To be Regardless of Your Country’s Interest

Author: B.W., a pseudonym Date: October 7, 1765 “Time is not I trust yet come that Indolence has so enervated your Powers, that you will neither bestir yourselves to promote its [Liberty’s] Interests, nor make a stand, when oppression, like Poverty, invades as an armed Man…” “Not to feel for public Calamities – to be […]

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The United Voice of America

Date: November 11, 1774 “It is the united voice of America to preserve their freedom, or lose their lives in defence of it. Their resolutions are not the effect of inconsiderate rashness, but the sound result of sober inquiry and deliberation. I am convinced, that the true spirit of liberty was never so universally diffused […]

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Defend and Preserve Those Civil and Religious Rights and Liberties

Date: September 9, 1774 “That it is an indispensable duty which we owe to God, our country, ourselves, and posterity, by all lawful ways and means in our power, to maintain, defend, and preserve those civil and religious rights and liberties for which many of our fathers fought, bled, and died, and to hand them […]

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So Cruel a Yoke

Date: March 19, 1766 “[I]t is absurd to attempt to impose so cruel a yoke on a people who are so near to the state of original equality, and who look upon their liberties not merely as arbitrary grants, but as their unalienable eternal rights, purchased by the blood and treasure of their ancestors; which […]

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Defiance to the Founder of Their Faith: more 1775 Oration Highlights

Date:  March 6, 1775 “[P]rinces, honoured with the name of Christian, might bid defiance to the founder of their faith, might pillage Pagan countries and deluge them with blood, only because they boasted themselves to be the disciples of that teacher who strictly charged his followers to do to others as they would that others […]

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When Liberty is the Prize

Date:  August 24, 1774 “When liberty is the prize, who would shun the warfare? Who would stoop to waste a coward thought on life? We esteem no sacrifice too great, no conflict too severe, to redeem our inestimable rights and privileges.” Source: Letter to Patriots in Stonington, Connecticut

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Thus a War Has Begun

Date: May 17, 1775 ”Thus a War has begun, which I have frequently said to you and others, would if not timely prevented, overturn the British Empire, but I hope after a full conviction both of our Ability and resolution to Maintain our rights, Britain will act with that Wisdom which it is so absolutely […]

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The Blood of Freemen Who Fight for Their Country

Date:  August 24, 1774 “Our enemies, we know, will use every artifice that hell can suggest and human power can execute to enslave us; but we are determined not to submit. We choose to effect our salvation from bondage by policy, rather than by arms; considering that the blood of free men who fight for […]

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Civil and Military Interactions

Date: May 26, 1775 “I see more and more the necessity of establishing a civil government here, and such a government as shall be sufficient to control the military forces, not only of this colony, but also such as shall be sent to us from the other colonies. The continent must strengthen and support with […]

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Connection Upon Constitutional Principles

Date: December 21, 1773 “I fear that unless a speedy alteration is made in the system of American policy, a few years will render us as indifferent to the interests of the mother-country as to that of any other State in Europe. However, as it is my firm opinion that a connection upon constitutional principles […]

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