James Bowdoin (August 7, 1726-November 6, 1790) was an American Revolutionary leader, scientist and successful colonial merchant. He graduated from Harvard, 1745; served in the Massachusetts General Court, 1753-56, and the Executive Council of Massachusetts, 1757-74. He was the president of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, 1779. In 1785, he was elected Governor of Massachusetts after John Hancock's first term, and was known for ending Shays' Rebellion.
He was active in the Massachusetts Convention which ratified the U.S. Constitution, 1788. In 1780, he founded the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, serving as its first president. Bowdoin College in Maine, founded in 1794, was named for him. James Bowdoin was a member of:
<The Society for Propagating the Gospel Among the Indians and Others.> 1726JB001
In formulating the Constitution of the State of Massachusetts, 1780, James Bowdoin stated:
<The happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality.> 1726JB002
On November 8, 1780, in Boston, as president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, James Bowdoin delivered A Philosophical Discourse, Addresses to the American Academy, of Arts and Sciences, etc., etc. In the section on natural history, he mentioned:
<At the origination of man, when it was indispensably necessary he should be supplied with the means of subsistence...his beneficent Creator, the first and the Supremely Great Naturalist, made known to him the nature and qualities of things.> 1726JB003
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1726JB003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). James Bowdoin, November 8, 1780, in an address he delivered as president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences titled, A Philosophical Discourse, Addresses to the American Academy, of Arts and Sciences, etc., etc., (Boston: 1780). The Annals of America, 20 vols. (Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968), Vol. 2, p. 543.