19.John Adams draft letter to General Gage, Oct. 7–8, 1774, is in Smith, Letters, 1: 158.
20.Lee’s proposal is in Smith, Letters, 1: 160–161; John Adams to William Tudor, Oct. 7, 1774, Adams Papers, 2: 187–188.
21.Adams Papers, 2: 187–188.
22.JCC, 1: 59–60.
23.John Adams to Abigail Adams, Oct. 9, 1774, Adams Family Correspondence, 1: 166–167.
24.Adams, Diary, Oct. 9, 1774, 2: 163–164.
25.Ibid.
26.Adams, Diary, Oct. 20, 1774, 2: 155; Flower, John Dickinson, p. 115; JCC, 1: 74.
CHAPTER 9—POWER TO THE PEOPLE
1.Smith, Letters, 1: 193–194n, unravels the complex story of Dickinson’s role in the authorship of the Declaration of Rights and Grievances.
2.James Duane, “Notes for a Speech in Congress,” Oct. 13, 1774, ibid., 1: 189–191.
3.Samuel Ward, “Notes for a Speech in Congress,” Oct. 12, 1774, ibid., 1: 184–189.
4.Adams, Diary, Oct. 13, 1774, 2: 151. Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” pp. 175–176 has a concise account of this debate.
5.Adams, Diary, Oct. 13, 1774; JCC, 1: 63–71. James Duane, “Notes of Debates,” Oct. 15–17, 1774, Samuel Ward Diary, Oct. 17, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 198–200, 206.
6.Many historians of the American Revolution have considered the Quebec Act to be a part of the package of acts that came to be known as the Coercive Acts, but there is little indication that this was Parliament’s intention. For a balanced account of the passage of the Quebec Act, see Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, pp. 96–106.
7.James Duane, “Notes of Debates,” Oct. 15–17, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 198–199; Adams, Diary, Oct. 17, 1774, 2: 154.
8.Barry, Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, pp. 167, 169; see also Haw, John and Edward Rutledge, p. 66.
9.Quoted in Godbold and Woody, Christopher Gadsden, p. 126. See also Haw, John and Edward Rutledge, p. 66; Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” p. 182.
10.Marston, King and Congress, pp. 100–130, presents persuasive evidence detailing the ways in which the creation of the Association enabled the Continental Congress to transform itself from a temporary “convention” to something more closely resembling a governing body.
11.The Fairfax Resolves are printed in W.W. Abbot et al., eds., The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series (Charlottesville, VA, 1983–1995), 10: 128. For Washington’s attempts to appease Brian Fairfax, see George Washington to Bryan Fairfax, July 17, 1774, and July 20, 1774, ibid., 10: 114–119, 128–131. See also Chernow, Washington, pp. 169–171; Freeman, George Washington, 3: 362–368.
12.The full text of the Association is in JCC, 1: 75–80.
13.Ibid., 1: 77.
14.This, the seventeenth resolution in the Fairfax Resolves, can be found in GW Papers, C.S., 10: 125. There is some irony in the fact that George Mason, the author of those words, owned some three hundred slaves at the time. Helen Hill Miller, George Mason: Gentleman Revolutionary (Chapel Hill, NC, 1975), pp. 57–60; Forrest McDonald, We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution (Chicago, 1958), p. 72.
15.Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” p. 107.
16.Ellis, His Excellency, George Washington (New York, 2005), pp. 41, 46, 164–167, 257–264 has an excellent account not only of Washington’s acquisition of slaves, but also of the dilemma he faced with respect to freeing his slaves at his death. As Ellis notes, at the time of his death, Washington had legal title to only 124 of his 317 slaves; most of the rest belonged to the family estate of his wife, Martha Custis Washington, and were not legally under his control. See also Chernow, Washington, pp. 110–119. The information about the slaveholdings of other delegates to the Congress was gleaned from the individual biographies cited in these notes. For useful discussions of the tensions and contradictions inherent in the Americans’ rhetorical abhorrence of British attempts to “enslave” them and the fundamental importance of the institution of slavery to the American economy, see Duncan MacLeod, Slavery, Race and the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1974); Gary Nash, Race and Revolution (Lanham, MD, 2001), esp. pp. 3–23; Donald Robinson, Slavery in the Structure of American Politics, 1765–1820 (New York, 1970), pp. 54–97; David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution (Ithaca, NY, 1975), esp. pp. 173, 273; and Ira Berlin and Ronald Hoffman, eds., Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution (Charlottesville, VA, 1983).
17.JCC, 1: 77–78.
