Dr. Joseph Warren: Architect of the Revolution

Now is no time for any of America’s children to shrink from any hazard. I will set her free or die. —Dr. Joseph Warren¹

Writing about America’s founding fathers, philosopher Ayn Rand said, “as a political group, they were a phenomenon unprecedented in history: they were thinkers who were also men of action.”²

Nobody embodied that description better than Dr. Joseph Warren. Not only was he an able doctor, but Warren was a rare patriot leader who possessed the brilliance and eloquence of a Thomas Jefferson combined with the leadership qualities and physical courage of a George Washington. As John Adams said of him, “Warren was a young man whom nature had adorned with grace and manly beauty, and a courage that would have been rash absurdity, had it not been tempered by self-control.”³ These qualities prompted British General Howe to claim that Warren’s life was equal to five hundred ordinary colonials. Lord Rawdon, a British commander, called him “the greatest incendiary in all America.”⁴ President Ronald Reagan quoted Warren in his first inaugural address and said he “might have been among the greatest of America’s founding fathers” had he not fallen in battle at Bunker Hill.⁵

Although America’s founders generally are well known, and everyone knows of Paul Revere’s “midnight ride,” few know the pivotal role that Joseph Warren played in the decade leading up to the decisive day of April 19, 1775—a role that included the decision to send Revere on his famous ride. Warren was an architect of the rebellion and was involved in every major insurrectionary act and event in Boston in his day. His prolific writing included the Suffolk Resolves, which united the colonies against Britain and inspired the Declaration of Independence. From the fall of 1774 to the spring of 1775, Warren almost single-handedly directed the patriots’ efforts in Boston while other leaders such as Samuel Adams and John Hancock were away at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Warren not only talked the talk; he helped to build, lead, and fight in America’s newborn military. He fought in the nation’s first two major Revolutionary War battles, and he was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, at the age of thirty-four. A few weeks after the battle, George Washington—nine years Warren’s senior—arrived in Boston to take command. When he surveyed the spot where Warren fell, he told the Boston patriots, “this is where you lost your Commander-In-Chief.”⁶

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Joseph Warren was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on June 11, 1741. When he was fourteen, his father died, and Joseph assumed tremendous familial responsibilities, becoming a father figure to his younger brothers. After attending the Roxbury Latin School, he studied medicine at Harvard College and later apprenticed under the renowned Boston doctor James Lloyd. He met eighteen-year-old heiress Elizabeth Hooten, married her, and opened his own medical practice in Boston in 1764.

Soon after, a smallpox epidemic broke out in Boston, and a quarantine hospital was set up at Castle William, an old military fort on an island south of the city. Warren volunteered as house physician and was tasked with administering inoculations day and night. In order to inoculate large numbers of people, Warren used a clinical regimen developed by Benjamin Franklin.⁷ Although the assignment was risky and arduous, it enabled Warren to meet people from all walks of life, including most of the prominent citizens in town, such as Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson and his children, as well as John Adams, with whom he was close for the rest of his life. Warren gained respect from Bostonians for taking on this role and drastically mitigating the epidemic—and for the great courage he showed in doing so.

After the epidemic broke, Warren’s practice was flooded with new patients, including many he had met at Castle William. His patient list grew to include John and Abigail Adams, Samuel and Betsy Adams, Josiah Quincy and family, John Hancock, Governor Hutchinson and family, as well as several British officers, including General Thomas Gage.

Warren excelled in medicine and was the most popular physician in Boston by the age of twenty-five. However, in 1765, when the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, Warren found himself pulled into another arena: politics.

A ‘True Patriot’

In 1765, Warren joined the fraternal organization known as the Freemasons and met the wealthy merchant John Hancock, master craftsmen Paul Revere, and the publisher of theBoston Gazette, Benjamin Edes. All were members of St. Andrews Masonic Lodge, which owned the Green Dragon Tavern. Warren and other politically aware Masons met there often to discuss politics.

The Stamp Act created a firestorm of controversy in Boston and divided the community into two political parties: Loyalists to the English government, called Tories; and opponents, called Whigs, Patriots, and Sons of Liberty. The Sons of Liberty, a group organized by Samuel Adams, represented the most radical wing of the anti-British party. They opposed being taxed without having a representative of their interests in Parliament; hence their motto, “no taxation without representation.”

Joseph Warren began writing against the Stamp Act in local newspapers under the pseudonym B. W. Others such as James Otis, John Adams, and Samuel Adams already had delivered great expositions on the legal reasoning for the Patriot cause. Warren knew that to motivate people, the arguments for liberty required more than just abstract reasoning. He sought to create a sense of emotional urgency in order to change minds and, as important, hearts, and thereby move people to action. And he was explicit about this. Writing in theBoston Gazette, he asked readers to think of him as “a hearty Friend to your Civil Liberties, intended to warm your Imagination, and excite your Activity. . . . The late political Writers having convinced your Reason, I may be excused if I take level chiefly at your passions.”

He opposed the Stamp Act on principle, arguing that accepting such an act would lead to further violations of rights: “You may expect a Tax on your Lands; and after that one Burthen on the back of another, till you are reduced to a State of the most abject Poverty.” Early on, Warren forged what would become familiar themes in his writing. These included calls for his countrymen to uphold the achievements of their forebears and to defend liberty, both their own and that of future generations:

Awake! Awake my Countrymen, and, by a regular & legal Opposition of those who enslave us and our posterity. Nothing is wanting but your own Resolution. . . . Be Men, and make the Experiment. Truth is omnipotent, and Reason must be finally victorious. . . . Ages remote, Mortals yet unborn will bless your generous efforts, and revere the Memory of the Saviours of their Country.⁸

In 1766, when the Stamp Act was repealed, Warren again focused on building his medical practice. However, in late 1767, Parliament attempted to reassert its authority with the Townshend Acts. These imposed import taxes on many British products that Americans bought, including lead, paper, paint, glass, and tea.

