American Rebels

by Nina Sankovitch

  44  Josiah Quincy Jr. to Abigail Phillips Quincy, January 7, 1775, Quincy Family Papers, MHS.

  Chapter 32: Debating Separation

    1  John Adams, Diary and Autobiography, vol. 2, p. 231, “Memorandum of Measures to Be Pursued in Congress, February? 1776.”

    2  John Adams to Joseph Palmer, June 19, 1775, Adams Papers, MHS. Abigail Adams refers to the recipe sent to her by John Adams on March 8, 1775, in her March 31, 1776, letter to him, but his letter to her containing it has disappeared. I’ve substituted the recipe Adams sent to Palmer in June 1775.

    3  Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

    4  Ibid.

    5  Abigail Adams to John Adams, April 11, 1776, added to her April 7 letter, Adams Papers, MHS. John responded to Abigail’s mention of intimacies with “The Conclusion of your Letter makes my Heart throb, more than a Cannonade would,” in his April 28, 1776, reply to her.

    6  John Adams to Abigail Adams, April 14, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

    7  Ibid; Abigail Adams to John Adams, May 7, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

    8  Abigail Adams to John Adams, May 9, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

    9  Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, April 27, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  10  Abigail Adams to John Adams, May 7, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  11  George Washington to Josiah Quincy Sr., March 24, 1776, quoted in Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy, Appendix, pp. 416–417.

  12  George Washington to Josiah Quincy Sr., April 25, 1776, quoted in ibid., p. 417; Benjamin Franklin to Josiah Quincy Senior, April 15, 1776, quoted in ibid., pp. 418–419.

  13  John Adams to James Warren, April 22, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  14  Diary of John Adams, vol. 3, In Congress, Spring 1776, and Thomas Paine, Adams Papers, MHS.

  15  John Adams to James Warren, April 22, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  16  John Hancock to the Massachusetts Provincial Assembly, May 16, 1776, quoted in Ferling, Independence, p. 267.

  17  Burnett, ed., Letters of Members of Continental Congress, vol. 1, pp. 473–474.

  18  Edmund Quincy IV to Katy Quincy, May 27, 1776, Quincy Family Papers, MHS.

  19  John Hancock to George Washington, May 21, 1776, Correspondence of the American Revolution, vol. 1, ed. Jared Sparks (Boston: Little, Brown, 1853), p. 205; John Hancock to George Washington, May 16, 1776, in Force, American Archives, vol. 6, p. 473.

  20  Abigail Adams to John Adams, April 18, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  21  Jonas Clarke, “The fate of blood-thirsty oppressors, and God’s tender care of his distressed people: a sermon, preached at Lexington, April 19, 1776, to commemorate the murder, bloodshed, and commencement of hostilities, between Great Britain and America, in that town, by a brigade of troops of George III, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, on the nineteenth of April, 1775, to which is added a brief narrative of the principal transactions of that day,” Collections of MHS.

  22  Boston Gazette, May 6, 1776, MHS.

  23  Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776; John Adams to Abigail Adams, April 28, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  24  John Adams to James Warren, May 15, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  25  John Adams, “Preamble to Resolution on Independent Governments,” Papers of John Adams, vol. 4, Adams Papers, MHS.

  26  John Adams to Abigail Adams, May 17, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  27  Diary of John Adams, vol. 3, Wednesday, May 15, 1776, ibid.

  28  “Resolution introduced in the Continental Congress by Richard Henry Lee (Virginia) proposing a Declaration of Independence, June 7, 1776,” http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/lee.asp.

  29  Thomas Jefferson, “Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress, 7 June–1 August, 1776,” Jefferson Papers, Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0160.

  30  See Donald A. Grinde Jr. and Bruce E. Johansen, Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy (1990) chap. 8, citing Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford, vol. 5 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1906), p. 430.

  31  Isaacson, Ben Franklin, p. 310.

  32  John Adams to Abigail Adams, June 16, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  33  Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 2, p. 514.

  34  Jefferson, “Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress.”

  35  Ibid.

  36  Abigail Adams to John Adams, July 14, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  37  Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  Chapter 33: The Signature of Independence

    1  See Ferling, Independence, p. 324, citing David Hawke, A Transaction of Free Men: The Birth and Course of the Declaration of Free Men (New York: Scribner, 1964), p. 177.

    2  Jefferson, “Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress.”

    3  Diary of John Adams, vol. 2, September 3, 1774, Adams Papers, MHS.

    4  Reverend John Hancock, “A Memorial of God’s Goodness. Being the Substance of Two Sermons, Preach’d in the First Church of Christ in Braintree, Sept. 16th. 1739. On Compleating the First Century Since the Gathering of It,” Collections of MHS.