18.Ibid., 1: 79.
19.Ibid., 1: 78; for an insightful analysis of the way in which Puritan ideals permeated both the rhetoric and the substance of the American resistance to Great Britain, see Edmund S. Morgan, “The Puritan Ethic and the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 24 (1967): 3–43.
20.JCC, 1: 79–80. Marston, King and Congress, pp. 100–130, presents the most convincing evidence of the ways in which delegating power of enforcement to the people at the local level actually increased the power and authority of the Congress. Timothy H. Breen, American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People (New York, 2010), pp. 160–184, though less concerned with the authority of the Congress that authorized the Association, presents compelling evidence about the ways in which local committees implemented the boycott.
21.“Notes of Debates,” Oct. 6, 1774, Adams, Diary, 2: 149.
22.JCC, 1: 80; Galloway, Candid Examination, pp. 56, 59. Galloway also expressed his opposition in another pamphlet, A Reply to an Address to the Author of a Pamphlet, entitled “A Candid Examination of the Mutual Claims of Great Britain and her Colonies” (New York, 1775), pp. 39–40. See also Ammerman, In the Common Cause, pp. 92–93; Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” pp. 182–185; and Smith, Letters, 1: 222n.
23.Adams, Diary, Oct. 20, 1774, 2: 155.
CHAPTER 10—THE FIRST CONGRESS COMPLETES ITS BUSINESS
1.JCC, 1: 82–90. Richard Henry Lee apparently also wrote a draft of an address to the people of Great Britain, but his draft apparently had little influence on Jay’s final draft. Lee’s draft is in Smith, Letters, 1: 174–179. For an analysis of the rather complicated drafting process, see ibid., 1: 179n. See also Stahr, John Jay, pp. 40–42.
2.The authorship of the Congress’s address to the inhabitants of the American colonies has been a matter of some historical controversy. Most accounts, relying on a letter from Thomas Jefferson (who was not present at the First Continental Congress) to Patrick Henry’s biographer, William Wirt, in 1805, assert that Richard Henry Lee wrote the address. This has a certain logic, since Lee was one of the three members of the committee charged with drafting both the address to the people of Great Britain and that to the people of the colonies, and it would make some sense that there would be a division of labor between Jay and Lee. In fact though, the surviving full-manuscript version of the address to the people of the colonies—seventeen pages in length—is in the hand of John Dickinson, who, though technically not even a member of the Congress until several days after work on the address was begun, was nevertheless an active participant in the delegates’ deliberations even before he formally joined the Congress. Dickinson’s draft is in Smith, Letters, 1: 207–217; for a detailed analysis of the question of authorship of the address, see ibid., 1: 220–221n.
3.JCC, 1: 102. George Read to Gertrude Read, Oct. 24, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 244; Reardon, Peyton Randolph, p. 53; Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” p. 189. Charles Thomson stated in the Journal that Randolph was unable to attend because of an “indisposition,” but we know that Randolph was eager to return to preside over the upcoming meeting of the Virginia House of Burgesses. In fact, the meeting of the Burgesses was delayed because the royal governor, Lord Dunmore, prorogued the legislature until November 7, and then, as the legislature was preparing to meet on the 7th, prorogued it again, delaying its meeting until June 1, 1775.
4.John Dickinson to George Logan, Sept. 15, 1804, in Charles Stille, The Life and Times of John Dickinson, 1732–1808 (
New York, 1891), p. 145. Patrick Henry’s and Richard Henry Lee’s drafts of the addresses to the king are in Smith, Letters, 1: 222–227. Dickinson’s is in ibid., 1: 228–231. For an extensive analysis of the question of the authorship of the Address to the King, see Edwin Wolf, II, “The Authorship of the 1774 Address to the King Restudied,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 22 (1965): 189–224.
5.Smith, Letters, 1: 226.
6.Ibid., 1: 225, 228–232; Wolf, “Authorship of the 1774 Address,” pp. 189–224; Flower, John Dickinson, pp. 116–117.
7.Adams, Diary, Oct. 24, 1774, 2: 157; JCC, 1: 115–121.
8.JCC, 1: 104–105, 121–122. The other colonies paying agents to represent their interests in Parliament were New Hampshire (Paul Wentworth), Connecticut (Thomas Life) and South Carolina (Charles Garth); Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina did not have agents at the time. Arthur Lee of Virginia and William Bollan were also in London representing Massachusetts along with Franklin, and Lee was no doubt playing some role in representing Virginia.
