Note 3 — Chapter IV · • Samuel Adams • The Mind of the American Democrat

Hutchinson seems to justify such a view from a passage written in 1770: “The leaders here seem to acknowledge that their cause is not to be defended on constitutional principles, and Adams now gives out that there is no need of it; they are upon better ground; all men have a natural right to change a bad constitution for a better, whenever they have it in their power.” (Hosmer, Life of Samuel Adams, p. 259.)