    5  John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776 (first letter), Adams Papers, MHS.

    6  John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776 (second letter), Adams Papers, MHS.

    7  John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776 (first letter), Adams Papers, MHS.

    8  For a fascinating exploration of the significant impacts that Native American culture, political structure, and traditions had on the institutions, rhetoric, and emblems of the nascent United States, see Donald A. Grinde, Jr. and Bruce E. Johansen, Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy (1990), https://ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/EoL/index.html#ToC.

    9  Jefferson, “Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress.”

  10  Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1888), p. 233.

  11  McCullough, John Adams, p. 135.

  12  Jefferson, “Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress.”

  13  Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 2, p. 514.

  14  John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776 (second letter), Adams Papers, MHS.

  15  Josiah Quincy Jr., “The Southern Journal,” pp. 91–95, Quincy Family Papers, MHS.

  16  Jefferson, “Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress.”

  17  I am persuaded by the arguments set forth in the editorial notes to “Jefferson’s Proceedings in the Continental Congress” that although there is much negative evidence as to who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, there is also Thomas Jefferson’s positive evidence, in which he clearly states that “in the evening of the last … the declaration was … signed by every member” of Congress, referring to July 4. The New York delegation would not have been able to sign until July 19, when they received authority from their own assembly. On August 2, 1776, a copy printed on parchment was signed by all the delegates (more or less), and reprinted; it is this copy that is the widely recognized and iconic version of the Declaration of Independence.

  18  Jefferson, “Notes and Proceedings in the Continental Congress.”

  19  Josiah Quincy Jr. as “Hyperion,” Boston Gazette, October 1767, Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy, pp. 10–11, 19.

  20  Benjamin Rush to John Adams, July 20, 1811, quoted in Ferling, Independence, p. 345.

  21  James P. Byrd, Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 100–101.

  22  Ibid.

  23  Th
e Declaration of Independence, as printed in the Pennsylvania Evening Post, July, 6, 1776, National Archives. The iconic painting of this event, which hangs in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol Building, was done by John Trumbull, the young man who had written to Sam Quincy in September 1773 proclaiming he wanted only to be in the “party of truth.” (See chapter 19, note 27.)

  24  Abigail Adams to John Adams, July 13, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  25  Abigail Adams to John Adams, July 21, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  26  Letter of Daniel Greenleaf, October 1841, printed (?) in Boston Transcript, August 2, 1855, J. L. Bell, “Boston 1775,” http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2007/07/sheriff-greenleaf-and-col-crafts-read.html.

  27  Abigail Adams to John Adams, July 21, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  28  Hancock, “A Memorial of God’s Goodness.”

  29  Abigail Adams to John Adams, July 21, 1776, Adams Papers, MHS.

  Epilogue: Friends to Mankind

    1  John Hancock to David Evans, August 11, 1777, Receipt/Bill, Hancock Family Papers, Baker Library, Harvard Business School.

    2  See Bernard A. Weisberger, “Petticoat Government,” American Heritage 44, no. 6 (October 1993).

    3  McCullough, John Adams, p. 623.

    4  Jonathan Sewall to Judge Joseph Lee, September 21, 1787, quoted in Carol Berkin, Jonathan Sewall, Odyssey of an American Loyalist (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 142.

    5  John Adams, Novanglus and Massachusettensis: Political Essays (Boston: Hew and Goss, 1819), pp. vi–vii.

    6  Josiah Quincy IV, Figures of the Past, p. 65.

    7  Samuel Quincy to Hannah Hill Quincy, October 28, 1776, Quincy Family Papers, MHS.

    8  Benjamin Franklin to Josiah Quincy Sr., September 11, 1783, Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy, p. 425.

    9  Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts, p. 367.

  10  Coquillette and York, Portrait of a Patriot, vol. 1, p. 44.

  11  Edmund Quincy, Life of Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, p. 22.

  12  In 1792, the village of Braintree was renamed Quincy in honor of John Quincy, grandfather of Abigail Adams, but many inhabitants still called it by the old name.

  Bibliography

  Manuscript Collections

  Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  Burr Family Papers, Fairfield (CT) Museum and History Center.

  General Harvard History Collection, Harvard Archives, Pusey Library, Harvard University.

  Hancock Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  Quincy, Wendell, Holmes, and Upham Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  Quincy-Hill-Treadwell Papers, Brinkler Library, Cambridge (MA) Historical Society.

  Papers of George Washington, University of Virginia.

  Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Princeton University.

  Selected Books

  Abbott, W. W., Dorothy Twohig, Philander D. Chase, Edward G. Lengel, Theodore J. Crackel, and David J. Hoth, eds. The Papers of George Washington: Revolutionary War Series. 18 vols. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1985.

  Adams, Charles Francis. History of Braintree, Massachusetts (1639–1708). Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1891.

