Independence (26 page)

The minute Adams concluded, Dickinson was on his feet. If Adams had been contentious, Dickinson likely answered in the combative manner that had long been his custom in floor debates in the Pennsylvania assembly. What is certain is that he aired at least some of his views on patching up differences with the mother country. Like Adams, Dickinson saw reconciliation as the object of the war, but he wished to restore the Anglo-American relationship that had existed prior to 1763, before there were parliamentary taxes and a British army in America in peacetime—a time when the colonists happily acquiesced in Parliament's regulation of American trade.

With the conflict less than a month old, Congress was divided over what it was fighting for. Some were also put off by what they saw as Yankee extremism in Adams's remarks. Some from New England, on the other hand, found that Dickinson's stance “gives … disgust.”
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This spelled trouble, and at the very moment that word was reaching Congress of urgent military issues that needed tending. Congress postponed further debate on America's war aims for a week, hoping that passions might cool in the interim.

But Congress did not put off the debate strictly from fear of divisions. These were experienced politicians. None expected unanimity on every issue. Nor did they anticipate debates that were free of rancor. They were simply overwhelmed with the number of things they had to deal with. “Such a vast Multitude of Objects, civil, political, commercial and military, press and crowd Us so fast, that We know not what to do first,” John Adams remarked without exaggeration.
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Congress knew that it first must deal with a series of military issues that simply could not be ignored or postponed. It was common knowledge that London was sending reinforcements across the Atlantic, and many believed the destination of some troops would be New York. On May 15 Congress received an inquiry from resistance leaders in New York City asking how the colony should respond if threatened with a landing by the British army. Congress put together a committee—which included George Washington—to consider the matter, and within a few days New York was directed not to resist the redcoats. They were to use force only if the soldiers attacked or invaded homes or businesses.
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Hard on the heels of the New York issue came word of military actions taken by Massachusetts and Connecticut. Fearing a British invasion from Canada, those two colonies, each acting without knowledge of what the other was doing, had raised military forces to seize the British-held installation of Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain in New York. Colonel Benedict Arnold commanded the Massachusetts force. Ethan Allen was in charge of the army raised by Connecticut, a band of rowdy frontiersmen who called themselves the Green Mountain Boys. The two small armies set off at about the same time and ran into each other in western Massachusetts. Thereafter, they more or less cooperated in a joint campaign to take the fort. On May 10, the day that Congress reconvened, Allen and Arnold led their men on the last leg of the expedition, a half-mile march along a narrow path that hugged Lake Champlain. They moved with stealth through the early morning darkness, bringing their force to the south side of the British installation. When the men were ready, Allen gave the order to attack. The Yankees charged out of the black night and into the fort, screaming at the top of their lungs. They encountered next to no resistance. The British had posted only two sentries, and both were thoroughly surprised by Allen, who roared that the colonial force was taking Fort Ticonderoga “in the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress.” The remaining redcoats, forty-two in all, were sound asleep. They were awakened and taken captive, along with twenty-four women and children, and all were herded into the stockade. The entire operation lasted less than ten minutes. Flushed with success, the Americans also took Crown Point, another British fort twelve miles farther north. By the time Congress learned about these actions, it also discovered that Arnold was talking wildly of going after the British post at St. Johns on the Richelieu River, not far from Montreal.
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Fort Ticonderoga may have been seized in the name of the Continental Congress, but the action had not been taken with Congress's authorization. In fact, the members of Congress were surprised to learn of the campaign. The authorities in New York were even more astonished, as they had never been consulted by Massachusetts and Connecticut about an operation on their soil. The whole affair raised several troubling questions. As both Massachusetts and Connecticut claimed to lack the resources for garrisoning the captured forts, who was to take on that commitment? Should Arnold be permitted to campaign in Canada? What should be done with the British supplies that were captured in the two installations? Were individual colonies to be permitted to take military initiatives without congressional authorization? But two larger questions loomed over and beyond these matters. One was the question of who was responsible for running this war. An infinitely more thorny question concerned America's relationship with London while the war was being waged.

(Gary J. Antonetti, Ortelius Design)

Congress first tackled the questions that required an immediate resolution, though in a preview of how slow this deliberative body could be, nearly two weeks were required for it to reach its decisions. By the end of May, Congress had directed Arnold to take no further action, ordered the removal of some provisions from the recently seized forts—lest the British army come from Canada and retake them—and asked Connecticut and New York to provide the troops for garrisoning Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
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(Congress was presented with some of the trophies, including a captured drum and flags, which soon adorned one wall of its chamber in the Pennsylvania State House.)

On Saturday, May 20, the congressmen dined together at the City Tavern, as they had done the previous Saturday evening. When they resumed their deliberations on Monday, they took up Dickinson's proposal, labeled by one delegate, “shall we treat.”
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In other words, should Congress petition the king?

