Why a Minute Man fought at the Battle of Concord

...In the early 1840s, a young historian named Mellen Chamberlain sought out one of last surviving participants in the Battle of Concord to ask him about that historic experience. (About the same time from the revolution to then had passed as between WW II and now.) The minuteman’s name was Levi Preston, who was 91 at the time.

Chamberlain asked Preston why he had fought the British. The answers weren’t what the historian expected, for Preston did not speak of the oppressive British rule, the stamp tax, the tea tax or the writings of philosopher John Locke.

“Well, then,” Chamberlain asked, “why did you fight?”

“Young man, what we meant in going for those redcoats was this: We always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to and they meant that we shouldn’t.”...

- Michael Quinn Sullivan, Empower Texans/Texans for Fiscal Responsibility