James Otis wrote in "The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved," 1764: "If every prince since Nimrod had been a tyrant, it would not prove a right to tyrannize. There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of nature and the grant of GOD Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free."
The men of Marlborough, Massachusetts, declared: "Death is more eligible than slavery. A free-born people are not required by the religion of Jesus Christ to submit to tyranny, but may make use of such power as God has given them to recover and support their liberties ... We implore the Ruler above the skies that He would bare His arm ... and let Israel go."
The Essex Journal stated of Nathan Hale, February 13, 1777: "At the gallows, he made a sensible and spirited speech; among other things, told them they were shedding the blood of the innocent, and that if he had ten thousand lives, he would lay them all down, if called to it, in defense of his injured, bleeding Country."
Chief Justice James Kent wrote in People v. Ruggles, 1811:"We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply ingrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those impostors ..."
Joseph Story was Harvard's first Dane Professor of Law. He stated in a speech at Harvard in 1829: "There never has been a period of history, in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundation."