Dickinson was among the first to speak. He began with a stark warning. If those who wished to raise a national army and undertake attendant military preparations were to get what they wanted, they must first agree to pursue reconciliation by appealing to the Crown. “We must know the one Measure will be taken before we assent to the other. If We [the more moderate delegates] will go on with Measures of War, They [the more radical congressmen] must go on with [a] Measure of Peace.” After he threw down the gauntlet, Dickinson took issue with John Adams's view that the colonists no longer owed any allegiance to Parliament. Dickinson insisted that Congress must acknowledge Parliament's right to regulate imperial commerce. In fact, he seemed to say, Congress should only deny Parliament's right to tax the colonists, for on all other matters “They have the Power, We cant take it away.” Next he called on Congress to compensate the East India Company for the tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party. Toward the end of a speech that must have consumed hours, Dickinson introduced three motions. He asked Congress to adopt a “humble & dutiful Petition to his Majesty, praying Relief from … the System of Colonial Administration adopted since [1763]”; to send agents to London to negotiate “an Accommodation”; and to inform General Gage of its petition to the monarch and request that he “forbear further Hostilities … untill an Answer can be received to our Answer & proposals.”
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Dickinson privately said in advance that his remarks would doubtless “inflame” many of his colleagues. He could not have been more accurate. His speech on May 23 touched off the second raging debate within a week, both triggered by speeches that he had given. Most of the furor swirled about the issue of petitioning the king. America was “between Hawk and Buzzard,” John Adams muttered. It should not be wasting its time with a petition. It should be resolutely preparing for war, creating the national army that Lee had urged a week earlier and establishing a navy as well. Moreover, Adams and many others who hoped to receive aid from Britain's enemies feared that an appeal to the monarch would send the wrong signal. It would make America appear weak in the eyes of the world. Furthermore, he feared that a petition would provide Lord North the “Opportunity … to sow divisions among the States and the People.” If all that was not enough, Adams and others were convinced that it was “fruitless” to beseech the king to end the war.
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Nor was petitioning the king all that bothered some congressmen. Many thought that time had passed Dickinson by, that he spoke the language of yesteryear, a time before the colonists' constitutional viewpoint had crystallized. To many, his views on the Anglo-American relationship must have seemed nearly identical to those of Galloway. Expressing shock at Dickinson's stance, some of his longtime allies within the Pennsylvania delegation broke with him. Others were openly critical. Lee denounced any thought of yielding any American rights. Patrick Henry warned that natural rights “must never be receded from.” John Rutledge spoke of Dickinson's proposal “with the utmost Contempt,” said one listener, and insisted that Congress never consider “any Concession” to the “Ultimatum” issued by the British ministry.
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Dickinson had indeed inflamed delegates from every corner of America, and few supported his recommendation to consider modifying the rights that Americans were certain they possessed. But a majority in Congress was willing to make an entreaty to the king and, if the monarch was disposed to talk, to negotiate with him. Some, like Dickinson, anticipated success. Others thought it prudent, for even if the attempt failed, having made the effort would in the long run unify the colonists behind the war effort. No delegates were more viscerally opposed to approaching the king or to negotiation than those from New England, but they were painted into a corner. The Yankees knew that their jerry-built siege army might not last much longer. They also knew that they might not get a national army unless they conceded to Dickinson and his numerous allies.

After two days of savage debate, Congress agreed to four resolutions. Three passed by unanimous votes. Congress blamed hostilities on Lord North's ministry, which it said was seeking to “carry into execution, by force of arms, several unconstitutional and oppressive acts … for laying taxes in America … and for altering and changing the constitutional and internal police of … these colonies.” As the British army was responsible for having fired the first shot of the war, Congress resolved to immediately put “these colonies … into a state of defense.” It agreed to petition the king. Lastly, though many congressmen voted against the measure, it consented to “opening a Negotiation in order to accommodate the unhappy disputes.”
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Dickinson had won round one.

CHAPTER 6

“P
ROGRESS
M
UST
B
E
S
LOW
”

J
OHN
A
DAMS AND THE
P
OLITICS OF A
D
IVIDED
C
ONGRESS

IT HAD BEEN NEARLY
inevitable that John Dickinson would take charge among the delegates to the Second Congress who wished to follow a moderate course, but there was no such obvious leader for those who favored a harder line. Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams were the best-known among the congressmen who thought it wrongheaded to petition the king, but both lacked the attributes—and possibly the trust—needed to be an effective manager in a deliberative body. Henry's great gift was his oratorical skills, while Adams was unsurpassed as an organizer and propagandist, but the members of Congress were not the sort to be swept up by a flamboyant speaker or an accomplished agitator.