  ________, ed. Letters of Mrs. Adams, Wife of John Adams, vol. 1. Boston: Wilkins, Carter, 1848.

  ________, ed. The Works of John Adams. 10 vols. Boston: Little, Brown, 1856.

  Allan, Herbert S. John Hancock: Patriot in Purple. New York: Macmillan, 1948.

  Andrews, John. Letters of John Andrews, Esq., 1772–1776, ed. Winthrop Sargent, Cambridge, MA: John Wilson and Sons, 1866.

  Baxter, William T. House of Hancock. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1945.

  Berkin, Carol. Jonathan Sewall, Odyssey of an American Loyalist. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.

  ________. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for American Independence. New York: Knopf, 2005.

  Borneman, Walter R. American Spring. New York: Little, Brown, 2014.

  Bowen, Catherine Drinker. John Adams and the American Revolution. Boston: Little, Brown, 1950.

  Bradford, William. History of Plymouth Plantation. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856.

  Brandes, Paul Dickerson. John Hancock’s Life and Speeches. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996.

  Breen, T. H. American Insurgents, American Patriots. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010.

  Brown, Abram English. John Hancock: His Book. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1898.

  Brown, Richard Maxwell. Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.

  Bunker, Nick. An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America. New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2014.

  Burnett, Edmund Cody, ed. Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, vol. 1. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1921.

  Butterfield, L. H., ed. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, vols. 1–3. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 1961.

  Byrd, James P. Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

  Carretta, Vincent. Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2011.

  Chandler, Peleg W. American Criminal Trials, vol. 1. Boston: Timothy H. Carter, 1841.

  Chernow, Ron. Washington: A Life. New York: Penguin Books, 2011.

  Chidsey, Donald Barr. The Loyalists: The Story of Those Americans Who Fought Against Independence. New York: Crown, 1973.

  Coburn, Frank W. Battle of April 19, 1775 in Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville, and Charlestown, Massachusetts. Lexington, MA: F. W. Coburn, 1912.

  Coquillette, Daniel R., and Neil Longley York, eds. Portrait of a Patriot, The Major Political and Legal Works of Josiah Quincy Jr., vols 1–3. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009.

  ________. Josiah Quincy, Jr. Political and Legal Works, vol. 6. Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2014.

  Cushing, Harry Alonzo, ed. The Writings of Samuel Adams, 1770–1773, vol. 2. New York: Putnam, 1906.

  De Windt, Caroline Amelia Smith, ed. Journal and Correspondence of Miss Adams. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1841.

  Dickinson, John. The Political Writings of John Dickinson, vol. 2. Wilmington: Bonsal and Niles, 1801.

  Donne, W. Bodham, ed. The Correspondence of King George Third with Lord North, from 1768 to 1783. London: John Murry, Albemarle Street, 1867.

  Earle, Alice M., ed. Diary of Anna Green Winslow, a Boston School Girl of 1771. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1894.

  Ellet, E. F. The Women of the American Revolution. New York: Baker and Scribner, 1850.

  Ferling, John. Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011.

  Fischer, David Hackett. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

  Force, Peter, ed. American Archives: A Documentary History of the English Colonies in North America, series 4, vols. 1–6, Washington, DC: M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force, 1848.

  Forman, Samuel A. Dr. Joseph Warren: The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty. Gretna, LA: Pelican, 2012.

  Fowler, William M. The Baron of Beacon Hill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.

  Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1888.

  French, Allen. The Day of Concord and Lexington: The Nineteenth of April 1775. Boston: Little, Brown, 1925.

  ________. The First Year of the American Revolution. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934.

  Frothingham, Richard. Life and Times of Joseph Warren. Boston: Little, Brown, 1865.

  ________. The Rise of the Republic of the United States. Boston: Little, Brown, 1873.

  Grinde,
Donald A. Jr., and Bruce E. Johansen. Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy, Los Angeles: UCLA American Indian Studies Center, 1991.

  Gross, Robert A. The Minutemen and Their World. New York: Hill and Wang, 1976.

  Hart, Albert Bushnell, and John Gould Curtis, eds. American History Told by Contemporaries, vol. 2, Building of the Republic. New York: Macmillan, 1919.

  Holton, Woody. Abigail Adams. New York: Free Press, 2009.

  Howe, M. A. Dewolfe, ed. The Articulate Sisters. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946.

  Hutchinson, Peter Orlando, ed. The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq. Boston: 1884.

  Hutchinson, Thomas. The History of Massachusetts Bay, vols. 1 and 2. London: M. Richardson, 1765.

  Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.

  Isenberg, Nancy. Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr. New York: Penguin, 2007.

  Jacobs, Diane. Dear Abigail. New York: Ballantine, 2014.