In February of 1768, writing under a new pseudonym, “A True Patriot,” Warren took aim in the Boston Gazette at Massachusetts Governor Francis Bernard, charging that he had slandered the Sons of Liberty as “rabble” to the British parliament. Warren’s letter in the Gazette ended with a not-so-subtle comparison of the governor to a devil. Outraged, Bernard pushed for a libel lawsuit against the paper, but his request ultimately was denied by the Massachusetts House of Representatives. When this controversy subsided, an unrepentant “True Patriot” wrote, “With Pleasure I hear the general voice of this people in favor of freedom. . . . firmly determined, to support their own Rights, and the Liberty of the Press.”⁹

One of the most hated provisions of the Townshend Acts was local enforcement of the duties by British customs officers. This infuriated the locals and led to unrest and occasional mob violence. When a customs commissioner charged Warren’s friend and prominent merchant John Hancock with smuggling, Warren interceded. He negotiated between Hancock and the customs commissioners, one of whom was a patient of Warren’s. Warren was able to work out a compromise that prevented Hancock’s ship from being impounded while allowing the customs officers to save face. Though the charge of smuggling and the seizure of Hancock’s ship enraged many Bostonians, Warren coolly pushed for a boycott of British goods as opposed to violent conflict. He advocated that colonists stop buying and using British goods, and he wrote many letters to sympathetic Britons back in England, aiming to gain their political support.

When Parliament sent British troops to help with enforcement of the Townshend duties, Warren petitioned Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson to have them removed. He also helped to consolidate resistance to the Townshend Acts by organizing town meetings. In fact, Warren was present at every Boston town meeting from 1768 through 1770.John Adams said of their conversations during this time, “I was solicited to go to the Town Meetings and harangue there. This I constantly refused. My friend Dr. Warren the most frequently urged me to this: My Answer to him always was ‘That way madness lies.’. . . he always smiled and said, ‘it was true.’”¹⁰

In 1768, Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren began collaborating more frequently. Some historians assert that Adams “recruited” Warren to the radical wing of the movement. As Warren’s editorializing indicates, he required no recruitment, though the older Adams did serve as Warren’s mentor. Although they could not have been more different in style, their shared passion for liberty led to a deep bond. Adams recognized Warren’s integrity and became his most trusted confidant. In The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Adams’s biographer and great-grandson, William Wells, wrote:

The dearest friend he ever had was Dr. Warren, and the void created in his heart by the death of that brilliant young patriot was probably at no time completely filled. . . . In all his plans prior to 1775, and, in his reminiscences of the Revolution in his old age, he recurred oftenest and the most affectionately to the name of Joseph Warren.¹¹

The Boston Massacre

In the summer of 1769, Governor Bernard was recalled to England and replaced by Thomas Hutchinson. Tensions between British soldiers and Boston citizens continued to mount, then exploded in March of 1770 when an angry mob harangued eight British regulars on King Street. Surrounded, the officers fired into the crowd, killing six people and wounding five others. Samuel Adams dubbed this “The Boston Massacre.” Dr. Warren was called to the scene to attend to the wounded. He described the aftermath, writing,

The horrors of that dreadful night are but too deeply impressed on our hearts. Language is too feeble to paint the emotions of our souls, when our streets were stained with the blood of our brethren; when our ears were wounded by the groans of the dying, and our eyes were tormented with the sight of the mangled bodies of the dead.¹²

The day after the massacre, Adams, Hancock, and Warren led a delegation to the state house to confront Governor Hutchinson and insist that he immediately remove the troops from Boston to Castle William. Fearing a general uprising, the governor acquiesced, and the troops were swiftly evacuated from Boston.

One week after the incident, the Boston Committee of Safety—made up of local patriots—appointed Warren and several others to investigate the “horrid Massacre” and provide an official account. Warren’s account was remarkably well-reasoned and dispassionate, particularly given how high emotions were running after the bloodshed. Instead of blaming the soldiers, he put the blame on Parliament for putting them in these circumstances, saying, “As they [Parliament] were the procuring cause of the troops being sent hither, they must therefore be the remote and blameable cause of all the disturbances and bloodshed that have taken place in consequence of that measure.”¹³ This position is consistent with his later recommendation that his friends John Adams and Josiah Quincy Jr. defend the British soldiers to ensure that they had a fair trial.

In the end, outrage over the tragic “incident on King Street” resulted in the troops being removed from Boston and the Townshend Acts being repealed. Boston then entered a “quiet period” in which many, including some of the Sons of Liberty, drew back from politics. During this period, Governor Hutchinson remarked, “the patriot faction seems to be breaking”—and there was some truth to this.¹⁴ John Adams, for instance, said “farewell politics!,” gave up his seat in the House of Representatives, stopped writing in the papers, and returned to his farm at Braintree, Massachusetts. After the tumult and bloodshed of 1768–1770, many colonists desired to maintain peace with Britain. With peace, trade resumed, and merchants such as John Hancock began cutting ties with the Patriot cause. Hancock declined to join Patriot organizations and instead became a colonel in the Boston Cadets, a military escort to the royal governor Hutchinson.

Joseph Warren and Samuel Adams, however, never wavered. They understood that the political strategy of Governor Hutchinson and the British was stealthily to consolidate power. “The grand design of our adversaries,” wrote Adams, “is to lull us into security, and make us easy while the acts remain in force which would prove fatal to us.”¹⁵ Warren continued to write in the papers and became even more strident in his antipathy toward Governor Hutchinson. Warren biographer Samuel Forman describes the relationship between Adams and Warren in 1772: “In their self-appointed roles as the radical wing among Massachusetts Patriots, it was them ‘against the world’—including British Parliament, the King’s ministers, homegrown Tory opponents, and wavering Whig moderates.”¹⁶ Given the complacency of their compatriots, Adams and Warren sought a way to rally people back to the cause.

When such an opportunity arose, Warren used it effectively.

Boston Massacre Oration, 1772

If Warren ever did stand in the shadow of Samuel Adams, he stepped out of it in earnest on March 5, 1772, when he delivered the second annual Boston Massacre oration. It was Warren’s first address before a large audience, and his oratory proved to be as logical and passionate as his writing. He told the audience of approximately five thousand people that a government that protects the security of its citizens is “one of the greatest blessings of mankind.” But he asserted that, when properly functioning, such government prevents “those who are clothed with authority from attempting to invade the freedom of their brethren.” Pointing to the fall of Rome, he emphasized that “public happiness depends on a virtuous and unshaken attachment to a free constitution.” He explained that the colonists had the right to “home rule” based on the colony’s charter and asked how they could be called “free subjects” when they were obliged to obey unconstitutional laws made without their consent and in direct violation of their rights to liberty and property.

I am very much at a loss to know by what figure of rhetoric, the inhabitants of this province can be called free subjects, when they are obliged to obey implicitly such laws as are made for them by men three thousand miles off, whom they know not, and whom they never have empowered to act for them; or how they can be said to have property when a body of men, over whom they have not the least control, and who are not in any way accountable to them, shall oblige them to deliver up any part, or the whole of their substance, without even asking their consent . . . for, if they may be taxed without their consent, even in the smallest trifle, they may also, without their consent, be deprived of everything they possess.¹⁷

He then traced the “ruinous consequences of standing armies to free communities,” referencing other examples from history. Tying this to the Boston Massacre, he noted Great Britain’s grave mistake in sending soldiers who consider “arms as the only arbiters” and who are the “ready engines of tyranny and oppression.” He then described the horrible scenes of the Boston Massacre and noted that, despite the desire for vengeance, the Bostonians were able to resolve the incident without further violence.