Perhaps because he understood early on that he could never hold sway at this level, Henry left Philadelphia for home only a few weeks after Congress reconvened, never again to be a major force in the national government. Samuel Adams remained in Congress until 1781 and never ceased to be an important figure, though he mostly stayed in the background, possibly somewhat by choice. He was aware that his reputation as a radical revolutionary led some to see as pernicious anything that he advocated. Besides, though not without ambition, Adams appears to have been less driven to win national accolades than most who played on that stage. From start to finish, Adams's focus was on Massachusetts. He longed for autonomy for his province and battled for the preservation of the way of life that had long prevailed within the Bay Colony, free from the dictates of a strong central government, whether in London or Philadelphia. Loosening the shackles that North's ministry envisaged for the colonies was paramount for Adams, and in the first fifteen months of this Congress he worked quietly to achieve his goal, leaving to others a more public role.

Benjamin Franklin sat in the Second Congress, but standing front and center in an assembly had never been his style. Even when his Assembly Party dominated the Pennsylvania legislature in the 1750s and 1760s, Franklin had turned to Galloway to lead and manage the party's business. Franklin was both a poor public speaker and never comfortable joining in the rancorous and fast-moving floor debates that were part of the day-to-day activity in an assembly. Franklin's behavior as a congressman astonished some of his colleagues, who, aware of his widespread fame, expected a more flamboyant and outgoing personality. John Adams, for instance, was surprised to discover that Franklin was “composed and grave and … very reserved. He has not … affected to take the lead; but has seemed to choose that the Congress should pursue their own Principles and sentiments and adopt their own Plans.”
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Franklin's reserve in 1775 also stemmed from his protracted absence from America. Nearly every member of Congress was a stranger to him. He knew most in Pennsylvania's delegation, but several of them had been political enemies when he had last been active in his province's politics. He must have wished to remain in the background, at least for a time, to gain the lay of the land. Something else weighed on Franklin when he took his seat in Congress: Many of his fellow congressmen distrusted him. After all, he had been a resident of London for the past decade, where he had once publicly endorsed parliamentary taxation of America. Furthermore, Franklin had once advocated the royalization of Pennsylvania; the despised Galloway was his longtime political partner; and his son, William, was now the royal governor of New Jersey. Both Richard Henry Lee and Samuel Adams thought Franklin “a suspicious doubtful character.” Adams's doubts increased when he learned of Franklin's overnight visit with Galloway at Trevose. One deputy confided that some in Congress “entertain a great Suspicion that Dr. Franklin” had returned to America “rather as a spy than as a friend.” Some even thought he hoped “to discover our weak side & make his peace with [Lord North] by discovering it to him.”
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Seldom have fears been so badly misplaced.

When Franklin sailed from London in March, he no longer thought Anglo-American reconciliation was likely or desirable. Still fuming over his despicable treatment in the Cockpit, Franklin acknowledged his lust for revenge, a sentiment for which he was “ashamed,” he said. But he was not especially dismayed to learn upon landing in America that hostilities had erupted during his Atlantic crossing. He was pleased by Massachusetts's response to Gage's attack. Even more, he rejoiced that Britain's decision to begin the “cutting of throats” had only “more firmly united” the American people. Franklin delighted in regaling America's friends in England with accounts of the action along Battle Road, writing sardonically that the regulars had made such a “vigorous Retreat” that “the feeble Americans … could scarce keep up with them.”
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Franklin alternated between sorrow for what need not have occurred—the British Empire was being wrecked “by the mangling hands of a few blundering ministers,” he said—and a sense that historical inevitability was being played out. As he saw it, “a new virtuous People, who have publick Spirit,” were coming of age and severing their ties with “an old corrupt” nation. Franklin saw no hope for the Olive Branch Petition, as Dickinson's proposed appeal to the king was being called. It would “afford Britain one chance more of recovering our Affections and retaining the Connection,” Franklin remarked, but he was certain that Britain's leaders had “neither Temper nor Wisdom enough to seize the Golden Opportunity.” He never doubted that American independence was on the horizon. “A separation will of course be inevitable,” Franklin said shortly after he entered Congress.
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Nor could there be any doubt that he was pleased with what he saw as America's inexorable march toward independence. Despite how much he loved London and hoped to live out his life there, once it became clear that Parliament and North's ministry had “doomed my Country to Destruction”—to “murder our People,” was how he put it—he had cast his lot with America.
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In letter after letter written to acquaintances in England in the first weeks after he entered Congress, Franklin alluded to “your Ministry,” “your Ministers,” “your Nation,” “your Ships of War.” When he referred to America he spoke of “our Seaport Towns,” “our Sea Coast,” “our Liberties.”
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Franklin's first task after entering Congress was to convince his colleagues that his support for America's war was genuine. It took a few weeks, but by midsummer John Adams had aptly sized up his fellow congressman. Franklin supported “our boldest Measures,” Adams had concluded. In fact, he believed that Franklin “rather seems to think us too irresolute, and backward.” At present, Adams continued, Franklin believed America was “neither dependent nor independent. But he thinks that We shall soon assume a Character more decisive. He thinks, that even if We should be driven to … a total Independency … We could maintain it.” To which Adams added: Franklin “is … a great and good Man.”
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Though not a commanding figure in Congress, Franklin was hardly inactive. Esmond Wright, a biographer, fittingly described Franklin as “the organizer of revolution” during that crucial summer of 1775. He had a hand in preparing Philadelphia's defenses, planning a continental currency, securing munitions, and creating an American post office.
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Franklin's most daring act that summer was to call for organizing a national government under a constitution. Two decades earlier, while Pennsylvania's representative at an intercolonial conference that met in Albany to prepare for the French and Indian War, Franklin had offered a plan of union for the thirteen colonies. London had not been happy with the idea of an American confederation, nor had any colony embraced the scheme. No American province had been willing to surrender even a smidgen of authority to a central government.
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But in July, Franklin tweaked his twenty-year-old plan and presented it to Congress.

