Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable.… Fortified with these animating reflections, we … declare that … the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will … employ for the preservation of our liberties, being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than live slaves.… We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain.… We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors.… With an humble confidence in the mercies of the supreme and impartial Judge and Ruler of the Universe, we … implore his divine goodness to protect us happily through this great conflict, to dispose our adversaries to reconciliation on reasonable terms, and thereby to relieve the empire from the calamities of civil war.
In these measures Mr. Dickinson acquiesced, as John Adams had submitted to the petition. The “perfect” union which was thus attained was nevertheless a union of wills rather than of opinions; and on July 24, 1775, in a letter to James Warren, John Adams gave a frank account of the state of mind to which the perfect union had reduced him:
In confidence, I am determined to write freely to you this time. A certain great Fortune and piddling Genius, whose Fame has been trumpeted so loudly, has given a silly Cast to our whole Doings. We are between Hawk and Buzzard. We ought to have had in our Hands a month ago the whole Legislative, executive, and judicial of the whole Continent, and have completely modeled a Constitution; to have raised a naval Power, and opened our Ports wide; to have arrested every Friend of Government on the Continent and held them as Hostages for the poor Victims of Boston, and then opened the Door as wide as possible for Peace and Reconciliation. After that they might have petitioned, and negotiated, and addressed, etc., if they would. Is all this extravagant? Is it wild? Is it not the soundest Policy?
It seems that Mr. Adams would have presented the sword boldly, keeping the olive branch carefully concealed behind his back. His letter, intercepted by the British Government, and printed about the time when Mr. Dickinson’s petition was received in London, did nothing to make the union in America more perfect, or to facilitate the opening of that refractory “Door … for Peace and Reconciliation.”
The truth is that John Adams no longer believed in the possibility of opening this door, even by the tiniest crack; and even those who still had faith in the petition as a means to that end found it somewhat difficult to keep their faith alive during the weary month of October while they waited for the King’s reply. Mr. Chase, although he had “not absolutely discarded every glimpse of a hope of reconciliation,” admitted that “the prospect was gloomy.” Mr. Zubly assured Congress that he “did hope for a reconciliation and that this winter may bring it”; and he added, as if justifying himself against sceptical shrugs of shoulders, “I may enjoy my hopes for reconciliation; others may enjoy theirs that none will take place.” It might almost seem that the idea of reconciliation, in this October of 1775, was a vanishing image to be enjoyed retrospectively rather than anything substantial to build upon for the future. This it was, perhaps, that gave especial point to Mr. Zubly’s oft-repeated assertion that Congress must speedily obtain one of two things—“a reconciliation with Great Britain, or the means of carrying on the war.”
Reconciliation or war! This was surely a new antithesis. Had not arms been taken up for the purpose precisely of disposing their adversaries “to reconciliation on reasonable terms”? Does Mr. Zubly mean to say then that war is an alternative to reconciliation—an alternative which will lead the colonies away from compromise towards that which all have professed not to desire? Is Mr. Zubly hinting at independence even before the King has replied to the petition? No. This is not what Mr. Zubly meant. What he had in the back of his mind, and what the Congress was coming to have in the back of its mind, if one may judge from the abbreviated notes which John Adams took of the debates in the fall of 1775, was that if the colonies could not obtain reconciliation by means of the non-intercourse measures very soon—this very winter as Mr. Zubly hoped—they would have to rely for reconciliation upon a vigorous prosecution of the war; in which case the non-intercourse measures were likely to prove an obstacle rather than an advantage, since they would make it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain the “means of carrying on the war.”
The non-intercourse measures had been designed to obtain conciliation by forcing Great Britain to make concessions; but if Great Britain would make no concessions, then the non-intercourse measures, by destroying the trade and prosperity of the colonies, would have no other effect than to bring about conciliation by forcing the colonies to make concessions themselves. This was not the kind of conciliation that any one wanted; and so the real antithesis which now confronted Congress was between war and non-intercourse. Mr. Livingston put the situation clearly when he said: “We are between hawk and buzzard; we puzzle ourselves between the commercial and warlike opposition.”
Through long debates Congress puzzled itself over the difficult task of maintaining the Association and of obtaining the means for carrying on the war. Doubtless a simple way out would be for Congress to allow so much exportation only as might be necessary to pay for arms and ammunition; and still not so simple either, since it would at once excite many jealousies. “To get powder,” Mr. Jay observed, “we keep a secret law that produce may be exported. Then come the wrangles among the people. A vessel is seen loading—a fellow runs to the committee.” Well, it could not be helped; let the fellow run to the committee, and let the committee reassure him—that was the business of the committee; and so the Congress authorized the several colonies to export as much “produce, except horned cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry, as they may deem necessary for the importation of arms, ammunition, sulphur, and saltpetre.” Thus powder might be obtained.
Nevertheless, war could not live by powder alone. The imponderable moral factors had to be considered, chief of which was the popular support or opposition which Congress and the army might count upon under certain circumstances. No doubt people were patriotic and wished to maintain their rights; but no doubt people would be more patriotic and more enthusiastic and practically active in their support of both Congress and the army, if they were reasonably prosperous and contented than if they were not. Self-denying ordinances were, by their very nature, of temporary and limited efficacy; and it was pertinent to inquire how long the people would be content with the total stoppage of trade and the decay of business which was becoming every day more marked. “We can live on acorns; but will we?” It would perhaps be prudent not to expect “more virtue … from our people than any people ever had”; it would be prudent “not to put virtue to too severe a test, … lest we wear it out.” And it might well be asked what would wear it out and “disunite us more than the decay of all business? The people will feel, and will say, that Congress tax them and oppress them more than Parliament.” If the people were to be asked to fight for their rights, they must at all hazards not be allowed to say that Congress oppressed them more than Parliament!
For the moment all this was no more than a confession that the Association, originally designed as a finely chiseled stepping-stone to reconciliation, was likely to prove a stumbling-block unless the King graciously extended his royal hand to give a hearty lift. It presently appeared that the King refused to extend his hand. October 31, 1775, information reached America that Richard Penn and Arthur Lee, having presented the petition to Lord Dartmouth, were informed that the King would not receive them, and furthermore that no answer would be returned to the Congress. Ignoring the petition was to exhibit only one degree more of contempt for that carefully prepared document than the Congress had shown for Lord North’s Resolution on Conciliation; and now that the olive branch had been spurned on both sides, it was a little difficult to see how either side could possibly refuse the sword.