If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. -Samuel Adams

He was one of the most hated of the Patriots, a continual rabble-rouser who never was able to let well enough alone. Yet it was he, more than any other, who brought into being the conditions that made Revolution an acceptable alternative to the status quo. Such another will be required ere long.