When we beheld the authors of our distress parading in our streets or drawn up in a regular battalia, as though in a hostile city, our hearts beat to arms; we snatched our weapons, almost resolved, by one decisive stroke, to avenge the death of our SLAUGHTERED BRETHREN, and to secure from future danger, all that we held most dear. . . . The thoughts of vengeance were soon buried in our inbred affection to Great Britain, and calm reason dictated a method of removing the troops more mild than an immediate recourse to the sword.¹⁸

Throughout the speech, Warren effectively portrayed the Americans as being on the side of reason, principle, and justice, whereas Great Britain was determined to use brute force in violation of their rights:

We are to be governed by the absolute commands of others; our property is to be taken away without our consent; if we complain, our complaints are treated with contempt; if we assert our rights, that assertion is deemed insolence; if we humbly offer to submit the matter to the imperial decision of reason, the sword is judged the most proper argument to silence our murmurs!¹⁹

Patriots “nourish in their own breasts,” he continued, “a noble love of liberty; they hold her dear and had rather die than suffer her to be torn from their embraces.” Warren’s tone intensified as he asked the audience to remember the price paid for their freedom by their forebears:

The voice of your fathers’ blood cries to you from the ground; my sons scorn to be slaves! In vain we met the frowns of tyrants; in vain, we crossed the boisterous ocean, found a new world, and prepared it for the happy residence of liberty; in vain, we toiled; in vain, we fought; we bled in vain, if you, our offspring, want valour to repel the assaults of her invaders! Stain not the glory of your worthy ancestors; but like them resolve, never to part with your birthright; be wise in your deliberations, and determined in your exertions for the preservation of your liberties.Follow not the dictates of passion, but enlist yourselves under the sacred banner of reason; use every method in your power to secure your rights. . . . May our land be a land of liberty, the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed, a name and a praise in the whole earth, until the last shock of time shall bury the empires of the world in one common undistinguished ruin!²⁰

All were impressed by Warren’s passion. The Whig press went wild over his powerful rhetoric, and the speech was reprinted and circulated widely throughout the colonies well into the 19th century.²¹

Committees of Correspondence

After the heartening response to the Boston Massacre oration, Warren and Adams formed a Committee of Correspondence to help broaden support for the Patriot cause throughout Massachusetts and beyond. One of the first documents the committee produced was designed to define the rights of colonists, outline infringements of those rights, and encourage the towns to debate what actions should be taken.

On top of caring for his growing family, running his busy medical practice, training his medical apprentices, serving as grand master of St. Andrew’s Lodge, and participating in town meetings, Warren churned out letter after letter for the committee.

In April 1773, tragedy struck the Warren family when Joseph’s wife Elizabeth contracted influenza and died shortly thereafter. Despite his prodigious skills as a physician, there was nothing he could do to save her. Warren found himself a widower at thirty-one with four children to care for, the youngest of whom was just a year old.

When he resumed his many responsibilities after several weeks of mourning, Warren was heartened to see that his letters were prompting thoughtful and encouraging replies from all over the colonies. Some 260 towns in Massachusetts had taken action in response to prompting from the Boston Committee of Correspondence. Thanks to the relentless efforts of Warren, Adams, and the core group of committed patriots, support for their cause was growing.

The Boston Tea Party

In May of 1773, the British Parliament granted the East India Tea Company a monopoly on the sale of tea in America and began imposing a tea tax. Not only was this more “taxation without representation,” but the colonists viewed it as an attempt by Parliament to force them to submit to its authority. When ships carrying the tea arrived in Boston that November, Warren and Adams organized public meetings in Boston to discuss the matter. More than six thousand people turned out for these meetings, and Warren declared the act “the last, worst, and most destructive measure of the British Administration.”²² They resolved unanimously that the tea would not be brought ashore.

When Patriots appealed to the governor to send back the tea, he refused. So, the Sons of Liberty devised a plan to destroy it instead by boarding the ships and throwing the tea into the harbor. In order to protect their identities, the participants dressed as Mohawk Indians, a suggestion made by Sarah Bradlee Fulton, a sister of one of the volunteers. Although it’s possible Joseph Warren was one of the Mohawks, Warren biographer Samuel Forman makes a strong case that he was the “stage manager” of the tea party, orchestrating it from behind the scenes. Forman notes that Warren was the only patriot leader with both the theatrical flair and connections among all levels of society (including with British officers) required to execute this operation with surgical precision.²³

Following the destruction of the tea, an event that came to be known as the Boston Tea Party, Warren wasted no time in relaying details of what the patriots had done. He wrote to Arthur Lee, who was in England representing American interests along with Benjamin Franklin, saying, “It is certain the whole navy of Britain will not prevent the introduction of Dutch [smuggled] tea; nor will her armies prevail with us to use the English tea, while the act of imposing a duty on that article remains unrepealed.”²⁴

The British responded to the tea party with draconian measures. Lord North gave a speech to the House of Commons in March, saying that the “inhabitants of the town of Boston deserved punishment.”²⁵ The British closed the port of Boston and implemented several other measures that came to be known as the Coercive Acts (later called the Intolerable Acts). Finally, adding insult to injury, Governor Hutchinson was replaced by a military governor, General Thomas Gage. This series of events crippled Boston. In what was once a relatively free and prosperous coastal town, trade essentially was paralyzed. And Boston now was under the control of a military governor with immense power.

In response to the closing of the port of Boston, the Committee of Correspondence formed a subcommittee, chaired by Joseph Warren, which produced the “Solemn League and Covenant,” an intercolonial pledge not to import any British goods. Their next move was to call for a Continental Congress to be convened in Philadelphia on September 1, 1774. Massachusetts decided to send their most experienced politicians to the Congress. These included Samuel Adams, John Adams, Thomas Cushing, and Robert Treat Paine. In August of 1774, the four set off on the long journey to Philadelphia.

