Friends and Fellow Sufferers
In February, 1775, only two months before blood would be shed on April 19th, the second Provincial Congress of Massachusetts assembled at Cambridge. The main outcome of these meetings was the plan to “empower and direct” eleven men, including John Hancock and Joseph Warren, to, as they saw fit, put together arms and provisions for the militia. The purpose was “opposing” the Acts of Parliament designed to enslave the people of Massachusetts.
They also published an inspiring address to the Inhabitants of Massachusetts
Friends and Fellow Sufferers;—
When a people, entitled to that freedom which your ancestors have nobly preserved as the richest inheritance of their children, are invaded by the hand of oppression, and trampled on by the merciless feet of tyranny, resistance is so far from being criminal, that it becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. Your conduct hitherto, under the severest trials, has been worthy of you as men and Christians, and notwithstanding the pains that have been taken by your enemies, to inculcate the doctrine of non-resistance and passive obedience, and by every art to delude and terrify you, the whole continent of America has this day come to rejoice in your firmness. We trust you will still continue steadfast, and having regard to the dignity of your characters as freemen, and those generous sentiments resulting from your natural and political connections, you will never submit your necks to the galling yoke of despotism prepared for you; but with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which Heaven gave, and no man ought to take from you.”
Those words ring true now as much as they did then. Will we hear them from their graves?