20.Edward Potts Cheyney, A History of the University of Pennsylvania, 1740–1940 (Philadelphia, 1957), pp. 53–125, esp. pp. 109–100, 119–120.; Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, pp. 103–104, 122–123, 146–148.
21.Peter Thompson, Rum Punch and Revolution: Taverngoing and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1999), pp. 145–181; Beeman, Plain, Honest Men, p. 75; Philadelphia Inns and Taverns, 1774–1780. Robert E. Graham. ARC (Student Reports, Box 1), LIB, Independence National Historical Park Archives, n.d.
22.Smith, “The Lower Sort,” pp. 7–39; Boudreau, Independence, pp. 32–35.
23.Silas Deane to Elizabeth Deane, Aug. 31–Sept. 5, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 15–23.
24.Worthington C. Ford et al., eds., The Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (Washington, DC, 1904–1937), 1: 13–15; Smith, Letters, 1: xxvi–xxxii.
25.Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” pp. 90, 114.
26.Ibid., p. 112. Much of the data on the educational background of the delegates has been gathered by looking at the individual biographies of each of the delegates in the Allen Johnson, ed., Dictionary of American Biography, 11 vols. (New York, 1964), passim.
27.Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” p. 110.
28.Ibid., p. 111; Dictionary of American Biography, passim.
29.Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” p. 115.
CHAPTER 4—TWO DIFFERENT PATHS TO LIBERTY: JOHN ADAMS AND JOHN DICKINSON
1.The legend of Adams as the “Atlas of Independence” comes from a letter from New Jersey Delegate Richard Stockton’s son to Adams on Sept. 12, 1821, in which he told Adams that his father had told him that “The Man to whom the Country is most indebted for the great measure of Independence is Mr. John Adams of Boston—I call him the Atlas of American independence.” John Hazleton, The Declaration of Independence: Its History (New York, 1905), pp. 161–162.
2.There are of course dozens of biographies of John Adams, the most famous being David McCullough’s John Adams (New York, 2001). Among the Adams biographies that I found most useful are Joseph Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (New York, 1993); Page Smith, John Adams, 2 vols. (Garden City, NJ, 1962); and Ferling, John Adams. More recent studies are James Grant, John Adams: Party of One (New York, 2005) and John Patrick Diggins, John Adams (New York, 2003). For the details on Adams’s early life, I have relied primarily on Ferling’s biography. Richard Brookhiser’s America’s First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735–1918 (New York, 2002) is about the Adams family as a whole.
3.A particularly insightful analysis of Adams’s youth and the development of his personality is Bernard Bailyn, “Butterfield’s Adams: Notes for a Sketch,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. ser., 19 (1962): 238–256; Ferling, John Adams, pp. 11–19.
4.The fourth lawyer Adams visited, Benjamin Prat, summarily rejected Adams’s request for support, perhaps because he didn’t have a letter of recommendation from Putnam. Ferling, John Adams, pp. 20–24.
5.Adams, Diary, Dec. 18, 1758, January 1759, 1: 63, 68, 73.
6.Ferling, John Adams, pp. 28–30.
7.Ibid., pp. 31–34. There are nearly as many studies of Abigail and John Adams the couple as there are of John Adams himself. Among the most recent are Edith B. Gelles, Abigail and John: Portrait of a Marriage (New York, 2009); and Joseph Ellis, First Family: Abigail and John Adams (New York, 2010).
8.Ferling, John Adams, pp. 46–47; McCullough, John Adams, pp. 59–61.
9.Adams, Diary, Dec. 18, 1765, 1: 263–65.
10.Ferling, John Adams, pp. 46–48.
11.Adams, Diary, Aug. 15, 1765, 1: 260.
12.Ferling, John Adams, pp. 58–59; Hiller B. Zobel, The Boston Massacre (New York, 1970), pp. 76–77; Harlow Giles Unger, John Hancock: Merchant King and American Patriot (New York, 2000), pp. 129–131.
