Thanks to Benjamin Franklin, documents could be printed with ease among the colonies, so entered in Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, two men with the ability to arouse to action with the pen.  How grand the timing and hand of God in the development of this great nation. 

Before the sword could win the freedom of America, the pen must first convince colonist to assemble and fight.  Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine understood the words of the Apostle Paul, “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle.”  This is exactly what happened through the writings of these two apostles of freedom.

Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams was at his best in writing and in political manipulation. It was probably his writings that sparked the Boston Tea Party, but he took no part in it.  Adam’s objective was to arouse anti-British feelings among the colonists.  He was instrumental in forming revolutionary organizations, such as committees of correspondence.  His writings were directed towards preparing opinion. 

No one in the colonies realized more fully than Samuel Adams, with his Harvard training, the primary necessity of arousing public opinion against the British, and no one set about it more persistently.  He had learned the legal approach to the rights of his colony.  He had seen the effects of British interference on the colony’s internal economic and political affairs.  He had discussions of liberty.  But he became most concerned when an act of Parliament ruined the very promising venture of his father,  The Massachusetts Land Bank. 

Samuel Adams could touch to the very core of the clergyman, the lawyer and the merchant.  The task of opposing the encroachments on colonial rights by the British burned within him, saying, “I will oppose this tyranny at the threshold, though the fabric of liberty fall, and I perish in its ruins.”  “All is not dead; and where there is a Spark of patriotic fire, we will enkindle it.”

From the first issue of the Independent Advertiser, to the Declaration of Independence, he was constantly writing for the press under a variety of pseudonyms (pen names), as many as twenty-five have been recognized as his.  During the height of the pre-Revolutionary struggle, he practically filled the pages of the Boston Gazette, all done with the idea of arousing anti-British feeling.

(Today, in 2012, this nation is in the biggest bombardment from the left/liberal media to arouse the feeling of anti-freedom and anti-capitalism this nation has ever experienced.  It is a trap to bring into bondage of a one world government.  This nation was founded on true liberty/liberal beliefs.  Today liberal belief means, freedom to walk naked in the streets, freedom to take the Lord’s Name in vain, freedom to display public, violent insult.  This is not liberty. This behavior is bondage, a bondage that will en-capsulate in an eternal hell, unless some ONE free them, True freedom will not come by one President, but by ONE LORD. If you are on the LORD’S side, speak out with the voice of true freedom, as Samuel Adams did in the beginning, to save this nation form the bondage that awaits its present course.  What this nation needs is not the awakening of great men, but a Great God to awaken men in common to do small things for a great nation.  From the very day that God came down to Babel and scattered men over the whole earth, because of their oneness to do evil, man has been in the process of re-unifying as it was in Babel, that he may do all manner of evil and call it good in the form of a one world government, of which America should say, NO THANK YOU!)

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine, like Samuel Adams, was a propagandist, established so by him writing, Common Sense and The Crisis letters.  Paine started his writing/printing career in 1774, after being introduced to Benjamin Franklin, working for the Pennsylvania Magazine, where most of his work was non-political.

Common Sense appeared in 1776 and caught hold immediately.  A small pamphlet, it was printed and re-printed in every colony.  It plainly stated the case of the colonies against England and demanded independence as the only solution.  Words within were, “The period of debate is closed,” said Paine, “Arms as the last recourse must decide the contest.”  These words carried the cause of independence forward with a rush.

Thomas Paine was more radical in his positions than the other leaders of the revolution.  They did not share his religious notions or his anti-slavery ideas.   George Washington read from Paine’s powerful essay, The Crisis, to strengthen the courage of his troops, “These are the times that try men’s souls.  The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

(These words still have power today to encourage those who stand against those who would bring our nation into bondage through all sorts of left wing social and political media.  In 2012, the weapon of our warfare is the pen, as we defend our nation from the attempts to bring it down from within. As the scripture states, “Write the vision, make it plain up tables, that they who read it, may run.”)

So it was with all of Paine’s writings, each one perfectly timed, perfectly adapted to the needs of the moment.  Through the war Adams and Paine were indispensable in keeping up the spirits of the people. Although these two Apostles of freedom were not commanding Generals of the Armies, the War of Independence could not have been won without them, showing future generations that the pen is mightier than the sword.