriotic Americans think about political violence, and what might we learn from our Revolutionary political tradition?

At first glance, the answers to these questions are easy: violence in a constitutional democratic republic is never permitted. Democracies require citizens to embrace disagreement and accept the outcome of free, fair elections.

But we are no longer living in a free state. Under Trump, the Constitution is no longer active. The rule of law has ended. Donald Trump has deployed lies, violence, and lawlessness to amass power. As I have written before, Trump’s violation of his oath of office means that he is no longer the constitutional president of the United States. We Americans are now subjects of an arbitrary regime ruled by a tyrant. Under Trump, the federal government has become the enemy of the American people. We are subject to force, not law. . . .

In our current context, conversations about violence are complicated because our political tradition recognizes the legitimacy of violence against tyrants but denies the legitimacy of violence by tyrants. Two and a half centuries ago, when the colonists found themselves in a similar situation, the leaders of the patriot cause had to explain why they had embraced violent resistance against their own government. They did so in Continental Congress’s 1775 “Declaration…[on] the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms.”

The situation was fraught. America’s resistance leaders in Congress had hoped to resolve differences between the colonists and England peacefully through meetings, petitions, and boycotts. Yet as Americans faced an increasingly hostile British government, patience was running out and the people got ahead of the opposition’s leaders. In April 1775, patriotic Minutemen at Lexington and Concord showed up to prevent British soldiers, then occupying Boston, from seizing arms in the Massachusetts countryside. Soon after, Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys and colonial militiamen stormed Fort Ticonderoga.

Similarly, today, we see incidents in which protestors are getting increasingly unwilling to stay out of ICE’s way as Trump’s agents cross line after line that protects Americans from arbitrary force, arrest, and imprisonment, as the Cato Institute recently concluded. Most protestors are peaceful and obeying the law—but deciding what counts as lawful becomes harder when federal agents act violently and unlawfully. . . .

As our patriotic forebears 250 years ago understood, we too have a responsibility to our children and future generations who deserve to live in a free country. Violence is always a last resort. But at some point, some people in some city may be pushed to cross a line that most of us never want to cross. Just as [the] Continental Congress struggled with how to respond, so will we. The answer of what to do next is not easy or simple. The question we must all start asking ourselves, then, is how we will respond if that time comes, hoping and acting all along to prevent it from arriving.

Over a week later, as I type this, we see multiple videos of how I.C.E. agents approached, shoved, tackled, beat, maced, and finally shot observer Alex Pretti several times, killing him on the street. Along with the shooting of Renée Good, that made I.C.E. agents responsible for 66% of all homicides in Minneapolis so far this year.

The day before those agents killed Pretti, tens of thousands of local citizens braved harsh winter weather to march peacefully against federal oppression (shown in the photo at top). As Neem says, it’s hard to see Americans remaining committed to such peaceful protest if the forces of trumpery try to maintain their tyranny. 

“To incense the Soldiery against the People of the Massachusetts Bay”?

Yesterday I quoted from a pamphlet titled A Letter from a Veteran, to the Officers of the Army Encamped at Boston, which appeared in the fall of 1774.

Readers of the time recognized that its author was encouraging those officers to carry out stern measures against the Patriot resistance—but to be polite about it.

An essay in the 17 November New-York Journal called the publication “infamous” and said:

the Writer makes use of every Argument in his Power, to incense the Soldiery against the People of the Massachusetts Bay; and to stimulate them to shed the Blood of their Fellow Subjects, in America: without the least Reluctance, or Remorse.

However, because A Letter from a Veteran was obviously written by an educated, erudite person, and because its argument was founded on British Whig principles, other colonial politicians didn’t feel they could just dismiss it as war-mongering propaganda.

In The Other Side of the Question; or, A Defence of the Liberties of North-America, Philip Livingston (shown here) anonymously wrote:

Not long since I saw a Letter from a Veteran, to the Officers of the Army at Boston: I pray the author to receive my thanks, for the great pleasure enjoyed in the reading of it. I think I could easily perceive in it, the traces of that manly, generous, brave, and free disposition; which mark the character of the Soldier and the Gentleman.

If, to his share some little errors fall,
View his kind heart, and you forgive them all.

Livingston then proceeded to say the Veteran’s pamphlet was so much better than his main target, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Bradbury Chandler’s A Friendly Address to All Reasonable Americans on Our Political Confusions, that “comparisons are odious.” 