9.JCC, 1: 105–113. Dickinson’s draft of the letter to Quebec is in Smith, Letters, 1: 236–244.
10.JCC, 1: 121. See also Wolf, “Authorship of the 1774 Address,” p. 200. The Virginia delegates who were absent had others sign their names—Richard Henry Lee signing for Patrick Henry and Washington signing for Pendleton, Bland and Harrison. The Congress engrossed two copies of the petition, one to be sent to Benjamin Franklin in London and the other to be hand-carried by a Captain Falconer. The other addresses to the various constituencies were ordered to be published soon after the Congress adjourned, but the petition to the king was not published until after it could be determined that he had actually received it. That petition did not appear in print until Jan. 17 or 18, 1775.
11.Thomas Lynch to Ralph Izard, Oct. 26, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 247.
12.John Dickinson to Arthur Lee, Oct. 27, 1774, ibid., 1: 250.
13.Ibid. Dickinson wrote a similar letter to Josiah Quincy, Jr., on the following day, ibid., 1: 251–252.
14.Joseph Galloway to Thomas Nickleson, Nov. 1, 1774, ibid., 1: 255.
15.Adams, Autobiography, 3: 313.
16.Marston, King and Congress, pp. 97–99, 128–130, makes a strong case for this evolution of the Congress’s authority and function.
17.JCC, 1: 102; Adams, Diary, Oct. 28, 1774, 2: 157.
CHAPTER 11—ESCALATION
1.JCC, 1: 120–121.
2.Much of my analysis in this book of the British reaction to Congress’s actions relies on the meticulous work of Thomas, Tea Party to Independence. For Lord Dartmouth’s reaction to the American petition, see ibid., pp. 170–175; Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” pp. 200–201; American Archives, 4th ser., 1: 1085.
3.Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, pp. 188–189; Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” 201–292.
4.King George III to Lord North, Nov. 18, 1774, quoted in Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, p. 160.
5.Ibid., pp. 186–187.
6.Ibid., pp. 198–206; Ferling, Independence, pp. 102–106; American Archives, 4th ser., 1: 1566, 1570, 1590.
7.Burke’s remarkable speech has been reprinted numerous times. The quotations in the text are taken from the reprinting in the Library of the Liberty Fund, online at: oll.libertyfund.org/title/796/20357.
8.Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, pp. 212–214; Ferling, Independence, pp. 104–105.
9.Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, pp. 184–186.
10.Hugh T. Lefler and William Powell, Colonial North Carolina: A History (New York, 1973), pp. 261–264.
11.Lord Dunmore to Lord Dartmouth, Feb. 15, 1775, in Robert Scribner, Brent Tarter et al., eds., Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, 7 vols. (Charlottesville, VA, 1973– ), 3: 66. The precise wording of Henry’s famous “give me liberty or give me death” speech will always remain a subject of historical contention. But the standard recounting of that speech is contained in the work of Henry’s original biographer, William Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry (Philadelphia, 1817), pp. 120–123.
12.Tyler, “The Common Cause of America,” pp. 206–207; American Archives, 4th ser., 1: 1819–1822; 1837–1842; 2: 677.
13.Becker, History of Political Parties, pp. 174–192. Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, pp. 222–223. Isaac Low had refused to attend the Provincial Convention, and since only members of that body were eligible to serve in the Continental Congress, he was not able to be elected as a delegate to the Congress. John Haring declined his election.
14.American Archives, 4th ser., 2: 1546–1549.
15.There are two, especially useful accounts of the implementation of the Association in localities across America: Breen, American Insurgents, esp. pp. 160–184 and Marston, King and Congress, esp. pp. 100–130.
16.JCC, 1: 79.
17.Marston, King and Congress, p. 109; Breen, American Insurgents, p. 169. The most thorough research on this subject can be found in Jacob M. Price, “A New Time for Scotland’s and Britain’s Trade with the Thirteen Colonies and States,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 32 (1975): 325.
18.Breen, American Insurgents, pp. 167–169, suggests that the transfer of such significant power over enforcement to local committees may not have been wholly intended by the Congress.
19.Marston, King and Congress, pp. 122–130. See also Breen, American Insurgents, p. 172.
20.Marston, King and Congress, p. 125; Breen, American Insurgents, pp. 170–171.
21.Marston, King and Congress, p. 125–127.
22.William Duane, ed., Extracts from the Diary of Christopher Marshall, 1774–1781 (New York, 1969), pp. 51–53. For an extended account of this episode, see Irvin, Clothed in the Robes of Sovereignty, pp. 48–50.
