Politics

1776 All-Stars: Samuel Adams Was the Most Libertarian Founder

The libertarian rabble-rouser who helped ignite the American Revolution

Jack Nicastro | From the July 2026 issue

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(Illustration: Joanna Andreasson, ChatGPT-5.4; Source images: Wikimedia)

This is part of 1776 All-Stars, a series about Reason's favorite American Founders. Read more here.

The American Battlefield Trust describes Samuel Adams as "a rabble-rouser and propagandist" for American independence. His tireless advocacy and organizing for liberty, his limited time in major political office, and his disdain for hereditary aristocracy make him the most libertarian Founding Father.

You can find a couple of libertarian-leaning legislators wandering the halls of the Capitol, but libertarians often operate outside of elective office, as rabble-rousers and propagandists first and foremost. Albert Jay Nock eloquently expressed as much in his 1936 essay "Isaiah's Job." The libertarian's usual task is to fan the torch of liberty and pass it on to the next generation of always-lonely liberty lovers so that the world may be made marginally freer over time.

But Samuel Adams did not merely keep liberty alive in the hearts and minds of a minority of Americans. He fanned so much oxygen into the flame that it grew........

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