13.For a complete account of the trial following the Boston Massacre, see Zobel, Boston Massacre, pp. 206–294.
14.Adams, Autobiography, 3: 293.
15.Ibid., 3: 326.
16.Adams, Diary, Aug. 16, 1774, 2: 100.
17.Flower, John Dickinson, pp. 63–72; David L. Jacobson, John Dickinson and the Revolution in Pennsylvania, 1764–1776 (Berkeley, CA, 1965), pp. 43–69. For an easily accessible transcript of Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (1767–68) go to http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=690&chapter=102299&layout=html&Itemid=27.
18.Flower, John Dickinson, pp. 1–29, 76–90. For a carefully nuanced study of the convergence of Dickinson’s Quaker family background, intellect and political thought, see Karen Calvert, Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson (New York and Cambridge, 2009), esp. pp. 1–64, 207–246.
19.Flower, John Dickinson, pp. 29–75, esp. p. 42; Jacobson, Dickinson and the Revolution in Pennsylvania, pp. 9–69.
20.Flower, John Dickinson, pp. 105–111; Ryerson, Revolution Is Now Begun, pp. 43–59. For the text of the ultimate set of instructions to the Pennsylvania delegates, see Pennsylvania Gazette, July 27, 1774.
21.Flower, John Dickinson, p. 111.
22.Adams, Diary, Aug. 31, 1774, 2: 117.
CHAPTER 5—THE CONGRESS ORGANIZES
1.JCC, 1: 13–14; The weather during the period September–October 1774, and May–June 1775 is recorded in Donald Jackson et al., eds., The Diaries of George Washington, 6 vols. (Charlottesville, VA, 1976–1979), 3: 281–289, 332–333.
2.Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” pp. 124–125; Adams, Diary, Sept. 5, 1774, 2: 122–123.
3.James Duane, “Notes of Debates,” Smith, Letters, 1: 25. For Galloway’s reaction, see Galloway to William Franklin, Sept. 5, 1774, in ibid., 1: 27.
4.JCC, 1: 14; John Reardon, Peyton Randolph, 1721–1775: One Who Presided (Durham, NC, 1982), pp. 3–23.
5.Reardon, Peyton Randolph, pp. 24–54.
6.For an excellent discussion of the evolution of both the meaning and substantive duties of the Continental Congress, see Calvin Jillson and Rick K. Wilson, Congressional Dynamics: Structure, Coordination, and Choice in the First American Congress, 1774–1789 (Stanford, CA, 1994), esp. pp. 15–67. The only two previous occasions on which a “congress” convened in America had been the abortive effort in Albany, New York, in 1754 to form a plan of union among the colonies in anticipation of the Seven Years’ War and then the two-week meeting of the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. Both of these meetings were clearly perceived as temporary gatherings to discuss a particular issue.
7.Ibid.
8.Galloway to William Franklin, Sept. 5, 1774, in Smith, Letters, 1: 27; Silas Deane to Elizabeth Deane, Sept. 5, 1774, ibid., 1: 20; Adams, Diary, Aug. 30, 1774, 2: 115; see also Schlenther, Charles Thomson, pp. 119–122.
9.Schlenther, Charles Thomson, pp. 17–22. I am grateful to Gary Nash for sharing with me his unpublished paper, “Patriotism and History: Charles Thomson’s Dilemma.”
10.Adams, Diary, 2: 115; Schlenther, Charles Thomson, p. 121.
11.Schlenther, Charles Thomson, pp. 205–206.
12.The colonies instructions to their delegates are in JCC, 1: 15–24. The instruction quoted is from New Hampshire, but the language of nearly all of the instructions is similar.
13.Ibid., 1: 15–16.
14.Ibid., 1: 21–22.
15.Ibid., 1: 23. For a discussion of Jefferson’s role in opposing British policies in Virginia at this time see Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, pp. 180–183; Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 121. See also Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” pp. 55–56.
