The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.

John Adams made this observation while reflecting on the origins of American independence in his later years, emphasizing that the decisive break with Britain was psychological and ideological before it became military. In correspondence written decades after the events, Adams argued that the “Revolution” properly understood was the transformation of colonial opinion—shaped by disputes over taxation, representation, and constitutional rights—rather than the armed conflict that followed. The remark fits Adams’s broader effort to define the Revolution as a change in principles and public sentiment that preceded Lexington and Concord, and to correct what he saw as a tendency to equate revolution solely with battlefield events.

Adams distinguishes between war as a means and revolution as a prior change in collective consciousness. The “effected” Revolution is the shift in beliefs, loyalties, and expectations that made independence thinkable and ultimately necessary; the war merely expressed and defended that earlier transformation. By locating the Revolution in “minds and hearts,” Adams highlights the power of political ideas, persuasion, and moral conviction—suggesting that durable political change depends on widespread internal assent, not only on force. The line also implies that legitimacy comes from a people’s settled judgment, and that the true turning point in history is often invisible: a reorientation of public opinion before any formal declaration or armed clash.

“The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington.”
“The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people, a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations.”