By Brian Massie, A Watchman on the Wall
The following article to “Resist Them” was sent to us by a Lorain patriot. It is a reminder from the Tenth Amendment Center about the duties of free people. For me, it was a timely message of our duties as free Ohioans.
The movement to abolish Ohio property taxes by ordinary citizens of the State of Ohio, knowing that the freedom and liberties of their generation, and future generations are at stake, exemplifies the bold resistance of our nation’s founders. Home ownership is the foundation of freedom and liberty. Without the right to own property we are merely renters from the government.
As we face an Ohio State legislature that has pushed the agenda of the donor class to the detriment of the ordinary citizens, we say no more. To the Township Trustees and Administrators that stoke the fears of no more local services, we say we will not bend a knee to your tyranny. To the school unions that expect us to go personally bankrupt supporting a failed public education system, we emphatically state those days are over.
To the freedom loving citizens of the State of Ohio, we ask you to resist this tyranny that is being thrust upon us. Resist them, sign the petition to abolish Ohio property taxes. Ensure freedom and liberty for future generations.
Resist Them: Samuel Adams and the Forgotten Duty of a Free People
By: Michael Boldin|Published on: Sep 27, 2025
“Resist them.”
Nearly five years before the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams demanded that the people resist arbitrary power, warning them that the alternative was to tamely submit, sit idly by, and hope for the best – a recipe for total tyranny.
For Adams, this wasn’t politics; it was a test of backbone and fortitude. It was the moral virtue of doing what’s right, even when facing down the most powerful government on Earth.
Today, that demand is completely ignored. But the principle behind it is timeless: a people that won’t defend their liberty is a people that won’t have it for long.
A DUTY TO BE FREE
One of Samuel Adams’s sharpest arguments appeared in the Boston Gazette, the unofficial newspaper of the Sons of Liberty. Writing as Candidus on October 14, 1771, he laid out the non-negotiable terms of freedom.
He began with a line from James Thompson’s poem, Liberty, a clear warning about a people losing their character.
“Ambition saw that stooping Rome so kneeling Rome could bear a master, nor had virtue to be free.”
For Adams, the lesson was simple: the people, and the people alone, are responsible for defending their own liberty. This is no mere political choice, but the fundamental duty of a virtuous people. He stated this conclusion without apology.
“I believe that no people ever yet groaned under the heavy yoke of slavery but when they deserved it. This may be called a severe censure upon by far the greatest part of the nations in the world who are involved in the misery of servitude. But however they may be thought by some to deserve commiseration, the censure is just.”
To Adams, freedom is not something people passively possess, but something they must actively defend.
“The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom and defended it as they ought.”
To Adams, the idea that millions could be dominated by a few was not a sign of the rulers’ strength, but of the people’s weakness. He used the Roman example of Brutus to prove it.
“Is it possible that millions could be enslaved by a few, which is a notorious fact, if all possessed the independent spirit of Brutus, who, to his immortal honor, expelled the proud tyrant of Rome and his royal and rebellious race?”
The math is simple: a tyrant’s power is impossible if the people possess the spirit to resist. Being free is ultimately a choice, even when the risk is great.
“If, therefore, a people will not be free… if they have not virtue enough to maintain their liberty against a presumptuous invader, they deserve no pity and are to be treated with contempt and ignominy.”
FORGING YOUR OWN CHAINS
Adams then turned to the story of Caesar to illustrate how a people can be seduced into forging their own chains.
“By beguiling arts, hypocrisy, and flattery, which are even more fatal than the sword, he obtained that supreme power which his ambitious soul had long thirsted for. The people were finally prevailed upon to consent to their own ruin.”
This “consent” was formalized when the people passed the Lex Regia, a law that transferred all legislative power from themselves to the emperor. The result was, as Adams explained, a blank check for power.
“the Will and pleasure of the Prince had the force of law”
According to Adams, this was not a conquest; it was a voluntary surrender. By giving up their power once, the people created a fatal precedent, exchanging a free constitution for permanent tyranny.
SILENCE AS CONSENT
Having established the Roman precedent for ruin, Adams turned to the immediate threat in America. His warning was a direct challenge to the colonists: a tyranny was at the door, and hoping for the best was not a strategy.
“It behooves us, however, to awake and advert to the danger we are in. The tragedy of American freedom, it is to be feared, is nearly completed. A tyranny seems to be at the very door. But what will this avail if we have not courage and resolution to prevent the completion of their system?”
Adams then identified the primary weapon used to pacify a population: the official assurance that there is no real danger.
“Our enemies would fain have us lie down on the bed of sloth and security, and persuade ourselves that there is no danger.”
He ridiculed this call for calm by pointing to the obvious evidence of a constitution already under attack.
“But is there no danger when the very foundations of our civil constitution tremble? When an attempt was first made to disturb the cornerstone of the fabric we were universally and justly alarmed. And can we be cool spectators when we see it already removed from its place?”
As proof, he pointed to their own governor, who had publicly admitted that he was bound to obey orders from London, regardless of the colony’s own laws or charter.
Adams detailed the absurdity of the situation: the colonists were being told to remain quiet while the money taken from them was being used to pay for their own oppression.
“And yet with unparalleled insolence we are told to be quiet when we see that very money which is torn from us by a lawless force made use of still further to oppress us, to feed and pamper a set of infamous wretches who swarm like the locusts of Egypt. Is it a time for us to sleep, when our free government is essentially changed, and a new one is forming upon a quite different system, a government without the least dependence upon the people, a government under the absolute control of a minister of state?”
Finally, he connected the Roman precedent directly to the American crisis, warning that the only difference was that the colonists had not yet formally consented to their own ruin. He argued that silence would be interpreted as that consent.
“What difference is there between the present state of this province, which in course will be the deplorable state of all America, and that of Rome under the law before mentioned? The only difference is this, that they gave their formal consent to the change, which we have not yet done. But let us be upon our guard against even a negative submission, for… if we are voluntarily silent, as the conspirators would have us to be, it will be considered as an approbation of the change.”
AN INHERITANCE TO DEFEND
The only alternative to silent consent was active resistance. For Adams, this was not merely a right to be exercised, but an indispensable duty with moral, historical, and generational obligations.
“If a minister shall usurp the supreme and absolute government of America and set up his instructions as laws in the colonies, and their governors shall be so weak or so wicked as, for the sake of keeping their places, to be made the instruments in putting them in execution – who will presume to say that the people have not a right, or that it is not their indispensable duty to God and their country, by all rational means in their power, to resist them?”
For Adams, this was not a debatable point.
“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.”
He framed this duty not as a matter of personal choice, but of generational responsibility. Liberty was not their personal property to surrender.
“We have received them, the liberties of our country and our civil constitution, as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence.”
To fail in this duty was to earn permanent shame.
“It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.”
Adams warned against the complacency that often follows victories, such as the repeal of the Stamp Act. He argued that past success was not a reason to rest, but to redouble their efforts.
“Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times more than ever calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance.”
To anchor this duty in ancient wisdom, Adams paraphrased the Stoic philosopher Seneca. For the Stoics, courage was not a suggestion but a core virtue. Submitting to an attack on liberty was a moral failure that invited only more of the same.
“Let us remember that if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.”
He left us with a final, sobering calculation: the fate of generations to come rests squarely on our shoulders.
“It is a very serious consideration which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers in the event.”
Categories: Community Activism, Real Estate Taxes, State of Ohio, Uncategorized