Independence (56 page)

Every colonist who supported the rebellion, and every member of Congress, would have applauded the final charge on Jefferson's list: “In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.”

The final section contained Lee's resolution on independence, although to it Jefferson added a flourish of rhetoric: “these states, reject and renounce all allegiance and subjection to the kings of Great Britain, & … we utterly dissolve all political connection between us and … Great Britain.… [W]e do assert and declare these colonies to be free & independent states” that now “have full power … to do all [the] acts and things which independent states may of right do.”
51

Jefferson and the Committee of Five faced a precise and pressing deadline. The document they were to write was to be submitted by July 1, only twenty days after the committee's creation. As some time was spent discussing the nature of the document and selecting a draftsman, and as there were three Sabbath days between them and their target date, the document's author and his colleagues had only some fourteen to sixteen working days in which to complete the task. They succeeded. Once the draft was “approved by them [the committee],” Jefferson noted in an offhand manner in the terse log of proceedings that he kept, “I reported it to the house on Friday the 28th of June when it was read and ordered to lie on the table”—that is, not to be considered by Congress—until the following Monday, July 1.
52

At the time the Declaration of Independence was submitted, the floodgates for independence had fully opened. By then, two thirds of the towns in Massachusetts had urged a final break with Great Britain, usually by a unanimous vote.
53
Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Delaware had authorized their congressmen to vote for independence, though the latter—like North Carolina two months earlier—had not actually mentioned the word. It simply authorized its delegates to act with others to secure American “liberty, safety, and interests.” During the third week in June, New Jersey instructed its delegates to make “the United Colonies independent of
Great Britain
,” prompting a member of its assembly to remark that “We are passing the Rubicon and our Delegates in Congress … will vote plump”—that is, one and all would vote for independence. New Jersey even elected five new congressmen, replacing the delegation that in mid-May had voted against Congress's resolution excoriating royal government in the colonies. The new congressmen were “all independent souls,” remarked a member of the New Jersey Provincial Congress. Maryland likewise freed its congressmen to vote for independence, taking that step on the very day that the Committee of Five submitted the draft Declaration to Congress.
54

The proponents of independence had always regarded Pennsylvania as the major stumbling block to congressional unanimity in the battle for American independence. But it too came around in June, though an internal political revolution unlike that in any other province was needed. As intended, Congress's May 15 recommendation that the colonies adopt governments equal to the exigencies of the times lit the fuse for the final explosion in Pennsylvania. Within twenty-four hours of Congress's action, radicals in Philadelphia summoned a mass meeting on May 20. Taking “the sense of the people,” this meeting of some four thousand Philadelphians, who gathered in the rain on the State House lawn, not only called for a constitutional convention; it loudly, and “with great Unanimity,” condemned the Pennsylvania assembly's instructions forbidding its congressmen from voting for independence. Fighting to escape extinction, the assembly at last caved in, withdrawing the instructions that Dickinson had crafted for the congressional delegation six months earlier. On June 8, by a three-to-one margin, the Pennsylvania assembly authorized its congressmen to vote for whatever they believed was essential for securing American liberty and safety. Two weeks later an extralegal Conference of Committees, meeting at Carpenters' Hall to plan for the election of the constitutional convention, voted its “willingness to concur in a vote of the congress, declaring the united colonies free and independent states.” By late June, therefore, Pennsylvania's congressmen had two sets of instructions. Each sanctioned a vote for independence.
55

On the day before Congress was scheduled to take up the question of independence, Francis Lightfoot Lee wrote to his brother Richard Henry in Williamsburg that “Our affairs in Canada are … brot to a conclusion.” All American troops had “retire[d] out of the Country,” leaving the colonies to “contend with all the bad consequences” that must flow from Britain's possession of Canada, including what he thought was the likelihood of imminent assaults on Crown Point and Ticonderoga. To his “dismal Acct,” Lee added that word had just reached Philadelphia that Howe's invasion flotilla had been spotted off the coast of New York. It was a massive fleet, the largest expeditionary force that Great Britain had ever assembled, or would muster again until World Wars I and II. One New Yorker described what he saw as “a forest of masts,” some 130 vessels bearing a portion of the huge force that Lord North had gathered after learning of the colonists' armed resistance at Concord and along Battle Road.
56

