Yet when northern delegates actually met their southern brethren, they were impressed both by their political acumen and their seriousness of purpose. Caesar Rodney, commenting on the Virginia delegation, marveled that “more Sensible, fine fellows you’d Never Wish to See.” Connecticut’s Silas Deane, writing to his wife, provided descriptions of each of the delegates from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, emphasizing “the ease and eloquence of their speech as well as the gentility of their manners.” Most surprising, with a few exceptions such as South Carolina’s John Rutledge and his brother Edward, it was the southerners, not the New Englanders, who in their public utterances appeared to be the most militant members of the Congress. As Silas Deane described them to his wife: “I never met, nor scarcely had an Idea of Meeting With Men of such firmness, sensibility, spirit, and Thorough Knowledge of the Interests of America, as the Gentlemen from the Southern Provinces.”3
This is not to say that cultural and regional differences among the delegates somehow evaporated. If there was one thing the New Englanders might have wished to change about their southern brethren, for example, it was their work habits. Samuel Ward of Rhode Island complained to his son that “The southern Gentlemen have been used to do no Business in afternoon so that We rise about 2 or 3 o’Clock & set no more that Day & as we meet late in a Morning, We shall sett a long while.” John Adams voiced a similar complaint about the late start of business in the morning and the early quitting time, noting that it was impossible to persuade the southern delegates to do anything after three in the afternoon.4
If there was one thing with which the delegates were most impressed, regardless of the prevalent lifestyles in their home regions, it was the quantity and quality of the parties or “levees” staged by prominent Philadelphians in their honor. Nearly every evening during the seven weeks the Congress was in session, the delegates were hosted at elaborate dinners, teas and dances. John Adams, perhaps because he was a New Englander not used to such displays of conviviality and extravagance, or, perhaps because he was, simply, John Adams, was overwhelmed by the hospitality that he received while in Philadelphia. On September 8, following a dinner at the impressive home of Samuel Powel, then mayor of Philadelphia, he recorded in his diary: “A most sinfull Feast again! Every Thing which could delight the Eye, or allure the Taste, Curds and Creams, jellies, Sweet meats of various sorts, 20 sorts of Tarts, fools, Trifles, floating Islands, whipped Sillabubs &c. Parmesan Cheese, Punch, Wine, Porter, Beer, &c &c.” A week later, following a dinner with Benjamin Rush and a number of other Philadelphia notables, Adams marveled that he had attended “a mighty feast again,” in which he indulged in the “very best of Claret, Madeira, and Burgundy.” And then, dining with Benjamin Chew, chief justice of Pennsylvania, he once again enjoyed imbibing what was, for him, unusual quantities of alcohol, reporting, perhaps somewhat guiltily, in his diary that he had “found no Inconvenience in it.”5
Many of the most prominent Philadelphians, meanwhile, though not attending the formal meetings of the Congress, were making their influence felt. Thomas Wharton, for example, one of the wealthiest and most powerful Philadelphia merchants, had dragged his feet in endorsing measures to oppose British policy at every step along the way. In the aftermath of the passage of the Tea Act, Wharton had been one of the last of the Philadelphia merchants to sign a pledge to refuse to accept the East India Company tea. When he finally agreed to sign, the publisher of the Pennsylvania Chronicle, William Goddard, noted in his newspaper, acidly, that Wharton was “now despised something less than he used to be.” Wharton was also among those Philadelphians who had supported the idea of a general congress only because he thought it might serve as a means of slowing, not escalating, the resistance movement against British policies. As the Congress was carrying out its business, Wharton bragged to a friend that the rule of secrecy would not pose any problems for him, for “my intimacy with the leading members of most of the colonies, gives me an opportunity in conversation of knowing their daily results.”6
Debate in the full Congress continued amidst the constant rounds of dinners, teas and fancy dress balls. On the final day of September, the delegates agreed, at least in principle, on a comprehensive ban on all exports to Great Britain, Ireland and the West Indies beginning on September 10, 1775. The Congress then elected a committee consisting of Thomas Cushing, Thomas Mifflin, Isaac Low, Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Johnson to devise a more specific plan for implementing the resolution they had just adopted. Among that group, Cushing, Mifflin and Lee were all clearly identified as wanting immediate implementation, Johnson’s views were generally not known, and Low, in keeping with the character of his fellow New York delegates, was likely to want to temporize.
