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But in all that company the men most noticed were the five members from Massachusetts. They were Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Gushing and Robert Treat Paine. Massachusetts had thus far taken the lead in the struggle with England. A British army was encamped upon her soil, her chief city besieged–the port closed. Her sufferings had called this Congress into being, and to her delegates the members had come to listen. All recognized Samuel Adams as the chief man of the Convention. His hand wrote the invitations and earnest requests to come. Galloway, writing to his friends, the enemy, said: “Samuel Adams eats little, drinks little, sleeps little and thinks much. He is most decisive and indefatigable in the pursuit of his object. He is the man who, by his superior application, manages at once the faction in Philadelphia and the factions of New England.”

Yet Samuel Adams talked little at the Convention. He allowed John Adams to state the case, but sat next to him supplying memoranda, occasionally arising to make remarks or explanations in a purely conversational tone. But so earnest and impressive was his manner, so ably did he answer every argument and reply to every objection, that he thoroughly convinced a tall, angular, homely man by the name of Patrick Henry of the righteousness of his cause. Patrick Henry was pretty thoroughly convinced before, but the recital of Boston’s case fired the Virginian, and he made the first and only real speech of the Congress. In burning words he pictured all the Colonies had suffered and endured, and by his matchless eloquence told in prophetic words of the glories yet to be. In his speech he paid just tribute to the genius of Samuel Adams, declaring that the good that was to come from this “first of an unending succession of Congresses” was owing to the work of Adams. And in after-years Adams repaid the compliment by saying that if it had not been for the cementing power of Patrick Henry’s eloquence, that first Congress probably would have ended in a futile wrangle.

The South regarded, in great degree, the fight in Boston as Massachusetts’ own. To make the entire thirteen Colonies adopt the quarrel and back the Colonial army in the vicinity of Boston was the only way to make the issue a success, and to unite the factions by choosing for a leader a Virginian aristocrat was a crowning stroke of diplomacy.

John Hancock had succeeded Randolph as president of the second Congress, and Virginia was inclined to be lukewarm, when John Adams in an impassioned speech nominated Colonel George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. The nomination was seconded very quietly by Samuel Adams. It was a vote, and the South was committed to the cause of backing up Washington, and, incidentally, New England. The entire plan was probably the work of Samuel Adams, yet he gave the credit to John, while the credit of stoutly opposing it goes to John Hancock, who, being presiding officer, worked at a disadvantage.

But Adams had a way of reducing opposition to the minimum. He kept out of sight and furthered his ends by pushing this man or that to the front at the right time to make the plea. He was a master in that fine art of managing men and never letting them know they are managed. By keeping behind the arras, he accomplished purposes that a leader never can who allows his personality to be in continual evidence, for personality repels as well as attracts, and the man too much before the public is sure to be undone eventually. Adams knew that the power of Pericles lay largely in the fact that he was never seen upon but a single street of Athens, and that but once a year.

The complete writings of Adams have recently been collected and published. One marvels that such valuable material has not before been printed and given to the public, for the literary style and perspicuity shown are most inspiring, and the value of the data can not be gainsaid.