Speech at the Conference of December 15th, 2007Boston's Faneuil Hall, capital city of the sovereign state of Massachusettsby Ethan AllenMr. McGovern, Mr. King, Mr. McCampbell, worthy delegates and friends: I humbly thank you, and make bold to congratulate you for the wisdom you have shown in your choice of Founding Fathers.I am not so vain as to imagine that my remarks will afford any considerable enlightenment to the learned representatives assembled hither. Yet it is possible that they may be somewhat diverted with the untutored logic, and Sallies of a mind nursed principally in the mountainous wilds.As prologue to this conference I will tell you straight: some are appointed to office in these states who read the history of the cruelties of this war with the same careless indifference as they do the pages of the Roman History, nay, some are preferred to places of trust and profit by the tory influence. It stands all freemen in hand to prevent their further influence, which of all things is most baneful to the liberties and happiness of the country; for wherever such influence takes place, it robs us of the victory we have obtained at the expense of so much blood and treasure.Ever since I arrived to a state of manhood, and acquainted myself with the general history of mankind, I have felt a sincere passion for liberty. The history of nations doomed to perpetual slavery, in consequence of yielding up to tyrants their natural born liberties, I read with a sort of philosophical horror; so that the first systematical and bloody attempt at Lexington, to enslave America, thoroughly electrified my mind, and fully determined me to take part with my country: And while I was wishing for an opportunity to signalize myself in its behalf, directions were privately sent to me from the then colony of Connecticut, to raise the Green Mountain Boys; (and if possible) with them to surprise and take the fortress Ticonderoga. This enterprise I cheerfully undertook.In short, this surprise was carried into execution (not one man lost neither friend nor foe) and so I have the honor to report that the sun seemed to rise that morning with a superior luster; and Ticonderoga and its dependencies smiled on its conquerors who tossed about the flowing bowl and wished success to congress, and the liberty and freedom of America.Happy they will be who look back upon that day, even from the end of time, and claim: This land is Free - this place whose people stood up to their oppressors is still free.Let history record that we, still carrying on without firing a shot, brought to their knees all those who, in the name of security, made enemies, in the name of patriotism wrought treason and tyranny, in the name of peace made war, and in the name of liberty would turn us into slaves.We hear the cannon. And we can hear the bell toll for the union of the executive, legislative, judicial, military, and corporate. It is the bell that tolls the death knell for the Republic; for who will hold these powers to account? Where is the line that tyrants will not cross - when the scribblers of our free press shield treason for their daily bread?Let us act. Who will confront the thieves of our private and common property? Who will confront the procurers of our willing youth who turn our conscripts into redcoats and send them off to pillage in the farthest reaches of the globe? Who will confront usurpers when our own elected servants, wrapped in the comfort of their brief authority with pretended zeal for good order and government strike at the lands and labours of honest citizens?And, inasmuch as the malignity of their disposition towards partisans of liberty flames to an immeasurable and murderous degree, they have in their new-fangled laws . . . so calculated them, as to correspond with the depravedness of their minds and morals; in them laws they have exhibited their genuine pictures. The emblems of the insatiable, avaricious, overbearing, inhuman, barbarous, and blood-guiltiness of disposition and intention are therein portraited in that transparent image of themselves, which cannot fail to be a blot, and infamous reproach to them, to posterity.God damn them. God damn their Governor, Laws, King, Council and Assembly. We'll make a hell for them and every son-of-a-bitch that will take their part. For wherever they lurk, and wherever they look, we'll be there.Performed by Jim Hogue as Ethan Allen.