Independence (51 page)

Livingston was not eager to return to Congress. He missed his family and believed that his health had suffered from his heavy workload and sluggish lifestyle as a congressman. He had long before moaned that he was “sick of politicks,” and now he said that he dreaded returning to that “hot room” in Philadelphia. He reached home around Christmas and tarried there for nearly seventy-five days, not rejoining his fellow New York delegates in Congress until mid-March.
29

Much had occurred during Livingston's long absence from Philadelphia, including the publication of
Common Sense
and word of the American Prohibitory Act. When Livingston returned to Congress, he knew the day was not far off when he would probably have to make a decision on independence. While he continued to support the “Glorious struggle [to be] emancipated from the tyranny of an inhuman prince,” Livingston still opposed independence. His actions during the spring of 1776 were those of a man who sought to delay the decision on independence in the hope that it would never have to be made. Indeed, Livingston spoke in private of pursuing a strategy of “well-timed delays.” That, in fact, was the strategy not only of Livingston but also of the entire New York delegation and a string of provincial congresses back home. The plan of action, or inaction, was grounded on twin convictions. Livingston and his New York comrades not only believed that a large number of MPs opposed Lord North's American policies and were “prepared to give up the right of [Parliament's] taxation” of America, but they also were convinced that the opposition faction in Parliament would swell if the British suffered setbacks during the coming campaign of 1776. Therefore, if the decision on independence could be staved off, military realities by late in 1776 might make both sides more willing to consent to terms of reconciliation. In February, Livingston summed up his outlook: “I wish to join hands with a nation which I have been accustomed to respect.”
30

The best of all worlds for Livingston was to prevent independence from ever occurring. The second-best alternative for Livingston was to delay independence until New York's traditional colonial leaders could write and adopt a constitution for the independent state of New York, a charter that would preserve as much as possible of the old order.
31

In late winter, just after word of Montgomery's failed campaign reached Philadelphia, Livingston appears to have believed that independence could be forestalled for months, and perhaps forever. By mid-May he knew that his earlier assessment had been wrong. A decision on independence could not be averted much longer, though he remained willing to fight against it in every congressional floor debate. Nevertheless, all along Livingston knew that if, or when, the question of independence came to a vote, he would vote for the final break. He understood, as he put it, “the propriety of swimming with a Stream which it is impossible to stem” and conceding “to the Torrent” in order to “direct its course.”
32
First and foremost, Livingston's goal was to continue to hold power, for only then could he hope to prevent or minimize social and political change in the new United States. If independence was unavoidable, he wished to assure that the American Revolution would be guided from the top down rather than from the bottom up.

Richard Henry Lee did not act immediately on the Virginia Convention's directive to ask Congress to declare independence. He waited nearly two weeks to make his move, in part because Generals Washington and Gates were in town for talks and it would have been awkward to raise the issue of declaring independence.
33
Lee's timing may also have been influenced by the Canadian debacle. He may have waited for that ongoing misadventure to play out, as each day bad news arrived and the ill tidings played into the hands of those who insisted that foreign assistance was essential for winning the war.
34

Lee himself appears to have believed that the British could not do much more damage on New York's northern frontier during 1776. After conferring with Washington, Lee may also have concluded that the British might take New York City and all of Manhattan Island in 1776, but the campaign would be long and hard, and—as General Washington put it—the “place shall not be carried without some loss” to the redcoats, losses proportionally far in excess of those they had suffered on Bunker Hill. At the beginning of June 1776, Lee was convinced that the Americans could survive that year's campaign, but he appears to have believed that without foreign assistance he and his countrymen would be in a world of trouble during the campaign of 1777.
35

During the first week of June, Lee and his fellow Virginia delegates must have conferred and decided that the time had come to act. When Lee walked from his lodging to the Pennsylvania State House on that bright morning of June 7, he knew that he would offer a resolution that very day calling for American independence. If he had any reservations over whether the timing was appropriate, they vanished during the initial moments of the session. The final reports sent from Montreal by Chase and Charles Carroll were read. The news was so “truly alarming” that Congress directed its president to inform Washington that the army of the Northern Department was “almost ruined” and barely maintained a toehold above Ticonderoga.
36

Sometime shortly after the customary daily business was completed, Lee took the floor. He slowly read his resolution. It contained three parts. Lee urged Congress to declare that the thirteen American colonies were “free and independent States … absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown.” The resolution also called on Congress to undertake “the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances” and to prepare a “plan of confederation”—a constitution for the American union of states—that was to be transmitted to the states for ratification.
37

Some delegates objected to beginning debate on Lee's resolution on that day. There was another pressing matter to tend to: how to cope with the circulation of counterfeit congressional bills of credit. Some delegates said that issue was too important to wait. In all likelihood, they wanted time to organize their response to what Lee had proposed. Congress voted to defer consideration of Lee's resolution until the next day.