16.For a full discussion of the various drafts of Jefferson’s proposed resolutions and their eventual printing as a Summary View of the Rights of British America, see Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 119–144.
17.JCC, 1: 23.
18.Mayer, Son of Thunder, pp. 210–211; “Notes of Debates,” Sept. 6, 1774, Adams, Diary, 2: 125.
19.For Henry’s life leading up to his service in Con
gress see Mayer, Son of Thunder, pp. 19–24; Beeman, Patrick Henry, pp. 1–58; and Thomas Kidd, Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots (New York, 2011), pp. 1–25.
20.The phrase “no taxation without representation” was first used by Reverend Jonathan Mayhew in Boston in 1750, and it apparently did become widely used in conversation during the years 1763–1776. However, there appears to be no record of any of America’s revolutionary leaders actually using the phrase in print.
21.Beeman, Patrick Henry, pp. 132–133.
22.“Notes of Debates,” Sept. 6, 1774, Adams, Diary, 2: 126.
23.Ibid., 2: 124–126.
24.For an account of John Jay’s early life, see Walter Stahr, John Jay: Founding Father (New York, 2005), pp. 1–32.
25.Ibid.
26.Ibid., pp. 33–35; Champagne, Alexander McDougall, pp. 58–66; Becker, History of Political Parties, pp. 112–141. The large size of New York’s delegation—nine members—reflects some of the division within New York politics over the direction in which American resistance to England should move.
27.“Notes of Debates,” Sept. 6, 1774, Adams, Diary, 2: 125.
28.Ibid.
29.Ibid.
30.James Duane, “Notes of Debates,” Sept. 6, 1774, in Smith, Letters, 1: 30–31. For a clear account of the debate on representation in the Congress, see Burnett, The Continental Congress, pp. 36–38.
31.James Duane, “Notes of Debates,” Sept. 6, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 30–31; JCC, 1: 25.
32.JCC, 1: 26.
CHAPTER 6—“FIGHT AGAINST THEM THAT FIGHT AGAINST ME”
1.JCC, 1: 26. Two useful accounts of the “Powder Alarm” are Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” pp. 239–243; and Ray Raphael, The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord (New York, 2002), pp. 127–133.
2.James Duane, “Notes of Debates,” Sept. 6, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 31; Robert Treat Paine Diary, Sept. 6, 1774, ibid., 1: 32; Samuel Ward Diary Sept. 6, 1774, ibid., 1: 32–33; “Notes of Debates,” Sept. 6, 1774, Adams, Diary, 2: 124; John Adams to Abigail Adams, Sept. 8, 18, 1774, Adams Family Correspondence, 1: 150–151, 157–158; Samuel Adams to Joseph Warren, Sept. 9, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 55.
3.Silas Deane to Elizabeth Deane, Sept. 7, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 34. John Adams to Abigail Adams, Sept. 16, 1774, Adams Family Correspondence, 1: 156–157.
4.Adams, Diary, Sept. 10, 1774, 2: 131; Sam Adams to Joseph Warren, Sept. 9, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 55.
5.John Adams to Abigail Adams, Sept. 8, 18, 1774, Adams Family Correspondence, 1: 150–151, 157–158.
6.Burnett, Continental Congress, pp. 39–41; Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” pp. 139–142.
7.Joseph Galloway, Historical and Political Reflections on the Rise and Progress of the American Revolution (London, 1780), pp. 67–68.
8.JCC, 1: 27–29; James Duane, “Notes of Debates,” Sept. 7, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 37.
9.For an informed discussion of the committee procedures of the Congress, see Jillson and Wilson, Congressional Dynamics, pp. 53–56, 95–99.
10.JCC, 1: 27–29.
11.The Subcommittee on Rights was appointed on Sept. 9, and that on “Infringements” on Sept. 17.
