More Boston Tea Party History

Boston Review (h/t Ritholtz):

Do we have any way of knowing Bostonians’ underlying values in 1773? One way might be to thumb the pages of the official Boston Town Records in the decades before the Revolution to see the numerous ways the town-meeting government assumed responsibility for the “many.” So-called “overseers of the poor,” who were for the most part men of some wealth, distributed direct relief ward-by-ward to a huge number of poor widows in their homes. For the destitute, the overseers maintained an almshouse and a workhouse, both admittedly grim places. The selectmen also authorized a town granary to provide grain at set prices in times of dearth. To put the numerous unemployed to work, the town sponsored a “Manufactory House” of spinners and weavers managed in the 1760s by William Molineux, a leading Tea Party organizer. And in 1774, when Britain closed the port and massive unemployment loomed, the town meeting voted at “this Time of general Calamity” to put people to work: to erect a wharf, build ships, pave the streets, or undertake “any other public Work.” To meet such social responsibilities, Bostonians supported taxation—as long as it came from either their own participatory town meeting or the Massachusetts Assembly they voted for. Samuel Adams was no less popular because he made his living for eight years as one of the town’s four tax collectors. (His father, not he, was a brewer.)
The town records also suggest Bostonians took for granted that their government should regulate the quality of manufactured goods. The town appointed Ebenezer Macintosh—the shoemaker at the Tea Party—one of several “sealers of leather” and selected a score of other artisans as “inspectors” or “surveyors” of lumber, shingles, hemp, etc. From time immemorial the town set the “assize” of bread, establishing the size, weight, and price bakers might charge. Arguably, citizens registered their assent to regulating the market every time they bought a loaf.
In 1780 Bostonians spelled out the philosophy underlying such actions when, after much debate, they voted in the town meeting 847-0 to ratify a new constitution for the aptly named Commonwealth of Massachusetts, drafted principally by Samuel and John Adams. “Government,” Article VII explained, “is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men.” Earlier Cato had asked, “is it a crime to be rich?” and answered, “Yes, certainly at the publick Expence, or to the Danger of the Publick.” Cato argued, “Power was needed when men tried to put a whole Country in Two or Three people’s Pockets.” In 1773 the body of the people in Old South, founders all, would have cheered his answer.

Bostonian big government in action, 18th Century Edition.