In an unusual plea, Hancock “ordered” the congressmen to “attend punctually at ten o'clock” the next morning, a Saturday session that the president of Congress must have expected to be lengthy. Presumably, most delegates obliged, and once the customary business was out of the way, Congress formed itself into a committee of the whole. Lee's motion was reread, and for the first time an entire session was devoted exclusively to the question of declaring independence. According to a New Englander, the issue was “cooly discussed” in a very long debate. The session stretched until seven in the evening, three hours or more beyond the normal quitting time, and on Monday the discussion resumed.
38

The case against an immediate declaration of independence was made by Dickinson, Wilson, Livingston, and Edward Rutledge. Little had been seen of Dickinson since early in the year, when he had tried without success to send delegates to London to seek to open negotiations with the Crown. But on June 8 Dickinson notified his colleagues in the Pennsylvania assembly that Congress's business “in a very particular Manner demand[ed] his Attendance this Morning.” He hurried down to the first floor to join the fight against separating from the mother country.
39

Dickinson was often the first to speak when reconciliation was threatened. While it is not certain that he was the first to obtain the floor on this day, he likely spoke longer than anyone else. Dickinson's prepared, though sketchy, notes ran several pages, indicating a speech that probably would have required more than an hour to deliver.

Dickinson's speech against declaring independence was organized around three arguments. He pointed out that several colonies had not authorized their representatives to vote for independence. Most delegations had been charged with defending the colonists against British actions, nothing more. Besides, to “change a Government” required “a full & free Consent of the People plainly exprest.” Secondly, he denied that military necessity demanded independence. Never mentioning Canada, he pointed to Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights as evidence that the colonists could adequately resist Britain's armed forces. He knew that Congress was avid for French assistance, he said, but warned that “We must pay some price for it.” No one knew what that price would be. He raised the specter of falling under France's thumb. That would only be the beginning of problems for an independent America, he continued. An independent America would be a republican America, and the history of republicanism was one long dismal record of “Convulsion” that invariably ended in despotical rule, the only means of restoring order.

Finally, Dickinson fell back on his hard-wearing theme that reconciliation with Great Britain was in America's best interest. The commercial advantages offered by the British Empire were too great to be relinquished. Was it not preferable, he asked, to be allied with the British people, whose “Religion, Blood, Manners, Customs” were similar to those of the American people, rather than to join hands with the French, who were different in every way from Anglo-Americans? He begged Congress to do nothing before the peace commissioners arrived. Americans were united behind the war, but the British were deeply divided, he said. Congress could play on those divisions in the negotiations with the commissioners. Furthermore, following the heavy losses that the British army would almost certainly suffer in the fighting for New York, the colonists could win a just settlement that permitted them to enjoy the fruits of the empire while being “render[ed] … independent” within it.
40

The other foes of independence mostly offered variations on the themes presented by Dickinson, but some of what they said was novel. Wilson and Livingston said they thought reconciliation an “impossibility,” but they opposed a formal break “at this time.” They observed that during the month since Congress had voted “for suppressing the exercise of all powers derived from the crown,” not a single mid-Atlantic province had authorized its delegates to vote for independence. This demonstrated that the inhabitants of these four colonies “had not yet accommodated their minds to a separation from the mother country.” Should Congress declare independence, there was a danger that those colonies—Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, and New Jersey—“might secede from the Union.” If even one or two colonies seceded, it was inconceivable that France or Spain would remain interested in providing assistance to the rebels. One of these speakers—it is not clear who—even declared that France and Spain would never aid the American rebels. It was “more likely,” he asserted, that they “should form a connection with the British court” to suppress the American rebellion and secure “a partition of our territories.” To keep its European rivals neutral, London would return Canada to France and Florida to Spain. Rutledge contended that it was ludicrous—in private he said that “a Man must have the Impudence of a New Englander” to consider such a thing—to declare independence and claim to be a sovereign state without first having written and ratified a national constitution.
41

These presentations, by delegates from what Rutledge in private called the “Sensible part of the House,” were answered by Lee and Wythe from Virginia; several Yankees, including John Adams; and one of Georgia's two delegates in attendance, either Button Gwinnett or Lyman Hall. Their arguments, in the opinion of Elbridge Gerry, reflected the views of “the vigorous” delegates and were directed at “the slow people” who for too long had “retarded” the Congress.
42
Adams asserted that a declaration of independence would merely confirm what already existed. The colonists, he and others maintained, had “alwais been independent” of Parliament and they had ceased to be bound by allegiance to the king once he consented to “levying war on us.” Some who spoke contended that the overwhelming majority of Americans favored independence. Others took the position that most Americans “wait for us [Congress] to lead the way.” They stressed that it “would be vain to wait either weeks or months for perfect unanimity,” as that was unlikely to ever be realized. But the heart of their argument centered on military necessity. France was willing to provide help now, but it might not be so inclined should America “be unsuccessful” on the battlefield in 1776. They warned, too, that time would be required to negotiate an alliance, making it imperative that talks begin soon in order to ensure assistance before the campaign of 1777. Finally, some of these speakers asserted that had independence been declared months earlier, not only might foreign assistance have prevented the disasters in Canada, but also a French alliance probably would have deterred the German principalities from furnishing soldiers to Great Britain.
43

Sometime after the conclusion of Saturday's session, Rutledge decided to move on Monday that the issue be postponed for up to four weeks. In the meantime, Congress could consider a constitution and the terms it would and would not accept in a treaty of alliance with France. Others were thinking along the same line. Not a few also hoped that within the ensuing twenty-five or thirty days, each holdout colony would authorize its representatives in Congress to vote to fall “from the parent stem,” as one delegate put it.
44
There was one other matter to consider. Since its inception, Congress had accompanied every major step with a formal pronouncement. If it declared independence, it would probably wish to accompany its vote with a declaration explaining its action. Delaying the discussion on Lee's resolution would provide time for the declaration to be drafted.