John Adams also felt a need to reply to A Letter from a Veteran. He did so in his first, third, and fifth “Novanglus” letters, in the midst of his lengthier responses to “Massachusettensis.”

Adams praised the “Veteran” for “his honesty,” “his taste, and manly spirit.” He called the anonymous author “honest amiable” and “frank.” Of course, Adams thought that author was all wrong in his conclusions: the principles they agreed on should apply fully to the American colonies and offered a solid basis for resistance.

In Political Ideas of the American Revolution (1922), Randolph Greenfield Adams said A Letter from a Veteran “has a good deal more merit than Adams allowed.” Most recently, Mark Somos in American States of Nature (2019) said the writer offered “a trenchant criticism of political theory, and of the American revolutionaries’ application of it to real life.”

TOMORROW: So where did this pamphlet come from?

“Hopes for the deluded Inhabitants of New-England”?

Looking at the Rev. Charles Inglis’s political writing in 1774 led me to another pamphlet from that year: A Letter from a Veteran, to the Officers of the Army Encamped at Boston.

This political essay started off by reiterating a lot of British Whig understandings. But about halfway through it veered into an argument that the political leaders of New England had gone far beyond those principles, driven by the same fanaticism as their Puritan ancestors.

The author concluded that Massachusetts deserved to be restrained by force—though he also cautioned his fellow army officers from going too far themselves, or behaving impolitely.

Here’s a sampling:

THE Principles of Mr. [John] Locke, are noble, benevolent, and in general true, or ought to be so; but the Application of them to particular Cases, is wild and Utopian; even in Idea and in Practice, dangerous to the extremest Degree. Adopted in private Life, they would introduce perpetual Discord; in the State perpetual Anarchy. The least Failure in the reciprocal Duties of Worship and Obedience in the matrimonial Contract, would justify a Divorce. In the political Compact, the smallest Defect in the Prince, a Revolution.

Now I cannot think so ill of this Country [America] as to believe there are many People in it, like the Men [Jonathan] Swift speaks of, who used to swear “the more Revolutions the better.” The Web is too finely spun, for common Use; subject every Moment to be torn in Pieces, even by the gentlest Hand; and fit only for the Cabinets of the Curious. . . .

We have many of us lived in the Pleasures of their Society, shared in the Hospitality of their Tables, and in the Offices of their Friendship. We have been long good Friends, may we ever remain so. Let us hope that they will remember, there is a golden Mean in every Thing, in Liberty, even in Virtue itself; that the Fit of Peevishness and Passion will subside, before it is too late, and give Place to sober and cool Reflection; and that the delightful Current of Peace and Tranquillity, may return once more into its old Channel.

WOULD to God we could form the same Hopes for the deluded Inhabitants of New-England; but they have already advanced too far to retreat; the Sword is suspended over their Heads by a single Hair, and nothing but the immediate Hand of Heaven, can avert the Misery that awaits them. . . .

CAN we wonder at these infatuated unhappy People? Descended as they are, from Men who carried their Notions in Religion, to the wildest Fanaticism; their Principles in Government, to the utmost possible extreme of Liberty; dropt in a Corner of the World, uncontroled for Generations, by the Authority of the parent Country, inheriting such dangerous Opinions; by the Blood of their Ancestors, imbibing them from the Breasts of their Mothers, until, by the Contagion of general Manners, and by the pious Aid of the very Men who were consecrated to instruct their Consciences, in Morality and the Meekness of the Gospel, it ripened into Sedition, as the immediate Word of God, as if they had heard it with their own Ears, from the burning Bush, and ended in Rebellion.

To Men born and educated under such Circumstances, excluded in a great Measure by their Situation, from the beneficial Intercourse and Examination of the Effects of different Opinions and Principles; it is not easy to emerge from Darkness to Light, and to see the World in its true Colours.

The Popularity of their old Government, and the interior Policy of their Townships, have contributed much to their Blindness; from these they have collected all the technical Terms in Politicks, and a huge Stock of sonorous Words, which serve them for Logick; have the same Effect upon their Understandings, and a much greater upon their Passions. . . .

LET us, Gentlemen, who are the Instruments of this Punishment, act our Parts in this sad Scene like brave Soldiers, like true Gentlemen, not like Rioters; Gibes, Reproaches, hard Names, make no Part of the Punishment alloted them; the dispassionate Judges of our merciful Courts, are Counsel for the very Criminals whom the Laws enjoin them to condemn; these are not Times for Merriment and Buffoonery, let us reserve our Wit and our Humour, if we happen to have it, for the Tables of our Friends.

