While he was still a twenty-year-old school teacher, John Adams had made
a remarkable prophecy. America was then an unimportant outpost of a
great empire ruled by England. But Adams said, "Mighty states and
kingdoms change. A few people came over into this new world for
conscience' sake; this apparently trivial incident may transfer the
great seat of empire to America.
While he was still a twenty-year-old school teacher, John Adams had made a remarkable prophecy. America was then an unimportant outpost of a great empire ruled by England. But Adams said, "Mighty states and kingdoms change. A few people came over into this new world for conscience' sake; this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great seat of empire to America. Our people will, in another century, become more numerous than in England itself. The united force of Europe will not be able to subdue us."
At the end of the century that he spoke of, the population of the United States was more than double that of England, and not long after it was the most powerful nation on earth. Then in 1765, while John Adams was still living in Braintree, the English Parliament passed the "Stamp Act." There is a separate article about the Stamp Act in this encyclopedia; briefly, it required that anyone using any sheet of paper as a legal document should buy a stamp to put on the paper, and the price of the stamp went to the British government. This was a tax that Americans would havp to pay but from which they would get no benefits—one of the great complaints that led to the American Revolution. The colonies throughout America argued angrily against the Stamp Act.
In Massachusetts John Adams was one of those selected to argue against it before the British Governor in Boston. Addressing the Governor and his Council, Adams declared boldly that the Stamp Act was void, because Parliament had no right to make such a law. It required courage to do this, but Adams was noted for his bravery. The Boston of 1768, when John Adams took up his profession there, was a city of excited people, most of them unfriendly toward everything British.