Franklin's proposed constitution would have come close to creating an independent United States. Under his plan, Congress would have possessed the authority to levy taxes, create new colonies, conduct diplomacy, form alliances with foreign powers, and make war and peace. A plan of this sort never stood a chance of passage. Those who clung to the hope of reconciliation were horrified by it, and some who were ready for independence distanced themselves, fearing that deliberations would sow bitter, perhaps fatal divisions at a moment when unity was imperative. Franklin rapidly withdrew his scheme, claiming that he had merely wished to provide his colleagues with ideas to ponder. But, as was almost always true of Franklin, there was a hidden motive. His proposal was part of his campaign to convince skeptics that he was an ardent supporter of America's war.
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Vacuums do not last long in politics, and in June and July 1775 it was John Adams who stepped up to take the lead of those who were restive with the moderate course advocated by Dickinson.

Adams was anxious to redirect the delegates' attention to Richard Henry Lee's May 16 resolution calling for a national army, a proposition that had gathered dust for three weeks. The New England army camped outside Boston—the so-called Grand American Army—was not so grand. There were men aplenty, but the four provincial armies that made up the force were incapable of conducting a lengthy siege operation. Not only were there appalling shortages of arms, artillery, and ammunition, but New England also lacked the means of indefinitely paying the soldiery. Besides, the Yankees did not think that they alone should have to foot the bill for an army that was resisting British tyranny. British actions were an American problem, not a New England problem. It was clear, too, that some of the higher-ranking officers in the army were unfit. They owed their selection to politics, not merit. Furthermore, hardly any of the middle- and lower-grade officers were experienced soldiers. This army needed to be rebuilt, or “new modeled,” in the parlance of the day.
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It would require the resources of all the American colonies and a leadership that shied away neither from initiating drastic changes nor from imposing the discipline necessary to mold the army into a decent fighting force.

The Yankee Doodle Intrenchments near Boston. A British lampoon of the American siege of Boston and the amateur colonial soldiers. The siege began on the day after Lexington and Concord and continued until the British abandoned the city a year later. (Archive of Early American Images, John Corter Brown Library, Brown University)

As May slipped by without congressional action, Massachusetts activists wrote to their delegates in Philadelphia in what appears to have been an orchestrated campaign to secure change. The soldiers were defying orders, cried one correspondent. If something was not done soon, the army might turn into an armed mob and plunder civilians. What was needed, said another, was “a regular general to assist us in disciplining the army.” A writer cautioned, “Every days delay … will make the task more arduous.” One urged the appointments of Colonel Washington and Charles Lee “at the head” of the army. Even some officers in the army reported “the impossibility of keeping the army together, without the Assistance of Congress.” At the very moment that the Massachusetts congressmen were sharing these thoughts with their colleagues from outside New England, Massachusetts's rebel assembly asked Congress to assume “the regulation and general direction” of the Grand American Army so that its “operations may more effectually answer the purposes designed.” It sent its request by express, which not coincidentally arrived as Congress was spinning its wheels over the wording of the petition to the king.
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But Congress moved at a glacial pace. Before acting decisively, it discussed how to finance a national army, looked into securing gunpowder and other supplies, and solicited the thoughts of the authorities at home regarding who they preferred as officers in a national army.
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John Adams was irritated by the delay. This “continent is a vast, unwieldy Machine,” he sighed. A good army has to be fashioned and quickly, he thought, for it alone offered “the most efficacious, Sure” means of securing “our Liberty and Felicity.” Samuel Adams was no less impatient, though he told his friends at home that something would soon be done. “Business must go on slower than one could wish,” he said. “It is difficult to possess upwards of Sixty Gentlemen, at once with the Same Feelings upon Questions of Importance.”
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