TOMORROW: The responses.

Online Lectures from the National Parks of Boston

The National Parks of Boston and the Boston Public Library are teaming up to offer some online lectures for the Sestercentennial.

The announcements of these events don’t names the speakers, but they’re usually N.P.S. rangers and other experts who have researched the topics thoroughly.

Wednesday, 14 January, 6 to 7:30 P.M.
Benedict Arnold: The Trials and Contributions of an Early Patriot
Register here

Before his name is booed across the land, Benedict Arnold was an avid supporter in the Patriot cause. In order for his name to be so reviled he first had to make an impact to the cause. This program will explore the contributions made by Benedict Arnold in the early stages of the Revolutionary War and shed light on the complexities of a man who has become synonymous with betrayal.

Wednesday, 28 January, 6 to 7:30 P.M.
In the Shadow of the Declaration: Boston’s Hidden Architects of American Freedom
Register here

Explore how the Declaration of Independence reshaped Boston by examining the experiences of communities often excluded from its promises. Look at how Black Bostonians organized and petitioned for freedom while women questioned their exclusion from political and social rights. Together, these perspectives reveal how independence sparked debates over who truly benefited from the Revolution, showing 1776 Boston as a place where the ideals of freedom were contested, expanded, and reimagined.

Wednesday, 25 February, 6 to 7:30 P.M.
“Donation People”: Refugees from the Siege of Boston
Register here

The talk will examine the experience of the poor and ill forced out of Boston during the 1775-1776 siege. The refugees, known as donation people, bore the brunt of the American Revolutionary war in Boston, yet their treatment by the people of Massachusetts represented a spirit of welfare in the new nation.

Wednesday, 11 March, 6 to 7:30 P.M.
The Siege of Boston: An Ending and Beginning
Register here

This talk will explore the Siege of Boston – its origins, impacts, and conclusion – and how the departure of the British Military from Boston would influence the pivotal year of 1776 and what became the Revolutionary War.

Wednesday, 25 March, 6 to 7:30 P.M.
Remembering Revolution: Protest and Celebration of the Bicentennial
Register here

This talk will explore how the Bicentennial was celebrated in Boston. Learn how through protest, reenactments, and celebrations, Bostonians claimed the legacy of the Revolution for themselves 50 years ago.

In addition, the central library’s exhibit “Revolution!: 250 Years of Art & Activism in Boston” is open to all in-person visitors through 21 April. “Featuring over 100 artworks and documentary materials from the Boston Public Library’s Special Collections…this exhibition brings to light both familiar and lesser-known stories about America’s ongoing struggle for freedom, civil rights, and belonging for all.”

“In free countries, the law ought to be king”

Next month sees the Sestercentennial of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, printed by Robert Bell in Philadelphia on 9 January (to judge by the first newspaper advertisement the next day) and then reprinted at the end of the month because of popular demand.

The New York Times has observed the occasion by publishing an appreciation by Boston University professor Joseph Rezek, “The Pamphlet That Has Roused Americans to Action for 250 Years.”

Rezek’s a literature scholar, so he pays particular attention to Paine’s rhetorical style. Here’s a taste:

The first section of “Common Sense” narrates the origins of government with a classic Enlightenment experiment, asking: What was it like in the state of nature, before governments were instituted among people? “Let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth” in a “state of natural liberty,” Paine wrote, sounding like a schoolteacher. Then kings arrive, like snakes in the garden.

“Mankind being originally equals,” Paine went on, their “equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance.” Look at the “present race of kings,” he declared, and “we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang.” Eager to make his ideas intelligible to readers who had never philosophized before, Paine used imagery he thought they could relate to.

Ripping up monarchy by the roots, he asserted that William the Conqueror did not establish an “honorable” origin for English kings when he invaded in 1066. “A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it.” This frank and gritty language is from the tavern, not the library.

Of course, it’s not just the lèse-majesté insults that made Common Sense powerful, as shocking as they probably were to some British colonists. It was how Paine wielded them in service of compelling political ideas, urging Americans to put their principles of liberty into practice. A monarchist could toss around epithets and still have no better argument than “Because the king said so.”

In 1776, Paine looked toward the future. Today, many Americans are looking to the past to help navigate what really does feel like “a new era for politics.” Right after Paine declared “the law is king,” he also qualified that statement: “In free countries, the law ought to be king.” Laws in the United States have often been unjust, and just laws have often been unequally enforced. Perhaps Paine understood that the idealistic political experiment he hoped to help launch would always be a work in progress.

