Oliver Lehmann
Mr. Cook
American Studies
1/17/13
ICE on Colonial and Revolutionary America The Sons of Liberty were in the way they’re acting definitely a radical movement, but what they really wanted to achieve was more conservative. So the radical people want to reach their goal by any means necessary, but the actual goal was not even that a big change at all so it is kind of a mixture between a radical and conservative movement.
I start with the conservative side of the Sons of Liberty. The purpose of the Sons of Liberty was to force all of the British agents to resign and to stop the American merchants from ordering British trade goods. They wanted the British soldiers to leave so they could get independent “The crowd forced the officials to resign. (page 67/ Howard Zinn)” But finally the “rich men” were the ones which were on top again, so there wasn’t really a radical change.
An interesting thing was how the Sons of Liberty tried to get the lower class on their side so they could fight for them but the rich men didn’t want to seem violent or radical so they said “The Committees of Correspondence of Boston and other towns welcomed this gathering, (resignation of the British officials) but warned against destroying private property (page 67/ Howard Zinn)” John Adams also expressed that: “These tarrings and featherings, this breaking open Houses by rude and insolent Rabbles, in Resentment for private Wrongs or in pursuing of private Prejudices and Passions, must be discountenanced. (page 68/ Howard Zinn)” The Sons of Liberty really tried not to act too radical, so they said that the rude