There was no sign of panic in Congress. The American forces had been routed in Canada, but most believed the poor showing had been uncharacteristic. The Canadian campaign had been “thrown away … in a most Scandalous Manner,” one remarked, probably thinking of the poor leadership exhibited by Wooster, Sullivan, and Schuyler, and also probably speaking for most of his congressional colleagues. Congress devoted more attention to the looming battle for New York. Most were optimistic, confident of Washington's abilities and also buoyed by the realization that the British forces would not have the numerical superiority they had enjoyed in Canada in May and June. Many also believed, as did John Adams, that the war was “in all … Probability … in its Infancy.” America would have many advantages in a protracted war, especially if France provided assistance.
57

Independence first had to be declared, of course, and the “grand question,” as one congressman referred to it, was scheduled for debate on July 1. The proponents of independence were confident. On the day that Jefferson submitted his draft, North Carolina's Joseph Hewes predicted that Congress would declare independence “by a great Majority.” John Adams felt that most understood that the realities of war demanded that “we … must be independent states,” though he knew that “Still Objections are made to a Declaration of it.” In fact, at that same moment, Edward Rutledge remained confident that he and his fellow foes of independence might prevail. It “will depend in a great Measure,” he thought, “upon the Exertions of the Honest and sensible part of the Members” of Congress.
58

CHAPTER 13

“M
AY
H
EAVEN
P
ROSPER THE
N
EW
B
ORN
R
EPUBLIC
”

S
ETTING
A
MERICA
F
REE

JOHN ADAMS HAD WAITED
for this day for a very long time, at least since April 1775, when the war began, and probably since the summer of 1773, when he read Thomas Hutchinson's purloined letters sent to Boston by Franklin. It was Monday, July 1, 1776, the day Congress had designated for a resumption of the debate on independence.

Adams rose early, as was his custom. Before leaving for the State House, he wrote to Archibald Bulloch, a Georgian who had been in Congress in the fall of 1775 but who had returned to Savannah to become chief executive of the provincial convention (his title was “President of Georgia”). “This morning is assigned for the greatest Debate of all,” Adams told his former colleague. Congress was to consider a “Declaration that these Colonies are free and independent States, and this day or Tomorrow is to determine its Fate,” said Adams, who could barely hide his exhilaration. He expected Congress to decide in favor of independence. In fact, Adams wrote to Bulloch as if Congress had already made its decision: “May Heaven prosper, the new born Republic,—and make it more glorious than any former Republic has been.”
1

During the past few weeks Adams had rejoiced at his “ride in the Whirlwind,” as he put it. From the moment in February that Congress learned of the American Prohibitory Act, he had sensed a dramatic shift in the mood of many of his fellow deputies. “We are not in a very submissive Mood,” Adams said at the time, adding that he believed “We are hastening rapidly to great Events.” Throughout the spring he had seen abundant signs that the residents of Philadelphia shared the outlook of most members of Congress. Local military units paraded and drilled almost daily in the city's streets, and the St. George's Day Festival, an English holiday that had been celebrated every April 23 for as long as anyone could remember, had been canceled in 1776. Adams's barber, John Byrne, was the source of much of his information about the sentiments of ordinary Philadelphians. A “little dapper fellow” with an “active and lively, Tongue as fluent and voluble as you please,” Byrne frequented the city's grog shops every evening and the next morning, while shaving Adams, related what he had heard. Before April ended he was telling Adams that nearly every Philadelphian was “zealous on the side of America.”
2

Adams believed that Congress's mid-May vote to scrap all provincial governments that derived their authority from the Crown had been “the last Step” before a formal declaration of independence. It indicated that thirteen “mighty Revolutions”—one in each colony—were under way, upheavals that had “sett many violent Passions at Work. Hope, Fear, Joy, Sorrow, Love, Hatred, Malice, Envy, Revenge, Jealousy, Ambition, Avarice, Resentment, Gratitude, and every other Passion, Feeling, Sentiment, Principle and Imagination.”
3
All those emotions, and more, Adams appeared to be saying, were driving Americans toward the final break with their mother country.