When General Gage arrived, and the first regiment of troops landed in Boston, tensions mounted. Gage wasted no time taking advantage of his new authority and appointed his own governor’s council, which was called the Mandamus Council (as in “mandated”). He also appointed sheriffs, judges, and a new lieutenant governor. The British soldiers who had been removed to Castle William after the Boston Massacre were now streaming back into town. By the end of August, six full regiments, consisting of more than three thousand British troops, were in Boston, and Boston Common was covered with white tents housing many of them. Gage took up residence at the Province house, directly across from the Old South Meeting House. There was no question now that Boston was under military occupation.

The Suffolk Resolves

In September of 1774, with Samuel Adams and John Hancock away in Philadelphia, Warren was left standing in the eye of a hurricane. With the closing of Boston Harbor, the town plunged into economic depression. Gage employed virtually dictatorial powers to tighten the noose, including forbidding town meetings to prevent patriots from rallying people outside of Boston. Warren and other leaders responded by calling for county conventions, which hadn’t been forbidden, and asserting their right to assemble.

While preparing for the county convention, Warren corresponded with members of the Continental Congress, sought aid for Boston from other towns and colonies, and continued to run his medical practice, now at its highest ever patient volume. Somehow, he also found time to court Mercy Scollay, the daughter of Boston selectman John Scollay, and later they were engaged.

Despite the dire circumstances that fall, Warren still had hope for a peaceful resolution of the mounting tensions between the colonies and Great Britain. Without consulting Adams or other patriot leaders for approval, he made the decision to dispatch his friend Josiah Quincy Jr. as an emissary to Great Britain. Warren likely felt that Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, colonial agents already in Great Britain, were not aware of the true conditions on the ground in Boston. Although it was a long shot, Warren felt that sending Quincy with the latest intelligence just might tip the balance in favor of reconciliation. The doctor may also have thought that the sea voyage might help his friend’s health; Quincy was suffering gravely from tuberculosis.

Events were nonstop that fall of 1774. The first week in September, British troops made an expedition to Cambridge to seize a store of gunpowder. Gage carefully planned this mission for the early morning hours, and it went off without incident. However, as greatly hyped news and exaggerated rumors of the mission spread, thousands of outraged militiamen from all over Massachusetts converged on Cambridge. Finding that the British troops had departed the day before, the mob descended on the homes of some of the Mandamus councilors who lived along Brattle Street near Harvard College. Warren was called to the scene. He gave an address to the crowd and eventually was able to convince them to disperse—but not before they had intimidated several appointees into renouncing their positions, including lieutenant Governor Thomas Oliver.

The incident increased Warren’s confidence, because it demonstrated to him that the “country people” considered Britain’s rule to be illegitimate, and they were not going to submit passively.

The Suffolk Convention was now just two days away. Writing to Samuel Adams, Warren said,

Our all is at stake. We must give up our rights, and boast no more of freedom, or we must oppose immediately. Our enemies press so close that we cannot rest upon our arms. If this province is saved, it must be by adopting measures immediately efficacious.²⁶

The Suffolk Convention met on September 6, 1774. The attendees debated and deliberated over what to do. Warren then went to work on a document outlining their position, and they met again three days later to finalize the proceedings. On the final day of the convention, Warren read the resolves to the delegates, and they responded with roaring approval.²⁷

On the fortitude, on the wisdom, and on the exertions of this important day is suspended the fate of this New World, and of unborn millions. If a boundless extent of continent, swarming with millions, will tamely submit to live, move, and have their being at the arbitrary will of a licentious minister, they basely yield to voluntary slavery; and future generations shall load their memories with incessant execrations. On the other hand, if we arrest the hand which would ransack our pockets; if we disarm the parricide who points the dagger to our bosoms; if we nobly defeat that fatal edict which proclaims a power to frame laws for us in all cases whatsoever, thereby entailing the endless and numberless curses of slavery upon us, our heirs and their heirs forever; if we successfully resist that unparalleled usurpation of unconstitutional power, whereby our capital is robbed of the means of life; whereby the streets of Boston are thronged with military executioners; whereby our coasts are lined, and harbors crowded with ships of war; whereby the charter of the colony, that sacred barrier against the encroachments of tyranny, is mutilated, and in effect annihilated; whereby a murderous law is framed to shelter villains from the hands of justice . . . posterity will acknowledge that virtue which preserved them free and happy.²⁸

The Resolves recommended a boycott of British goods, demanded resignations from those appointed to positions under the Coercive Acts, refused payment of taxes until the acts were repealed, called for a colonial government free from royal authority, and urged the colonies to raise their own militias. One of the boldest statements was Warren’s flat-out defiance of Parliament: “No obedience is due from this province to either or any part of the Acts above mentioned; but that they be rejected as the attempts of a wicked Administration to enslave America.” This momentous, and uncompromising statement would electrify the country. It foreshadowed Abraham Lincoln’s equally bold and significant declaration on the eve of the civil war that “this country cannot permanently endure half-slave and half-free.” In the same way that Lincoln’s moral declaration was the herald of emancipation, Warren’s was the herald of independence.

The following day, Warren dispatched Paul Revere to ride express to Philadelphia and present the Suffolk Resolves to the Continental Congress. Revere strode dramatically into Carpenter’s Hall and presented them to the Massachusetts delegates, who in turn shared them with the Congress. Although they were tantamount to a declaration of war against Great Britain, the Resolves were approved unanimously word for word. It was the very first act of the American Congress and, in justice, Warren’s authorship solidified his title as an American founder.

The endorsement of the Suffolk Resolves was the first formal instance of intercolonial cooperation and noncompliance with British authority. Warren’s goal was to gain support for Massachusetts from all of the colonies and show a united front against Great Britain—and he achieved that in spectacular fashion. John Adams remembered the day as follows: “This was one of the happiest Days of my Life. In Congress We had generous, noble Sentiments, and manly Eloquence. This Day convinced me that America will support Massachusetts or perish with her.”²⁹ The unanimous enthusiasm for the Resolves by all members of Congress was so great that they broke their rule of secrecy and ordered the Resolves to be printed publicly in newspapers throughout the country. The reaction among the people was divided, with patriots universally applauding the Resolves and loyalists condemning them as “treasonous.” One prominent loyalist, the Reverend Thomas Bradbury Chandler, referred to the Resolves as the work of “rebellious Republicans” and stated that they contained the ingredients of a “Declaration of Independency.”³⁰

There is no doubt that the Suffolk Resolves foreshadowed and paved the way for the Declaration of Independence. Although Jefferson’s concise statement there of the universal rights of mankind and proper role of government is without parallel, the two documents contained many similarities. Both upheld the natural rights of man and asserted that the mother country had violated those rights. In Warren’s words, the British were committing “gross infractions of those rights to which we are justly entitled by the laws of nature.” Both authors also offered a specific list of grievances and recommended that the colonies unite and take action. And although the Resolves stopped short of using the word “independence,” they did urge the patriots to form militias and “learn the arts of war.”