Because there will always be snakes. Most of us know damn well they’re snakes, and most don’t get taken in.

Here’s the link.

Reenacting Tea Meetings in Faneuil Hall and Old South

Bostonians had lots of public debates over what to do about the East India Company’s tea, both before and after persons unidentified destroyed it in the harbor on 16 Dec 1773.

Some of the meetings before that event lasted hours and attracted so many people that the crowd had to gather in the Old South Meeting-House instead of Faneuil Hall.

In 1774, after Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill, the town meeting had more sessions devoted to discussing whether the town or any of its citizens should pay for the tea.

Families can sample the arguments at those meetings in two ways this season, both within the buildings where Bostonians actually gathered to debate.

Saturday and Sunday, 13 and 14 December, 1 P.M.
252nd Boston Tea Party Anniversary Town Meeting
Boston National Historical Park
Faneuil Hall

In early 1774 Parliament responded to the destruction of over 90,000 pounds of property by closing the port of Boston until the East India Company was compensated for its loss. In May, Bostonians gathered in the Great Hall in Faneuil Hall to vote on their response. Should they pay for the destroyed property, either officially or by private subscription, and reopen the port? Or should they endorse a boycott of British goods and continue protesting Parliament?

At 3 P.M. on each day, the same space will host the “1873 Women’s Tea Party,” a rally by the New England Women’s Suffrage Association. Leading suffragists argued that they were inheritors of the legacy of the American Revolution.

All these programs at Faneuil Hall are free and open to the public for all ages. They last 30-45 minutes. Sign up to attend here.

Tuesday, 16 December, 5 P.M.
Reenactment of the Meeting of the Body of the People
Revolutionary Spaces
Old South Meeting House

Commemorate the 252nd anniversary of the Boston Tea Party with a live reenactment of the Meeting of the Body of the People—held in the very room where it all began.

Feel the tension rise as fiery patriots debate the fate of the East India Company’s tea before thousands of restless colonists. Hear the shouts, the arguments, and the call for action that set a revolution in motion. Watch history come to life as Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and others grapple with the decision to take bold action, ultimately leading to the dramatic event that became known as the Boston Tea Party.

(The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum will not host a reenactment of the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor this year.)

Ticket prices for the Old South reenactment range from $60 for V.I.P. seating to $25 for members of Revolutionary Spaces. Order tickets through this page. Doors will open at 5 P.M., and the reenactment will start at 6:15.

Revolutionary Music Coming out of the North End

Our favorite Revolutionary sites in the North End are concatenating again with two musical events coming up early this month.

Wednesday, 5 November, 7 to 8:30 P.M.
Music-Making in Colonial Boston
Laura Zoll
Online from Old North Illuminated

Colonial Boston was home to a rich soundscape of music that helped define the lives of early New Englanders. Music-making set the tone and tempo of militia, home hospitality, tavern frivolity, and community singing circles. This talk will explore questions like:

• What did music sound like during the colonial era?
• Who played it?
• What sort of instruments were played?
• How did music reflect contemporary culture and beliefs?

Laura Zoll is a musicologist with degrees in Music Theory and Medieval Musicology. She plays numerous modern and historic instruments.

Register for the link to this event with a donation of any amount.

Thursday, 13 November, 7 to 8:30 P.M.
A Revolutionary Concert: Paul Revere, the Man, the Myth, and the Music
Regie Gibson and Ensemble
Converse Hall, 88 Tremont Street

Join the Paul Revere Memorial Association, Massachusetts Poet Laureate Regie Gibson, and Paul Revere for an engaging and immersive free program to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Midnight Ride. From the loyalist anthems of the Tories to the fiery songs of the Revolutionaries and original 19th-century compositions written to further Revere’s legacy, this program brings 18th- and 19th-century America to life through the music of the times. The evening will include performances by some of Boston’s finest musicians.

Blending rich narration, historical images, and live music, this program offers a fresh, moving, and insightful take on one of the Revolution’s most misunderstood heroes. Far more than just a messenger on horseback, Paul Revere was a devoted family man, a savvy businessman, and a respected civil servant. This special evening promises to be a powerful journey through sound and story, separating fact from folklore while painting a vivid portrait of one of America’s most iconic patriots.

This concert is free, but please register for a seat here.