24 pages • 48 minutes read
Samuel AdamsThe Rights of the Colonists
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1772A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Parallelism
Parallelism is the presentation of different pieces of content in the same format or structure. Adams’s text consists of three sections that in turn discuss the rights of the colonists as men, Christians, and British subjects. Although the sections are not of equal length, dividing the essay into segments allows Adams to make a multi-part appeal that defines the essential rights and liberties of the colonists. This format both organizes the essay into digestible segments and makes it possible for Adams to reiterate essential points in multiple contexts, thus repeating (a common device in argumentative and persuasive essays) key themes and ideas. Adams roots the notions of rights in different elements of the colonists’ identities, including their religion, nationality, and basic humanity. A refutation of the rights of the colonists would have to address each of these categories and the various pieces of evidence mentioned within them, such as foundational British political documents and widely accepted Enlightenment principles.
Imagery
An essential image that Adams uses is slavery. The image is consistent across revolutionary documents of this era and notable for its irony. Owning slaves was legal in some colonies before and after they claimed independence from Britain, yet colonists used the image to communicate their own “bondage” under the British Crown. While never subjected to the same forced labor as legally enslaved people, colonial commentators invoked the image of slavery for its extremity. Slavery was the ultimate expression of injustice. The disconnection between invoking the image to represent colonists and the observable lived reality of enslaved people in American society shows the tension in the thought of the period regarding who was entitled to freedom and how best to promote radical ideas in a society that often rejected them.
Rhetorical Question
A rhetorical question is a question that has an inferred rather than a stated answer. Typically, it is used to either provoke thought about a particular concept or stress the obvious. Adams employs this device twice in the essay, once conventionally and once slightly unconventionally. He first asks, “Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent?” (Paragraph 24). The implied answer should be obvious to the audience: There can be no liberty where property is taken away without consent.
Adams also uses a rhetorical question in the last line of the essay, although the question does not have a question mark. The line is, “How long such treatment will or ought to be borne, is submitted” (Paragraph 24). This statement refers to the dismissal by the British government of the legitimate grievances expressed by colonists. Without directly asking, how long ought this treatment to be borne [tolerated]?, Adams implies the question in a less confrontational manner. This strategy is important because his purpose in the essay is to affirm the rights of the colonists not to incite them towards revolutionary activity, which would have been dangerous without more political allies. The question was, in 1772, still rhetorical. Adams and others would answer it in the years to come, insisting that the colonists should no longer tolerate injustice from Britain.
Evidence
The evidence for Adams’s assertions in the first section of the essay is provided by Enlightenment philosophy, particularly the work of John Locke. Adams not only references Locke but also cites him directly. In the second section about the rights of Christians, Adams references British policy, namely the Toleration Act. The third section continues to employ regular citations to British documents and traditions, including the structures and purposes of the English government. The continual reference to these sources grounds Adams’s assertions in shared assumptions and legal and social tradition. By invoking well-known sources, Adams situates his claims outside the realm of opinion and instead bases his argument on accepted facts and principles.