However, recognizing that the other colonies were worried that the Boston radicals might be going too far, Warren was careful to maintain a defensive posture out of “affection to his majesty” as long as “such conduct may be vindicated by reason and the principles of self-preservation.” The Resolves also called for maintaining civil order and respecting private property. Edmund Burke, a prominent member of the British House of Commons, understood that the Suffolk Resolves represented a major turning point in British-American relations. In fact, the Resolves prompted his famous speech “On Conciliation with America,” delivered in March of 1775.³¹

Just weeks after being elected to the Suffolk Convention, Warren was elected to represent Boston at the First Massachusetts Provincial Congress, which met on October 7, 1774. As the patriots and even the general population increasingly defied the rule of Governor Thomas Gage, the Provincial Congress and the Committee of Safety became the de facto governing bodies of the colony. Warren was already chairman of the Committee of Safety, but he soon also was elected president of the Provincial Congress. Given his dual roles, he became the glue that kept everything together and was now the unquestioned political leader of Massachusetts—effectively usurping the power of Governor Gage.

That fall, Warren met with Gage on several occasions. After initially giving him the benefit of the doubt, Warren soon changed his mind, writing to Josiah Quincy Jr. that Gage “seems to court the office of a destroyer of the liberties, and murderer of the people, of this province.”³² Given these concerns about Gage’s true intentions, Warren’s Committee of Safety began to strengthen its militia. Meeting in secret, the committee members made plans to acquire gunpowder, arms, and ammunition. They formed what would become known as the “Minutemen,” stipulating that militias “hold themselves in readiness, on the shortest notice from the said committee of safety.”³³

On November 9, 1774, Samuel Adams and the Massachusetts delegation returned from the Continental Congress and made their report. One of the key takeaways from Philadelphia was that the sister colonies pledged to unite and defend Massachusetts and to use force if necessary—but onlyif Massachusetts did not initiate any violence, acting strictly in self-defense. They also relayed that a second Continental Congress was scheduled for the following May.

Late in November, Warren reported to his friend Josiah Quincy Jr., who was by then in London on his mission,

It is the united voice of America to preserve their freedom, or lose their lives in defence of it. Their resolutions are not the effect of inconsiderate rashness, but the sound result of sober inquiry and deliberation. I am convinced, that the true spirit of liberty was never so universally diffused through all ranks and orders of people, in any country on the face of the earth, as it now is through all North America.³⁴

Warren spent much of the winter of 1774–1775 building up the militia, stockpiling weapons, and seeking funds. General Gage was doing the same, writing back home for more troops and money: “if you think ten thousand men sufficient, send twenty, if one million is enough, give two; you will save both Blood and Treasure in the end.”³⁵ As the cold winter settled in, an unstable peace hung over Boston. It was the calm before the storm.

Second Boston Massacre Oration, 1775³⁶

The annual commemoration of the Boston Massacre was planned as usual in March. This year, it was rumored that the British had plans to assassinate anyone who spoke at the event. Hearing this, Warren volunteered to give the oration. Given the military buildup on both sides, Warren and Adams must have seen this as a final opportunity to assert American rights before the British took military action. They knew the stakes were high, and there was no question that Warren was the man for this moment.

On March 6, 1775, an immense crowd gathered at the Old South Meeting House in Boston to hear Warren’s oration. Thousands attended; inside was standing room only. More than forty British troops showed up as well. Warren, who had directed the play Cato in his Harvard days, showed his theatrical flair by arriving dressed in a flowing white Roman toga—a symbol of liberty and defiance to tyranny, which all assembled would certainly recognize.³⁷

Because of the immense crowds and the British troops outside the building, Warren entered the pulpit by climbing up a ladder and through a window. Dozens of British soldiers watched the scene menacingly—one even displayed bullets in his palm as a warning to Warren. The doctor was not intimidated. He delivered a passionate address that provided the closing argument for the impending revolution. He delivered it coolly and with bold defiance—directly in the face of heavily armed oppressors.

His thirty-five-minute speech was a tour de force, encapsulating all of the arguments for American independence. It was a culmination of his life’s work and a demonstration of how he had refined his position over the years, from his initial view that the colonists’ rights were granted to them by Parliament, to his mature view that rights precede government and that Parliament had no authority to take them away. He avoided the emotionalism of his 1774 oration. Instead, he was measured in tone, devastating in logic, comprehensive in argument, and uncompromising on principles.

Warren opened with a statement of natural rights and voluntary association, which began,

That personal freedom is the natural right of every man; and that property, or an exclusive right to dispose of what he has honestly acquired by his own labour, necessarily arises therefrom, are truths which common sense has placed beyond the reach of contradiction. And no man, or body of men, can without being guilty of flagrant injustice, claim a right to dispose of the persons or acquisitions of any other man, or body of men, unless it can be proved that such a right has arisen from some compact between the parties in which it has been explicitly and freely granted.³⁸

He then denied that Parliament ever had a right to tax or legislate for the colonies at all. In fact, he said that Britain had no more claim to America than it had over a distant planet.

This country, having been discovered by an English subject, in the year 1620, was (according to the system which the blind superstition of those times supported) deemed the property of the crown of England. Our ancestors, when they resolved to quit their native soil, obtained from King James, a grant of certain lands in North America. This they probably did to silence the cavils of their enemies, for it cannot be doubted but they despised the pretended right which he claimed thereto. Certain it is, that he might, with equal propriety and justice, have made them a grant of the planet Jupiter.³⁹

Warren’s argument that the settlers had gained possession of their land not from a grant by the king, but by negotiating with the natives and by turning a wilderness into a habitable civilization was a powerful one. Warren now understood that the legal arguments about parchments and charters and maxims such as “no taxation without representation” were weak arguments because they still admitted the authority of the crown over America. Avoiding that trap, Warren framed the argument as being about morality and man’s rights, saying, “The attempt of the British parliament to raise a revenue from America, and our denial of their right to do it, have excited an almost universal inquiry into the rights of mankind in general.” He reminded his fellow citizens that their forefathers had “resolved never to wear the yoke of despotism” and that they “bravely threw themselves upon the bosom of the ocean, determined to find a place in which they might enjoy their freedom, or perish in the glorious attempt.”⁴⁰

He further pointed out that Britain became interested in the colony only after settlers had done all of the hard work of establishing it:

