Samuel Adams Rhetorical Analysis Of The Quartering Act

1236 Words5 Pages

In an article published in the Boston Gazette, in 1768, Samuel Adams voices his opinion using inductive reasoning on how the Quartering Act along with the King and his troops are eradicating a civil and sane government system that once was. Samuel Adams’s primary experience as an American colonist, newspaper publisher and his clear knowledge of his government, as evoked throughout his writing, gives him credentials, or ethos, along with the fact of him being a Harvard graduate, American statesman, and tax collector. Samuel Adams displays his thoughts stating that the Crown and soldiers within England - the government who create laws for its 13 colonies- feel as they are not obligated to adhere to that same law. Samuel Adams’ pathos is shown when he writes, “Where the law ends, (says Mr. Locke) TYRANNY begins, if the law be transgress’d “ to anothers harm”: No one I believe will deny the truth of the observation, and therefore I again appeal to common sense, whether the act of which …show more content…

Moreover, in this complex sentence, he evokes his opinion that when a democracy ends, dictatorship begins; he continues to say that no one can possibly be blind to the fact that the government's attitude towards the colonies is immoral, showing how he feels about the current ruling and control over the colonies. Consequently he also states, “ The sentiments of men in such a case would in all likelihood be as various as their sentiments in religion or anything else; and as there would then be no settled rule for the publick to advert to, the safety of the people would probably be at an end”. In this line, he strongly shows his opinion towards the British rule and justifies that if the attitude of England is the way it is displayed to the colonies, the colonies are doomed. Using words like “ I dare”, as stated in the line, “ This I presume cannot be contested.