combining legal learning with speculative opinion." He eloquently
maintained that "there is no foundation for distinction between external
and internal taxes; that the imposition of taxes in the Colonies whether
on trade, on land, or houses, or floating property, is absolutely
irreconcilable with the rights of the Colonists as British subjects or
as men, and that Acts of Parliament against the fundamental principles
of the British Constitution are void."

More influential, and more consistent than Otis, was Samuel Adams, a
lawyer of Boston, a member of the Massachusetts Assembly, at that time
about forty years of age, a political agitator, a Puritan of the
strictest creed, poor and indifferent to money, an incarnation of zeal
for liberty, a believer in original, inherent rights which no Parliament
can nullify,--a man of the keenest political sagacity in management, and
of almost unlimited influence in Massachusetts from his long and notable
services in town-meeting, Colonial Assembly, as writer in the journals
of the day, and actor in every public crisis. Eleven years younger than
he, was his cousin John Adams, a lawyer in Quincy, the leading
politician of the colony, able and ambitious, patriotic and honest, but
irascible and jealous, of whom I shall have more to say hereafter. Of
about the same age as John Adams was Patrick Henry, of Virginia, a born
orator, but of limited education. He espoused the American cause with
extraordinary zeal, and as in the matter of the Virginia tax law, was
vehement in opposition to the Stamp Act, as an unconstitutional statute,
which the Colonies were not bound to obey. Christopher Gadsden, of So.
Carolina, too, was early among the prominent orators who incited
opposition to the Stamp Act and other oppressive measures.

These men were the great pioneers of American Independence, by their
ceaseless agitation of popular rights, and violent opposition to English