Kurt Morris, age 13, of Lowell, Mass., for his question:

WHO WERE THE SONS OF LIBERTY?

Sons of Liberty was a group of patriotic societies that sprang up in the American colonies before the Revolutionary War. The Sons of Liberty groups started as secret societies, but later came into the open.

The groups fought against the Stamp Tax of 1765. Members opposed the importation of British goods after the passage of the Townshend Acts, and later began to demand national independence. Members helped other independence moves, including the calling of the Continental Congress.

During the Civil War, a group of men known as the Copperheads started to call themselves Sons of Liberty. They were Northern sympathizers with the South and they planned to overthrow the Lincoln government.