But when, at an infinite expense of toil and blood, this widely extended continent had been cultivated and defended: when the hardy adventurers justly expected that they and their descendants should peaceably have enjoyed the harvest of those fields which they had sown, and the fruit of those vineyards which they had planted; this country was then thought worthy the attention of the British ministry.⁴¹

Warren said that the conflict was caused by Britain’s change of policy from one of benign neglect to one of financial plunder—a policy that changed the relationship between the British and the Americans from that of equal and independent citizens to that of master and slave: “Some demon, in an evil hour, suggested to a short sighted financier, the hateful project of transferring the whole property of the king’s subjects in America, to his subjects in Britain.” Of course, to do this, the king had to deploy force. Warren described the results of the Boston Massacre as the unleashing of British regulars on local citizens:

Here let him drop a farewell tear upon that body which so late he saw vigorous and warm with social mirth; hither let me lead the tender mother to weep over her beloved son; come widowed mourner . . . behold thy murdered husband gasping on the ground; bring in each hand thy infant children to bewail their father’s fate.⁴²

He suggested that colonists had done their best to remain loyal to the king—but to no avail. Liberty, he said, must be defended at all costs: “Our streets are again filled with armed men; our harbor is crowded with ships of war; but these cannot intimidate us; our liberty must be preserved; it is far dearer than life.” In a line that he inserted at the last minute, Warren warned that present troubles could soon turn into armed conflict:

But if these pacific measures are ineffectual, and it appears that the only way to safety is through fields of blood, I know you would not turn your faces from your foes, but will, undauntedly, press forward, until tyranny is trodden under foot, and you have fixed your adored goddess Liberty, on the American throne.⁴³

Warren lifted the cause of liberty out of the realm of legal abstraction and into the realm of morality. Men are not willing to fight and die for the former, but they are for the latter. Although the rumored violence did not happen at the oration, Warren had thrown down the gauntlet. The British had no choice now but to take action or withdraw. It was clear from his oration that by this time Warren believed warfare was inevitable. In this, he was prescient.

Warren Sounds the Lexington Alarm

One thing Joseph Warren and his fellow patriots didn’t know in March 1775 was that a spy and traitor was in their midst. A spy wrote to Thomas Gage, divulging that the patriots had a very large store of gunpowder in Concord, just a few miles west of Boston. The letter revealed the exact location and likely was provided by a longtime member of the Sons of Liberty and of the Provincial Congress: Dr. Benjamin Church.⁴⁴ Gage began making plans for a raid on the munition stores in Concord.

Around the same time, on April 2, two ships arrived in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and the sailors spread the word that another ship was heading for Boston with orders to arrest the patriot leaders. The Provincial Congress met in Cambridge on April 8 and resolved to raise a continental army that combined the local militias. Afterward, given the rumors of imminent arrests, many prominent Whigs left Boston, including John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who went into hiding in Lexington. Warren was the only prominent leader who chose to stay.

Gage readied his troops and continued to receive vital information about the rebels, much of it from Church. Church wrote in one letter that the Provincial delegates wanted a recess to consult on the growing crisis and indicated that he had sufficient influence to ensure that this happened. He also said in the same letter, “A sudden blow struck now . . . or within a fortnight would oversett all their plans.”⁴⁵ Gage also was being pressured by Parliament to go on the offensive. Given these factors, Gage made his fateful decision and finalized preparations for a raid on Concord.

In the early afternoon of April 18, 1775, Bostonians noticed “an uncommon number of officers walking up and down the Long Wharf.”⁴⁶ This news was transmitted to Warren, who began to worry that a military maneuver might be imminent. Shortly after sunset, he learned that a British patrol had just departed Boston, heading west. Gage had sent this patrol to preemptively capture any alarm riders the patriots might send out. At 8 p.m. that evening the British repositioned their warships in the harbor. Although no sign of troop activity had appeared yet, this was highly suspicious, and Warren decided to act. He immediately summoned William Dawes and sent him to Lexington to warn Adams and Hancock about the patrol.

While Dawes made his way to Lexington, Gage assembled his army. He ordered twenty-one companies—consisting of 760 men—to march. To maintain secrecy, the rank and file were not told of the operation until it was time to muster. Long boats were waiting for them in Boston’s Back Bay. Some claim that Warren was informed, possibly by a spy of his own. More likely, Warren witnessed the troop movements himself given that they were not far from his home. Either way, around 10 p.m. Warren dispatched Paul Revere to sound the alarm. Amazingly, despite British patrols watching the river, Revere made it across in a rowboat with muffled oars and then made his “midnight ride.”

As Revere and Dawes alerted their countrymen, the local militias heeded their calls to arms. The next morning, when the British forces arrived at Lexington Green, they were met by the ragtag Lexington militia. Someone, nobody knows from which side, fired the first shot, and the British opened fire. When the smoke cleared, eight Americans lay dead on the green—and the American Revolution officially had begun. By ordering the Lexington alarm, Warren had initiated it. When news of the fighting reached him, Warren somehow sneaked out of Boston and joined alongside militia leader General William Heath at Menotomy, in present-day Arlington, Massachusetts, on the afternoon of April 19, 1775. People all over the countryside were enraged, and dozens of militias converged to attack the redcoats as they marched back to Boston.

That day, as one contemporary recalled, Warren “appeared in the field under the united character of the general, the soldier, and the physician; here he was seen animating his Countreymen in Battle, and fighting by their side, and there he was found administering healing Comforts to the wounded.”⁴⁷ One musket ball came so close to Warren’s head it knocked out the pin used to hold up his hair. Undaunted, he continued firing at the British and helping the wounded.⁴⁸ While Warren spent the day in the hottest part of the battle, Adams and Hancock—whose lives Warren’s quick response had saved—moved from Lexington to a safehouse in Woburn, Massachusetts, with the help of Paul Revere. They were scheduled to depart soon for the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Siege of Boston

After the events of April 19, 1775, the political resistance had become a full-blown revolution, and there was no turning back. The British troops who had engaged in the day’s battle slowly made their way back to Boston and immediately sealed it off. The city was under siege.