Jefferson also wrote a letter early on the morning of July 1, to an old college chum, William Fleming, a judge in Virginia. Unlike Adams, Jefferson dwelled almost exclusively on the worrisome military situation. He was troubled by the debacle in Canada and Howe's imminent landing in New York, and he urged Fleming to play an active role “to keep up the spirits of the people” in Virginia in the face of news of further adversity, which he thought likely.
4
Before leaving his apartment for the State House, Jefferson devoted some time to another committee assignment. He took notes on an interview with a Montreal merchant who had passed on word that most inhabitants of Canada hoped that the thirteen colonies achieved their goals in the war with Great Britain.
5

Other congressmen were writing home too. The war made New Hampshire's Josiah Bartlett anxious. The setback in Canada and the imminent campaign in New York made Bartlett, long a supporter of independence, believe more than ever that the break with Great Britain could not be delayed. The moment had come to push the reconciliationists aside, close ranks behind the establishment of the United States, and seek foreign assistance. He thought, “we are now Come to the time that requires harmony, together with all the wisdom, prudence, Courage, & resolution we are masters of to ward off the Evils intended by our implacable Enemies.” It was time to save the “Grand American Cause.” North Carolina's John Penn could not have agreed more. July 1, he told a friend at home, would go down in history as a “remarkable” day, as “Independence will be ajitated” and declared. He added that he prayed that “things may answer our expectations after we are Independent.”
6
John Dickinson was also up early on the morning of July 1. He was about to make his last stand in the Continental Congress.

The temperature on Jefferson's thermometer had already climbed into the mid-eighties by nine A.M. It was going to be oppressively hot and humid, the sort of sticky summer day in Philadelphia that congressional veterans had come to dread. As usual, some delegates were at work well before Congress was gaveled to order. In the creeping light of early morning, John Adams left Sarah Yard's stone boardinghouse at Walnut and Second, where he and all the other Massachusetts delegates had resided for the past year, and in all likelihood crossed the street to the City Tavern for breakfast with a handful of his colleagues. From there, he walked three blocks west to the State House, where sometime after eight he met with the Board of War. But at ten A.M. Adams and some forty-five fellow deputies were in the congressional chamber when John Hancock climbed the dais to start that day's session.
7

Despite the air of anticipation that must have permeated the room, Congress first tended to its daily business. Numerous letters and papers from Generals Washington, Schuyler, Ward, Arnold, Sullivan, and Andrew Lewis—an old Indian fighter from Virginia who in March had been named a brigadier general—were read. Dispatches from two colonels who were with the army that had retreated from Canada were introduced, as was a report by the army's paymaster in the Southern Department. Communications from the New Hampshire and New Jersey assemblies came next, followed by a reading of Maryland's resolution—adopted the previous Friday—that freed its delegation to “concur with … a majority” of the other delegations “in declaring the United Colonies free and independent States.” Congress then voted to permit brigadier generals to have aides-de-camp. It was just about to proceed to the question of independence when another letter from Washington, written on Saturday, arrived and was read. The commander broke the news that the militia was slow to come in, adding that he hoped their tardiness would not cause “disagreeable circumstances” during his defense of New York.
8

Finally, the order of the day—the business that Congress had put on its schedule—was read: “Resolved, That this Congress will resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole, to take into consideration the Resolution respecting Independency.” After the resolution was adopted, the delegates, as they had done on many occasions when forming into a committee of the whole, chose Virginia's Benjamin Harrison, highly thought of as a parliamentarian, to chair the session. Harrison, who was obese and six feet four inches tall—a Yankee described him as “uncommonly large”—shuffled to the dais to supplant Hancock. Once in his chair, Harrison turned to Charles Thomson, Congress's secretary since the first day of the First Congress at Carpenters' Hall, to reread Richard Henry Lee's motion calling for independence. With that, the floor was open.
9
It was no surprise that, at this critical juncture, Dickinson was the first delegate on his feet.

Leaving nothing to chance, Dickinson had prepared his speech in advance, something he almost always did when he planned to deliver a major address. Dickinson knew that this would not only be an important speech but also his final oration in the Continental Congress. If independence was declared, he planned to resign his seat before Pennsylvania's new legislature, under its new constitution, removed him from the state's delegation, which it very likely would do.

