Liberty Cannot Be Preserved Without General

Adams wrote this in A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765), an early essay prompted by his opposition to the British Stamp Act. He argued that the colonial tradition of public education — rooted in New England Puritan communities — was the foundation of American resistance to tyranny, because an educated populace could recognize and resist arbitrary power. The essay marked Adams's emergence as a serious political thinker and foreshadowed arguments he would develop throughout his career.