Excerpts from: Americanism Redux: January 18, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago today, in 1774
The effects of the tea protests from last month continue to spread in ripples and waves. Among them is a remarkable town meeting held at Hampton, colony of New Hampshire. Attendees debate and discuss what to do next: they reach consensus on denouncing the tea laws as threats to “the natural and constitutional rights and liberties and have a direct tendency to reduce Americans to a state of actual slavery.”
Meanwhile, the debate over race-based slavery continues, including in Philadelphia where an anonymous essayist writes about the economic consequences of emancipation.
Americanism Redux, a series by historian author, Dr. Dan Miller, explores what Americanism meant 250 years ago and its significance for America today. Visit Dr Dan Miller’s website>
Reference: The Remnant Trust Collection
RT Item: #0982. “An Attempt to Shew, that America Must be Known to the Ancients”, written by Samuel Mather in 1773, a member of the Massachusetts family that shaped religion, science, culture, and politics in New England for generations leading up to early 1774. Mather’s book, intriguingly, uses this phrase months before the Hampton town meeting: “…the natural and constitutional Rights and Liberties of the Americans…” The quote points to Mather’s influence on one town’s understanding of the British-colonial dispute following the Boston Tea Party.
View The Remnant Trust “Wisdom of the Ages Athenaeum PDF for reference>