The following day, October 1, the Congress agreed to send a petition to King George III “dutifully requesting the royal attention to the grievances that alarm and distress his majesty’s faithful subjects in North America” and asking him to intervene to redress those grievances. The committee chosen to draft that petition was a high-powered one—Richard Henry Lee, John Adams, Thomas Johnson, Patrick Henry and John Rutledge. Lee, Adams and Henry were all clearly of one mind, having gone on record repeatedly as desiring bold actions, Johnson was the one moderate and John Rutledge was the one member of the committee who appeared to still be siding with the dwindling number in the Congress trying to apply the brakes to an overly combative approach to the imperial crisis.7
As that committee’s members went to work, other delegates were closely following their progress. John Jay created a major stir by proposing that the committee be instructed to include in its petition an offer to the king to pay for the tea destroyed in Boston. Isaac Low, James Duane, James Ross (another Galloway sympathizer from the Pennsylvania delegation) and Virginia’s Edmund Pendleton supported Jay’s proposal, but John Adams, Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry resisted it. In a sign that the alliance between South Carolina delegates John and Edward Rutledge and the more conservative New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians might be weakening, both Rutledges gave speeches opposing any move to pay for the East India Company tea. In the end, the Congress decided not to include that offer in the petition, another sign that the conservatives were losing ground.8
James Duane introduced a resolution intended to shape the language of the petition to the king, this one emphasizing the colonies’ willingness to “cheerfully comply” with royal requests for men and money for defense of the British Empire in America. Although Duane did not explicitly mention taxes, he was, in effect, proposing that Americans make voluntary contributions for the good of the empire, so long as any requests for those contributions did not come in the form of mandatory taxes.
Many delegates thought Duane’s language too obsequious. On October 3, Richard Henry Lee proposed that the Congress explicitly reject the need for any “aid” from the British in relation to the defense of the colonies. Lee’s proposal asserted that “North America . . . is able, willing and determined to Protect, Defend, and Secure itself” and, following from that logic, recommended that the colonies form a single, well-disciplined and properly armed militia to repel a possible British attack. Lee did not stop there. He included in his proposal language asserting that the Congress itself should be considered the “constitutional, honorable, and compitent support for the purposes of Government and Administration of Justice.”9
Lee’s suggestion of a single North American militia was path-breaking. It was a major step both toward inter-colonial unity and away from dependence on the British military. Equally important, he urged that the Continental Congress assume new powers, transforming itself from a temporary, extra-legal gathering of men carrying out the will of individual provincial legislatures to a legitimate governmental body representing the “united colonies” and armed with the power to raise an inter-colonial militia. American colonial militia companies had in the past cooperated in fighting against French or Indian adversaries on the frontier, but this call for a continental milit
ia, to be used to fight against a British military, was unprecedented.
But Lee was moving too far, too fast. John Rutledge, who had joined the more radical delegates in refusing to offer to pay for the East India Company tea, objected that Lee’s language regarding defense could well be interpreted as a “Declaration of Warr,” Edmund Pendleton, Benjamin Harrison and Richard Bland of Virginia, Isaac Low of New York, William Hooper of North Carolina and Edward Rutledge all joined John Rutledge in protesting the war-like tone of Lee’s language. They all agreed that the creation of a continental militia with the explicit purpose of warding off a British attack, far from frightening the British government into backing off and pursuing a more conciliatory course toward the colonies, was much more likely to make any hope of reconciliation impossible.10
Patrick Henry now took the floor, speaking eloquently and at length in support of his Virginia colleague. “A preparation for Warr,” he argued, “is Necessary to obtain peace.” Returning to the theme that he had raised at the very beginning of the Congress, namely, that Americans now found themselves in a “state of nature,” he insisted that the delegates move forward immediately to arm the colonies.11
But the delegates were not yet ready to adopt such a belligerent resolution. They would compromise. The first half of the resolution, adopted on October 3, would “assure his Majesty that the colonies have, or will make ample provision for defraying all the necessary expenses of supporting government and due administration of Justice in the respecting colonies.” In other words, the colonies would take responsibility for paying their fair share of the costs of administering their own government. The resolution’s second half, while not fulfilling Lee’s call to arm the colonies, stated the Congress’s desire to do whatever was necessary to provide for a militia sufficient to protect the colonies “in time of peace,” and, further, that it was prepared to consider additional steps “for raising any further forces” should that prove necessary. A disappointed Lee voted against this watered-down version, but he was in a distinct minority and was outvoted even within his own delegation, and the more weakly worded version passed unanimously.12
The delegates continued to debate the substance and tone of their petition to the king for the next three days. On October 5, they wrangled over the language in the petition spelling out the list of actions that the king and Parliament needed to undertake in order for reconciliation to be achieved. It was a long list, including the restoration of the status quo prior to 1763; the repeal of all laws and regulations aimed at raising a revenue in America; an end to attempts to try Americans accused of crimes committed in America in British Courts of Admiralty; and a repeal of all of the punitive laws aimed at Boston and Massachusetts. At first glance this seemed like a pretty substantial list of conditions for the restoration of harmony—indeed, so substantial that it would have been unlikely that King George III would have agreed to it. But in the eyes of many, it did not go far enough. By dating the beginning of America’s troubles with Parliament at 1763, it ignored the question of whether that body had the power to pass trade and navigation acts affecting American commerce. Perhaps more important, the argument over whether to limit the statement of American grievances to those actions by Parliament dating after 1763 or to compile a much longer list dating back to the founding of the colonies was propelled by radically different assumptions about the American colonies’ historical connection to Great Britain. If England’s transgressions on American liberty had only begun in 1763, then, perhaps, a reversal in policy might be sufficient to restore harmony. But if the transgressions had been occurring since the very beginning of colonization, then there might well be some fundamental defect in the colonial relationship that would be much more difficult to remedy.