23.Dunmore’s comments quoted in Breen, American Insurgents, pp. 174–176; Josiah Martin to Dartmouth, Sept. 1. 1774, in K.G. Davies, Documents of the American Revolution (Shannon, Ireland, 1972–1981), 8: 172; Governor Wright to Dartmouth, August 24, 1774, ibid., 8: 162.
24.Breen, American Insurgents, p. 209.
25.Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, pp. 223–228; Ferling, Independence, pp. 99–100; Breen, American Insurgents, pp. 13–14, 88, 156–159, 284–285.
26.DAR, 9: 37–41; David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride (New York, 1994), esp. pp. 95–97. My account of both the events leading to the armed conflict and of the conflict itself is much indebted to Fischer’s superb work.
27.Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, pp. 111, 143. See also Samuel A. Forman, Joseph Warren: The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty (Gretna, LA, 2012), pp. 237, 249, 267.
28.This summary is distilled from Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, pp. 93–260.
29.Ibid., pp. 174–183; Unger, John Hancock, pp. 188–194, 198–200.
30.John Hancock to Dorothy Quincy, May 7, 1775, Massachusetts Historical Society, quoted in Ungar, John Hancock, pp. 200–201.
31.Miller, Sam Adams, p. 336; Unger, John Hancock, pp. 202–203; Allan, John Hancock, p. 188.
CHAPTER 12—A NEW CONGRESS, CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES
1.Joseph Hewes to Samuel Johnston, May 11, 1775, Smith, Letters, 1: 342–343.
2.JCC, 2: 11–20; for the maneuvering behind the appointment of the New York delegation, see Becker, History of Political Parties, pp. 174–192; and Champagne, Alexander McDougall, pp. 78–81.
3.JCC, 2: 44.
4.Galloway, Candid Examination, p. 31. For the maneuverings in the Pennsylvania Assembly, see Ryerson, Revolution Is Now Begun, pp. 97, 119.
5.JCC, 2: 12, 22, 55. Surprisingly, there is no official record of the seating arrangement in the Assembly Room. The historians at Independence National Historical Park, after careful study have instructed their guides to present the seating arrangements of the delegations as noted above. The arrangement suggested by the Independence Park historians is consistent with the arrangement as reported at a later date by Charles Thomson. See the “Report of
the Secretary of Congress,” May 18, 1782, in Edmund Burnett, Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, 8 vols. (Washington, DC, 1921–1936), 6: 349.
6.JCC, 2: 13, 24–44.
7.Jillson and Wilson, Congressional Dynamics, pp. 59–67, and, more generally, pp. 71–163, have an excellent analysis of the changes in the nature of the business of the two congresses.
8.Silas Deane Diary, May 16, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 351–352. For Washington’s views on the matter of raising an army, see Washington to Fairfax County Committee, May, 16, 1774, GW Papers, C.S., 10: 363–365.
9.Silas Deane Diary, May 16, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 351–352.
10.The bare essentials of Dickinson’s speech are in ibid., 1: 352. For more of Dickinson’s reasoning, see Dickinson to Arthur Lee, April 29, 1775, ibid., 1: 331–332.
11.Silas Deane Diary, May, 16, 1775, in ibid., 351–352.
12.There are actually two versions of Dickinson’s “Notes for a Speech in Congress.” Smith, Letters, 1: 371–383 and 386–390, presents both of them. Since Dickinson may have spoken several times between May 23 and May 25, these notes may have been incorporated into more than one speech.
13.Ibid., 1: 377.
14.Ibid., 1: 375.
15.Ibid., 1: 377.
16.Silas Deane Diary, May 23, May 24, ibid., 1: 371, 401–402; Adams, Autobiography, 3: 315–316.
17.John Adams to Moses Gill, June 10, 1775, Adams to James Warren, July 6, 1775, Adams Papers, 3: 20–21, 60–62. For a useful discussion of this debate see Rakove, Beginnings of National Politics, pp. 71–79.
18.JCC, 2: 64–66. See also Smith, Letters, 1: 383–386, for a draft of Dickinson’s version of the resolutions.
CHAPTER 13—JOHN HANCOCK ENTERS THE DRAMA
1.Unger, John Hancock, 202–203; other biographies of Hancock are: William Fowler, The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock (New York, 1980); Herbert S. Allan, John Hancock: Patriot in Purple (New York, 1948); and Paul D. Brandes, John Hancock’s Life and Speeches: A Personalized Vision of the American Revolution, 1763–1793 (Latham, MD, 1996).
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