Bernhard Knollenberg on the Belief of many colonial Americans that Liberty was lost because the Leaders of the People had failed in their Duty (2003)
In his magisterial history of the American Revolution, Bernhard Knollenberg remarks upon the problems facing the Continental Congress in September 1774:
Politics & Liberty
One of the points particularly stressed in the writings in defense of liberty was that liberty, once enjoyed but lost, had commonly been lost because leaders of the people, who ought to have taken timely action to preserve it, had failed in their duty.