12.Richard D. Brown, Revolutionary Politics in Massachusetts: The Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Towns, 1772–1774 (New York, 1970), pp. 210–211, passim.
13.Samuel Adams Drake, History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (Boston, 1879), pp. 107ff; American Archives, 4th ser., 1: 750–752.
14.JCC, 1: 31; Sam Adams to the Boston Committee of Correspondence, Sept. 14, 1774, Cushing, ed., Writings of Samuel Adams, 3: 154–155.
15.John Alexander, The Life of an American Revolutionary (Lanham, MD, 2011), p. 187; Puls, Samuel Adams, pp. 156–157, 162, 165, 174–175.
16.Samuel Forman, Dr. Joseph Warren: The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty (Gretna, LA, 2012), pp. 201–221. Warren’s Boston Massacre speeches are quoted from Jensen, The Founding of a Nation, p. 413.
17.JCC, 1: 31–39.
18.Adams, Diary, Sept. 17, 1774, 2: 134–135; John Adams to Abigail Adams, Sept. 18, 1774, Adams Family Correspondence, 1: 157–158.
19.A summary of these discussions is in Burnett, Continental Congress, pp. 41–42. John Adams and New York delegate James Duane also provided summaries in their notes on the debates: “Notes of Debates,” Sept. 8, 1774, Adams, Diary, 2: 128–131; James Duane, “Speech to the Committee on Rights,” Sept. 8, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 51–54; see also Samuel Ward’s Diary, Sept. 9, 1774, ibid: 1: 59.
20.Duane, “Speech to the Committee on Rights,” Sept. 8, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 51–54. See also Edward Alexander, A Revolutionary Conservative: James Duane of New York (New York, 1938), pp. 100–101.
21.“Notes of Debates,” Sept. 8, 1774, Adams, Diary, 2: 128–131.
22.Adams, Autobiography, 3: 308–309.
23.Ibid.
24.John Adams to Abigail Adams, Oct. 9, 1774, Adams Family Correspondence, 1: 166–167.
25.JCC, 1: 41.
26.Ibid.
27.Charles Thomson failed to record this in the journal, but Adams, Diary, Sept. 26, 27, 1774, 2: 103–104, records Lee’s motion. See also Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” p. 163.
28.Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” p. 163; JCC, 1: 43.
29.Adams, Diary, Sept. 26, 27, 1774, 2: 103–104.
30.Ibid.
31.Ibid.
32.Ibid., 2: 105.
CHAPTER 7—GALLOWAY’S LAST STAND
1.John Ferling, The Loyalist Mind: Joseph Galloway and the American Revolution (University Park, PA, 1977), pp. 7–25; Oliver Kuntzleman, “Joseph Galloway,” pp. 11–94.
2.The best account of the background leading to Galloway’s presentation of his Plan of Union is Julian P. Boyd, Anglo-American Union: Joseph Galloway’s Plan to Preserve the British Empire, 1774–1788 (Philadelphia, 1941), pp. 32–38. See also Ferling, Loyalist Mind, pp. 26–27; and Kuntzleman, “Joseph Galloway,” pp. 103–113.
3.There are two accounts of Galloway’s speech in which he presented and defended his plan. One consists of his own “Statement on his Plan of Union,” and was probably written a few years after the fact. It is found in JCC, 1: 43–48. The other account is “Notes of Debates,” Sept. 28, 1774, Adams, Diary, 2: 141–144. In spite of the potential biases in each account, the two are generally consistent with one another.
4.The Plan of Union itself is printed in JCC, 1: 49–51.
5.Ibid.
6.“Notes of Debates,” Sept. 28, 1774, Adams, Diary, 2: 141–144.
7.Galloway, “Statement on his Plan of Union,” JCC, 1: 46.
8.“Notes of Debates,” Sept. 28, 1774, Adams, Diary, 2, 142. An account of James Duane’s political activities from 1764–1774 can be found in Alexander, James Duane, pp. 95–98. See also Becker, Political Parties, pp. 14–16.
