BlackRose#56
In 1842, Judge Mellen Chamberlain interviewed ninety-one-year-old Captain Preston, a veteran of the Battle of Concord in 1775, to understand why Preston fought against the British.
Judge Chamberlain: Did you take up arms against intolerable oppressions?
Captain Preston replied that he had never felt any oppressions.
Judge Chamberlain: Was it the Stamp Act?
Captain Preston: No, I never saw one of those stamps.
Judge Chamberlain: Was it the tea tax?
Captain Preston said no again.
Judge Chamberlain: Were you reading John Locke and other theorists of liberty?
Captain Preston: Never heard of 'em. We read only the Bible, the Catechism, Watts' Psalms and Hymns, and the Almanac.
Judge Chamberlain: Why, then, did you fight?
Captain Preston: Young man, what we meant in going for those redcoats was this: We always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn't mean we should.