influential figure—and a man well acquainted with failure.^6
A portly man who led a nation and its leaders with
words, Adams roused a multitude to action through his
numerous newspaper opinion articles and speeches. He was,
in the words of Thomas Jefferson, “truly the Man of the
Revolution.” His second cousin John called him “zealous,
ardent and keen in the Cause.”^7 But before he commanded
the respect of some of America’s greatest heroes, he spent a
good part of his life pivoting from one failure to the next.
First he tried to be a lawyer, and when that didn’t work,
he tried to be a maltster, a person who makes the malt that is
later used to make beer. Later he tried his hand at business
and failed at that too. No matter what he tried, success
seemed to evade Samuel, and his family, who had high
hopes for him, was beginning to worry he might not amount
to much. It wasn’t until he became involved in politics—
initially through writing and attending town hall meetings—
that he came alive, finding the thing he was born to do.
Through his writings, he became the voice of the
American Revolution, and it was that voice that roused
others like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John
Adams to the cause. After the war, he remained in politics
but never became president. He was content with a
governorship of his home state, Massachusetts, where he
lived out the remainder of his days.^8 Were it not for his
tenacity, his willingness to keep trying things until he found
the right path, Samuel Adams never would have found his