As delegates John and Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Robert Treat Paine made their way to Philadelphia, Warren was once again left to manage the crisis at home. As president of the Provincial Congress and chairman of the Committee of Safety, he had to juggle civil and military responsibilities. One of his first actions was to write a report of the events of April 19, 1775, to establish an official record and build support in other colonies, as well as in Great Britain. Warren’s cover letter, addressed to “The Inhabitants of Great Britain,” began,

Hostilities are at length commenced in this colony, by the troops under command of general Gage; and it being of the greatest importance, that an early, true, and authentic account of this inhuman proceeding should be known to you, the congress of this colony have transmitted the same, and for want of a session of the hon. continental congress, think it proper to address you on this alarming occasion.⁴⁹

In late April, a ship bearing Warren’s friend and patient Josiah Quincy Jr. returned to America. But because British ships were blockading Boston Harbor, the ship could not come ashore. As it hovered off the coast of Marblehead, Quincy lay dying. His last hope was to spend just one hour with Warren or Samuel Adams to say good-bye and deliver the message he was given by Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee in London. Quincy did not make it, and his message perished with him. His shipmates relayed the news of his death to Warren, who had little time to mourn.

Warren’s next task was to raise an army of thirty thousand men and turn a loose, motley collection of militias into an organized, disciplined standing army. Connecticut sent militia units and officers, including Israel Putnam and Benedict Arnold, to help. They were able to recruit several thousand men between the various New England militias; however, keeping them in line was another matter. Warren continually was frustrated by the lack of demarcation in the lines of command between his Committee of Safety and other authorities. For instance, Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull revealed a plan to negotiate with General Gage, an idea that Warren regarded as nonsense. Fortunately, he was able to convince Trumbull of this in time to prevent the talks from occurring. Toward preventing such calamities, Warren requested that the Continental Congress unify the command structure, and he expressed his preference that George Washington be made commanding general.

In late April, as Warren and the Committee of Safety strategized on how to break the siege of Boston, Benedict Arnold offered the idea of dispatching a small force to capture the lightly defended Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York. Arnold explained that heavy artillery was stockpiled there, left over from the French and Indian War. This was not a decision to be made lightly. If Arnold undertook this mission, both he and Warren would be taking an offensive action for the first time—and, under British law, would thereby commit treason. After days of deliberations, Warren decided in favor of the mission, secured funding from the Provincial Congress, and made Arnold a colonel in the Massachusetts militia. Although it was a risky endeavor, Warren knew that this artillery could be the decisive factor in defeating the heavily armed General Gage.

On May 10, 1775, Arnold’s force joined Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys for a dawn attack on Fort Ticonderoga. Their plan worked; they surprised and captured the British garrison in what was the first American victory of the Revolutionary War. Moreover, as Warren had held, the cannons from Ticonderoga proved to be the decisive factor in breaking the siege of Boston. Unfortunately, Warren would never hear of the success of his plan.

Last to Retreat

In early June, new British generals and hundreds of fresh British troops arrived with the aim of breaking the stalemate. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress was making appointments to the militia to unify command. Warren continued to manage medical, political, and military leadership. Not only was he capable in all of these roles, but his compatriots wanted him everywhere. As Abigail Adams wrote of Warren, “We want him in the Senate; we want him in his profession; we want him in the field.” Another contemporary said, “he filled each of the numerous departments of life that were assigned to him so well, that he seemed born for no other.”⁵⁰ Although he was president of the Provincial Congress and was offered the directorship of medical services for the provincial militia, he stepped down as president and turned down the directorship, accepting instead the position of major general in the Massachusetts militia. He had chosen the career of a healer, but given the context at hand and the character of this man, it is not surprising that Warren now devoted himself to war.

Shortly after Warren accepted his new role, the patriots learned that the British were planning to “sally forth” out of Boston to occupy Dorchester Heights. To counter this move, the patriots planned an occupation of Charlestown Heights, which included Bunker and Breed’s Hills. General Israel Putnam advocated this strategy, but General Artemas Ward and Warren expressed reservations. They both feared a general engagement, knowing they were low on gunpowder and ammunition. As they discussed the plan, Warren confided to Putnam, “thou hast almost persuaded me, but I must still think the project rash; Nevertheless, if the project be adopted, and the strife becomes hard, you must not be surprised to find me near you in the midst of it.”⁵¹

The Patriots had built up a formidable force of almost eight thousand men. Ward had overall command of the Massachusetts and Provincial forces, and Putnam commanded those of Connecticut. The New Hampshire militia under Colonel John Stark recently had arrived, and General Nathanael Greene commanded the Rhode Island militia. Despite the large number of forces assembled, Ward and Putnam decided to send only one thousand men to Bunker Hill. This turned out to be a grave mistake.

On the night of June 16, approximately one thousand patriot militiamen assembled in Cambridge and prepared to occupy the Charlestown hills. Most were under the command of Colonel William Prescott of Massachusetts (General Ward stayed behind at Cambridge headquarters). Although their orders were to occupy Bunker Hill and build a redoubt there, the generals and military engineers decided that night to fortify Breed’s Hill instead. This was another grave mistake.

The Provincial Congress and Committee of Safety had met the previous evening in Watertown, Massachusetts, where Warren was staying. Fellow Committee of Safety member Elbridge Gerry remembered Warren telling him that he intended to go to Bunker Hill the following day. Gerry warned him of the danger, but Warren was determined, saying, “I cannot help it. I must share the fate of my countrymen. I cannot hear the cannon and remain inactive.”⁵² There is no record of Warren telling anyone else of his intentions. Although he had been named major general three days earlier, which put him second in command to General Ward, Warren’s authority was nebulous at this point because the position had not yet been confirmed by the Provincial Congress. Technically, he was still president of the Congress and had no force to command.

Early the next morning, Warren arose and put on his best suit of clothes—a blue suit with silver buttons that his fiancée, Mercy Scollay, had made for him. How exactly Warren spent the morning is a mystery. Most historians believe that he visited his family, then stopped to see a patient. Later, he rode to General Ward’s headquarters in Cambridge to get updates from the field and assess the situation. General Putnam arrived and gave his report to the Committee of Safety, which had assembled there. They learned that the military engineers had fortified Breed’s Hill instead of Bunker Hill as originally planned. Daylight revealed to all that Breed’s was closer to the river and within range of dangerous cannon fire. Also, the British march up Breed’s Hill was clearly shorter than it would have been up Bunker Hill.

After hearing Putnam’s report, Warren headed for Charlestown, likely dodging cannonballs from the British bombardment as he made his way over the peninsula to Bunker Hill. When Warren arrived there, General Putnam offered him command out of respect for his rank. Warren declined, saying, “I have come only as a volunteer,” and asked where the hardest fighting would be. Putnam reluctantly pointed him to the redoubt at the top of Breed’s Hill a half mile away.