Silas Deane left a brief record of the debate that day in his diary, and although some of his entries are cryptic, it appears that the delegates were all over the map on the proposed language. Some, including Isaac Low, James Duane, John Jay and probably Edward Rutledge objected on the grounds that the proposed resolution was still too combative. A few others, notably Edward Biddle, Thomas Lynch, Christopher Gadsden, Roger Sherman, Samuel Chase and, most emphatically, Patrick Henry, expressed varying degrees of skepticism about whether the resolution went far enough. Lynch objected that limiting American grievances to the period after 1763 would not deal with some of the “worst acts,” especially some of the earlier navigation acts placing restrictions on American trade.13
At that point in the debate, two delegates spoke for the extremes. John Jay was taking the role of the most outspoken advocate of conciliatory language in the petition to the king. Patrick Henry, who had already clashed with Jay during the opening days of the Congress, now went after him again, accusing him of pusillanimity. But again, the room leaned toward moderation. Even the two Adamses, as well as Richard Henry Lee, decided to take a middle ground and support the proposed language of the list of American grievances. Recognizing that the question of when to date the beginning of American grievances against Great Britain might create an unbridgeable division in the Congress, they suggested that it “is better for the present to temporize” and not to agitate the question of the pre-1763 trade regulations. In fact, the move here by Lee and the two Adamses was entirely calculated. By agreeing to confine their protests to only those British policies pursued after 1763, they hoped to win the trust of moderates in the Congress whose votes were essential, as Sam Adams had noted a week earlier, to a truly united American opposition. Men like the Adamses and Richard Henry Lee may well have had the thought of independence—at least as a last resort—in their minds even at this early date, but they would have emphatically denied it, and they realized that their best chance of bringing other delegates around to their way of thinking was to move cautiously. Sometime during the day on October 5, the delegates voted on the language of the post-1763 part of the petition, and by a narrow margin, six colonies in favor, five opposed, and Pennsylvania’s delegation deadlocked, the Congress reached a fragile consensus. Most of the delegations had members voting on both sides of the question, with some wishing for more pacific and others wishing for stronger language. This was an important moment for the Congress and was in some senses a credit to the strategic vision of men like John and Sam Adams and Richard Henry Lee, for if they had insisted on more strident language, it might have been more difficult to reach agreement on other, ultimately more important, issues down the road.14
But the delegates still needed to reach consensus on the difficult details of the non-importation and non-exportation agreements. In spite of their September 30 agreement in principle to impose a ban on all goods imported from Great Britain, Ireland and the West Indies, many colonies still resisted the ban on sugar, coffee and molasses from the West Indies. Further, as everyone in the room knew, many of the goods imported into the mainland colonies from the West Indies were smuggled in, avoiding the payment of British duties altogether. Did the delegates mean to put an end to that trade as well? The issue of whether some items should be exempt from the ban on exports was even more divisive than that relating to the ban on importing sugar, coffee and molasses, for it was here that the specific economic interests of particular colonies, and more generally, the division of interest between the staple-exporting southern colonies and the northern colonies, were brought directly into play. Over the next few weeks the Congress would repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, try to agree on the specifics of the non-exportation policy. On October 6, Isaac Low, whose unhappiness with the Congress’s radical turn had continued to grow, used the wrangling over that issue as an excuse to propose that the Congress adjourn for six months, and, after the colonial legislatures had elected new delegates, try once again to reach an accord. In the midst of his speech defending that proposal, Low, in one of the most acrimonious moments in the Congress thus far, went on to rail against the attempt of some of his congressional colleagues to move the colonies toward “Independency.” Both John and Sam Adams kept their cool while Low
gave his speech, but privately, they worried about whether the colonies would ever be able to unite on common ground. In a letter he wrote but never sent to Abigail because he was worried about his correspondence being intercepted, John Adams complained that “fifty strangers” in the Congress, overcome by fear and jealousy, would stand in the way of any decisive action to protect the afflicted citizens of Boston. Sam Adams echoed his cousin’s fears and frustration. Writing to his Boston confidant Joseph Warren, he worried that in spite of all of the Massachusetts delegation’s efforts to appear “cool and judicious,” men like Low were seeking to depict them as intemperate and rash advocates of independence.15
In the midst of the debates over the precise details of non-importation and non-exportation, Paul Revere appeared on October 6 with another of his “expresses” from Boston, alerting the delegates that General Gage had deployed more British troops, effectively turning Boston into a military garrison, with its residents “to be treated by the soldiery as declared enemies.” Drafted by the Boston Committee of Correspondence on September 28, this was not a mere strategic ploy devised by Sam Adams. In fact, Gage was escalating his efforts to assert military control over Boston, and the committee was genuinely concerned that Boston was in danger of imminent devastation. But arriving as it did in the midst of the debates over the petition to the king over non-importation and non-exportation, some of the more conservative delegates were quick to conclude that it was all part of a radical plan to push Americans into “Independency.”
Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor Page 18