Dickinson had known for weeks that he had lost his fight against American independence. And he had lost much more. Once he had controlled the Pennsylvania assembly, having wrested the leadership from Galloway, but that body, a casualty of the American Revolution, had not met since June 14—and it would never meet again. Once, too, he had been the most revered public figure in his province, exalted above even Franklin. But Dickinson was now reviled by many. In June an editorial in Philadelphia's most influential newspaper, the
Pennsylvania Gazette
, denounced his “ruinous … reconciliation” policies, charging that since the war began, Dickinson had held “no fixed object in view than [advancing] HIMSELF.” Old provincial political allies had abandoned him and some friends had forsaken him. When the soldiers in three of Philadelphia's four militia battalions voted nearly unanimously in June for independence, other general officers had wondered aloud how Dickinson could lead these men in battle. Some had bluntly told him that he had “lost the confidence and affections of the people.” Some urged him to resign his commission. As spring gave way to summer, acquaintances from other colonies implored Dickinson to support independence, which, they said, offered the best hope for a short war. Charles Thomson, related to Dickinson by marriage, tried in the last days of June to persuade his old friend and in-law to join the majority in Congress “for a declaration of independence.” Thomson reminded Dickinson that he had once pledged to support independence should Great Britain “employ foreign mercenaries to cut out throats.”
10

But Dickinson could not be swayed. He had waged desperate, courageous fights throughout his public career, and he had always been vindicated. He had contested Galloway and Franklin when they sought the royalization of Pennsylvania, and in time nearly every American had applauded the stance he had taken. At great risk he had led his colony in resisting Britain's imperial policies, and in the process, he had helped his countrymen from New England to Georgia to see the dangers posed by Parliament. There had always been a stubborn streak in Dickinson. It was perhaps stronger than ever in 1776, as he must have felt that he had already burned his bridges. In all probability, he realized that he would never attain the lofty status in an independent America that he had enjoyed in colonial days. He may also have been driven by an obsessive and gnawing unwillingness to take a back seat to the likes of John Adams, a steadfast antagonist whom he despised. No one, and no line of reasoning, could persuade Dickinson to abandon reconciliation and support independence.

It must have been close to noon when Dickinson began to speak. The sun was approaching its zenith, and outdoors the temperature had risen above ninety degrees. Congress's chamber, with its windows shut to preserve privacy and some two score delegates crammed into the room, was a sweatbox. That did not deter Dickinson, who launched into the lengthy speech he had crafted.

He began by mentioning the “Burthen assigned me,” possibly a hint that those in Congress who opposed independence had selected him to speak first. He could count heads, too, and he as much as conceded in the first minute or two that he was speaking on behalf of a lost cause. In a sense, he said, he “rejoice[d]” that his fight was nearly over and that he would shortly “be relieved from its Weight.” What he said this day would win no friends, he admitted. Instead, it would “give the finishing Blow to my once too great, and [now] … too dimish'd Popularity.” But he felt compelled to say his piece. “Silence would be guilt.… I must speak, tho I should lose my Life, tho I should lose the Affections of my C[ountrymen].” There was at least one consolation: “Drawing Resentment [is] one proof of Virtue.”

Dickinson opened his litany against independence with the assertion that Congress and the American people were “warm'd by Passion.” Their bitterness was fueled by a “Resentment” born of “injuries offered to their Country.” He did not deny that America had been wronged or that Americans were right to resist British tyranny. Nothing was more laudable than to die rather than to submit to a tyrant. Yet, reason screamed that independence was not in America's long-term best interests. America would be better served by reconciliation with Great Britain on the fair and just terms that Congress had long since laid out.

Dickinson next proceeded to enumerate the reasons for not declaring independence:

a war for independence would last longer than a war for reconciliation; Britain would resist independence “with more severity;” far from increasing American morale, independence would diminish it; it was risky to declare independence before adopting a constitution; a long war would plunge America deeply into debt; the American union was unlikely to survive long after independence; an independent America might become a vassal of France; and a stalemated war might end in Europe's partition of America.

Dickinson had added nothing new. There was nothing new to be said. In a letter written ten days earlier John Adams had accurately inventoried the objections to independence that the reconciliationists could be expected to make. Still later, once this session was complete, Adams remarked that the day's debate had been “an idle Mispence of Time for nothing was Said, but what had been repeated and hackneyed in that Room before an hundred Times for Six Months past.” (Another proponent of independence grumbled that all the arguments on both sides were “as well known at the Coffee House of the City as in Congress.”)
11