By the time Warren arrived at Breed’s Hill that afternoon, the troops’ anxiety was high, and their morale was low. They had been up all night building the redoubt, were short on supplies, and had little to eat or drink in the sweltering June heat. They needed reinforcements badly, but none had arrived. Many suspected that their leaders had betrayed them by placing them in such an exposed and forward position, and some deserted. Shortly before Warren left Cambridge, British warships had torched Charlestown, at the base of Breed’s Hill, and were now bombarding the men in the redoubt as the flames rose up the hill and added intense heat to the already hot afternoon. At the bottom of the hill, the best-trained army in the world was confidently assembling for a direct assault. Warren entered what British General John Burgoyne described as “one of the greatest scenes of war that can be conceived.”⁵³

As Warren walked up to the redoubt from the back of Breed’s Hill in his fine blue suit, a wild cheer went up from the demoralized and fatigued troops and “all the men huzzaed.”⁵⁴ His arrival dispelled any lingering concerns of betrayal. Colonel Prescott offered him command, but again Warren refused, saying, “the command is yours.”⁵⁵ Buoyed and reassured by Warren’s presence, the men dug in and braced for the British assault. During the battle, Warren was asked for orders and gave them. As one eyewitness recalled:

Regardless of himself, his whole soul seemed to be filled with the greatness of the cause he was engaged in; and, while his friends were dropping away all around him, he gave his orders with a surprising coolness. His character and conduct and presence greatly animated and encouraged his countrymen. His heroic soul elicited a kindred fire from the troops.⁵⁶

British troops marched up the hill to attack the redoubt. The Americans repulsed the first two assaults, holding their fire until they could see “the whites of their eyes.” But after the second assault, they had almost run out of ammunition. As the British reformed their lines to rush the redoubt, many of the Americans were reduced to placing nails and small rocks in their muskets. On the third and final assault, the British poured over the mud walls and tore into the patriots with a “forest of bayonets.” The Americans were out of ammunition and had no bayonets. Some resorted to hand-to-hand combat. The only route for retreat was at the back of the redoubt, which now formed a deadly gauntlet with British troops on both sides of that exit. Warren and Prescott began to retreat, defending against bayonet thrusts with their swords. Prescott later said, “Warren was among the last to go out.”⁵⁷

Warren got out of the redoubt and was retreating with a handful of patriots. They made it about thirty yards from the dirt fort when, according to a British officer who witnessed it, “The celebrated Dr. Warren . . . was killed in a cowardly manner by an officer’s servant.” Warren was recognized by a British officer, but before the officer could take him prisoner, his servant grabbed a pistol and shot Warren in the face. Americans retreating close by Warren apparently witnessed this, and the servant “was instantly cut to pieces.”⁵⁸

As Stark’s New Hampshire militia covered the American retreat, Joseph Warren was left on the field with the other American dead and wounded. After the battle, General William Howe did not believe the reports that Warren was among the dead. He called on Dr. John Jeffries, who was a Loyalist but an old friend of Warren’s, to identify him. Jeffries made the identification, and Warren’s body was thrown into a common grave.⁵⁹

Writing to her husband, John, shortly after Bunker Hill, Abigail Adams’s first thoughts were about Warren:

The Day; perhaps the decisive Day is come on which the fate of America depends. My bursting Heart must find vent at my pen. I have just heard that our dear Friend Dr. Warren is no more but fell gloriously fighting for his Country—saying better to die honourably in the field than ignominiously hang upon the Gallows. Great is our Loss. He has distinguished himself in every engagement, by his courage and fortitude, by animating the Soldiers & leading them on by his own example.⁶⁰

As news spread of his death, tributes began pouring in. Joseph Warren soon gained mythic status and became an inspiration for the entire revolution. He remains the highest-ranking officer to have died in the Revolutionary War.

Almost a year after Warren sent Benedict Arnold on his mission to upstate New York, the cannons from Fort Ticonderoga were finally hauled back to Boston by Henry Knox. George Washington had them positioned on Dorchester Heights on March 5, 1776, the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. As Warren had envisioned, the cannons did indeed provide the firepower needed to free Boston.

With the long siege broken, Warren’s friends and family could finally retrieve his body and give him a proper burial. Accompanied by Paul Revere, Warren’s brothers Jack and Ebenezer searched for him on Breed’s Hill. Warren’s body was positively identified by Revere, who had installed two ivory teeth with a silver wire for his friend years earlier.

Warren’s funeral became a national event. Most of the eulogies focused on “General Warren” at Bunker Hill, overshadowing his lifetime of accomplishments as a physician, thinker, writer, orator, organizer, and political leader. Given that his compatriots were now fighting a war in which Warren lost his life, this was only natural. However, Warren should be remembered for much more.

Why Joseph Warren Matters Today

More than anything else, ideas determine the course of history. Given that, the creators of this country were the small group of men, primarily in Boston, who formed and shaped the popular thought in the years preceding the Battles of Lexington and Concord. As John Adams said many years after the war, “The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.”⁶¹ Of those men, Joseph Warren stands out as the clearest thinker and most effective leader of the Boston patriots. He not only grasped and articulated the revolutionary ideas of the period, but he was intimately involved in putting those ideas into practice.

In the turbulent twelve months prior to the revolution, Warren’s words and deeds set the example for his countrymen. Just as Abraham Lincoln would lead America to Sumter, Joseph Warren had led the country to Lexington. Lincoln’s goal would be to save the union. Warren’s had been to create it. Both made their cases on moral grounds and put the enemy on the defensive. As Warren said in his last oration, “Where justice is the standard, heaven is the warrior’s shield; but conscious guilt unnerves the arm that lifts the sword against the innocent.”

Joseph Warren should be remembered as a founding father who embodied the spirit of liberty essential to both the Revolution and the founding. Warren’s injunction to his audience on March 6, 1775—“act worthy of yourselves”—was a clarion call to enact the virtue essential to liberty. Although he was a British subject most of his life, Warren had a thoroughly American sense of life—a sense of life that responds to overbearing authority, not with submission, but with bold defiance. Had he not died so soon in defense of liberty, he likely would have been among the most important leaders of the American Revolution and subsequent founding. Given his abilities, charisma, and wide acclaim, he very well may have become the first president of the United States.

Warren’s ideal was “a government as should give every man the greatest liberty to do what he pleases consistent with restraining him from doing any injury to another.” He waged his battle under the “sacred banner of reason” and opposed the initiation of force and imposition of arbitrary power. Joseph Warren clearly had the courage of his convictions and set an example for millions of Americans who would follow him.

On that bloody, smoke-filled hill above Boston on that hot June day in 1775, America lost one of her noblest sons and first heroes.

About Tom Malone

Tom Malone is an entrepreneur and technology consultant in the greater Boston area, and the author of A Defense of American Ideals.

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