Samuel Adams Quotes
The Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.
Pierce, Bradford K., and Charles Hale, editors. Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Held in the Year 1788. William White, 1856, p. 86.
The Fort Collins newspaper had published the names of concealed gun permit holders. Clauber and others felt that this inhibited people who were breaking no laws and just wanted to avail themselves of their 2nd Amendment rights. The Newspaper argued that there was a public safety issue at stake in that people should be aware of which people they may be dealing with in day to day affairs are armed and this they can alter their behavior as not to provoke or deal with these people.
Originally it was published in Boston under the name “A Columbian Patriot.” This was written before the Bill of Rights had been added. Criticism like this led to their addition by Congress in order to obtain ratification.
This quotation was used ten years later by Virginia which, in convention, passed a resolution objecting to the Alien & Sedition Acts. The drafter of the original resolution was James Madison.
Samuel Adams was an American statesman, political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a politician in colonial Massachusetts, a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped the political culture of the United States. He was a second cousin to his fellow Founding Father, President John Adams.