9.“Notes of Debates,” Sept. 28, 1774, Adams, Diary, 2: 142–143.
10.Ibid., 2, 143.
11.Charles Thomson, true to form, failed to record this action in the congressional journal. But Samuel Ward, delegate from Rhode Island, wrote in his journal that day that “A Plan of Union between G. Britain & the Colonies presented by Mr. Galloway considered, not committed, but ordered to lye on the Table.” Smith, Letters, 1: 128. See also Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” pp. 166–167; Ferling, Loyalist Mind, p. 26.
12.Smith, Letters, 1: 112–117n, provides the clearest description of the sequence of events regarding Galloway’s proposal.
13.Joseph Galloway, A Candid Examination of the Mutual Claims of Great Britain and the Colonies: With a Plan of Accommodation of Constitutional Principles (New York, 1775). Galloway would later publish a similar but even more vituperative pamphlet on the same subject in his Historical and Political Reflections of the Rise and Progress of the American Revolution (London, 1780).
14.Galloway, Candid Examination, pp. 52–53.
15.Schlenther, Charles Thomson, pp. 126�
�27; Smith, Letters, 1: 116n, 325n.
16.Ferling, Loyalist Mind, p. 28.
17.Burnett, Continental Congress, p. 50.
18.For an analysis of Galloway’s last, frustrating days in the Pennsylvania Assembly, see Ryerson, Revolution is Now Begun, pp. 107–112. See also Ferling, Loyalist Mind, pp. 33–34.
CHAPTER 8—GETTING ACQUAINTED IN THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE
1. Caesar Rodney to Thomas Rodney, Sept. 9, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 58.
2.Sam Adams to Joseph Warren, Sept. 25, 1774, Cushing, ed., Writings of Samuel Adams, 3: 159.
3.Caesar Rodney to Thomas Rodney, Sept. 9, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 58; Silas Deane to Elizabeth Deane, Sept. 6, 7, 1774, Cushing, ed., Writings of Samuel Adams, 1: 29, 34–35.
4.Samuel Ward to Samuel Ward, Jr., Sept. 9, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 59.
5.Adams, Diary, Sept. 8, 14, 22, 1774, 2: 127, 134, 136.
6.Jensen, Founding of a Nation, p. 442; Smith, Letters, 1: 67n3.
7.JCC, 1: 51–53.
8.Ibid., 1: 55; Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” pp. 168–169; Silas Deane Diary, Oct. 1, 3, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 133, 138–139.
9.JCC, 1: 53–54; Duane’s proposed resolution and Lee’s resolution in Smith, Letters, 1: 134, 140; see also Silas Deane Diary, Oct. 3, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 138–139.
10.Smith, Letters, 1: 138–139.
11.Ibid.
12.Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” p. 169; JCC, 1: 53–54.
13.Silas Deane Diary, Smith, Letters, 1: 138–139.
14.Sam Adams to Joseph Warren, Sept. 25, 1774, Cushing, ed., Writings of Samuel Adams, 3: 158–159; Silas Deane Diary, Oct. 5, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 144–145.
15.“Notes of Debates,” Oct. 6, 1774, in Adams, Diary, 2: 148; Sam Adams to Joseph Warren, Sept. 25, 1774, Cushing, ed., Writings of Samuel Adams, 3: 158–159.
16.Robert Treat Paine Diary, Oct. 6, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 154; JCC, 1: 55–56.
17.This language comes from Joseph Galloway’s retrospective, Candid Examination, p. 27.
18.John Adams to William Tudor, Sept. 29, 1774, Robert J. Taylor et al., eds., Papers of John Adams (Cambridge, MA, 1977– ), 2: 176–177; Sam Adams to General Gage, Oct. 7–8, 1774, Cushing, ed., Writings of Samuel Adams, 3: 159–162.
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