Political Quotes

“we are always wise in this Chamber to reflect with reverence and gratitude on those who risked their lives fighting to establish this great Republic. Today I would like to recognize and celebrate the 240th anniversary of one of the earliest acts of defiance against the British Crown in our American struggle for independence. Most Americans remember the Boston Tea Party as one of the major events building up to the American Revolution. I see the pages in front of me nodding knowledgeably: Yes, I do know about the Boston Tea Party. We learned that story of the spirited Bostonians--literally spirited Bostonians, I am told--clamoring onto the decks of the East India Company's ships and dumping those tea bags into Boston Harbor to protest British taxation without representation. However, there is a milestone on the path to the Revolutionary War that is too often overlooked, and that is the story of 60 or so brave Rhode Islanders who challenged British rule more than a year before the Tea Party in Boston. Today I rise to honor those little-known heroes who risked their lives in defiance of oppression on one dark night in Rhode Island 240 years ago. In the year before the Revolutionary War, as tensions with the American Colonies grew, King George III stationed revenue cutters, armed customs patrol vessels, along the American coastline to prevent smuggling and force the payment of taxes and impose the authority of the Crown.…”