It was but fair to assume that the objects of the first Congress would be defined by the instructions furnished by those who sent or commissioned its members. The delegates from New Hampshire were bid "to consult and adopt such measures as may have the most likely tendency to extricate the colonies from their present difficulties, to secure and perpetuate their rights, liberties, and privileges, and to restore that peace, harmony, and mutual confidence which once happily subsisted between the parent country and her colonies." Massachusetts bade her delegates "deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures, to be by them recommended to all the colonies, for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious,[663] and the restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies, most ardently desired by all good men." Rhode Island's charter governor empowered the delegates "to join in consulting upon proper measures to obtain a repeal of the several acts of the British Parliament, &c., and upon proper measures to establish the rights and liberties of the colonies upon a just and solid foundation." Connecticut authorized its delegates "to consult and advise on proper measures for advancing the best good of the colonies." The delegates from New York were trusted without any particular instructions, having merely a general commission "to attend the Congress at Philadelphia." So, also, New Jersey appointed its delegates "to represent the colony of New Jersey in the said General Congress." Pennsylvania sent a committee from its own Assembly in behalf of the province "to consult upon the present unhappy state of the colonies, and to form and adopt a plan for the purposes of obtaining redress of American grievances, ascertaining American rights upon the most solid and constitutional principles, and for establishing that union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies which is indispensably necessary to the welfare and happiness of both." The deputies from the three Lower Counties were "to consult and determine upon all such prudent and lawful measures as may be judged most expedient for the colonies immediately and unitedly to adopt, in order to obtain relief for an oppressed people, and the redress of our general grievances."
It will be observed that the instructions from these eight colonies are moderate and pacific in terms, without menace, or a looking to any other results than harmony. Something a little more emphatic appears in what follows. The Maryland delegates were to use all efforts in their power in the Congress "to effect one general plan of conduct operating on the commercial relations of the colonies with the mother country." Virginia bade her delegates "consider of the most proper and effectual manner of so operating on the commercial connection of the colonies with the mother country as to procure redress for the much-injured province of the Massachusetts Bay; to secure British America from the ravage and ruin of arbitrary taxes; and speedily to procure the return of that harmony and union so beneficial to the whole nation, and no ardently desired by all British America." The delegates of South Carolina are instructed "to concert, agree to, and effectually prosecute such legal measures as shall be most likely to obtain a repeal of the said acts and a redress of those grievances." The deputies of North Carolina were authorized "to deliberate upon the present state of British America, and to take such measures as they may deem prudent to effect the purpose of describing with certainty the rights of Americans, repairing the breach made in those rights, and for guarding them for the future from any such violations done under the sanction of public authority."
Now it is true that one may read as between the lines of these instructions intimations of reserved purposes, and possibly menaces that something more will be required if what is suggested in them fail of effect; but as they stand, their tone is not hostile or menacing. They limit the terms and measure of what they exact. Several very pregnant suggestions present themselves. Men of a large variety of opinions and purposes might take part in a congress so constituted. If the measures proposed had been restricted, so to speak, to the programme, there might have been substantial accord among the delegates, and no one could have been startled and offended with what they soon regarded as rebellious manifestations in the Congress.
The case of Joseph Galloway, at first esteemed a most resolute patriot, and then committing himself to extreme loyalty, presents us an example. He was a lawyer of great abilities, a gentleman of wealth and of high social position. He had made many strong protests against the oppressive measures of government. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly eighteen years, and twelve years its speaker. He says[664] that when he was chosen as a delegate to the first Congress he positively refused to serve unless he was allowed to draw his own "instructions." He was permitted to do so, and he himself signed them as speaker. They contain this injunction: "You are strictly charged to avoid everything indecent and disrespectful to the mother state." Chosen a delegate to the second Congress, he positively declined to serve, though importuned to do so by Dr. Franklin. The instructions given to the eight associates named with him for this second Congress contained the stringent words, "We strictly enjoin you that you, in behalf of this colony, dissent from and utterly reject any propositions, should such be made, that may cause or lead to a separation from the mother country, or a change of the form of government." The removal of this restriction on June 14, 1776, enabled a majority of the delegates to give the vote of the province for independence.
No man in this first Congress marked a stronger contrast to Galloway than Samuel Adams, the "man of the people." Compared with what Joseph Reed called "the fine fellows from Virginia", Adams was not what is conventionally called a gentleman; but while John Hancock brought from Massachusetts money and ambition, his colleague carried the hardier brains of the two. The odious epithet of "demagogue" attached to Adams, not because of any beguiling arts, but from his plain simplicity of garb, preferred associates, manners, and mode of life. In his cheap and homely attire, dispensing with any other mode of influence than that of an honest heart and a vigorous mind, he had made himself the familiar companion of the mechanics, artificers, and craftsmen of North Boston, the shipbuilders, joiners, and calkers,—the rough, honest, and thrifty democracy,—with whom, sitting on a spar or loitering in a workshop, he would spend long and instructive hours. He was puritanically religious and rigidly observant of solemnities, prayed in his family, and asked a blessing at each meal of his simple fare. He neglected his own business to devote himself to public interests. Of his own poverty he was neither ashamed nor proud. It would not have been seemly for him to have presented himself to the courtly gentry of the Congress as he appeared in the streets of Boston. It would doubtless have confirmed the prejudice which many entertained of him as an ill-bred mass-leader. For deep and wide learning in legal, political, and economical science, added to his college culture, and for debating powers, he was the peer of any of his associates. If he had been left to himself in his straits he would have gone on his high errand clad as he was; but before he was to go his friends had done the best they could for him. The tailor, the hatter, bootmaker, and haberdasher, appearing at his house from anonymous friends, had furnished him a complete outfit, not, however, of the full sumptuousness of Hancock's. As for the rest, Adams was well prepared in bodily presence to meet for the first time his warm friend in correspondence, Richard Henry Lee. No truly lineal citizen of the old Puritan colony will ever be ashamed of this characteristic representative of its traditions and its people at the first Congress,—this prophet of independence.
The fact, without any fulness of detail, is assured to us that there was much of discordance and dissension in this Congress of 1774. Probably there was scarcely a single proposition or speaker that did not find an antagonist. Certainly it appeared that Congress was not ready to break from the mother realm. Results, however, were reached of a sort to prompt just such further measures from the British government as to insure some livelier work in its next session. The most decisively contumacious act of the Congress was the adoption and approval of the resolves passed by the daring Suffolk County (Massachusetts) meeting, which most clearly endorsed rebellion, and took steps in initiating it.[665] It is to be remembered, moreover, that in this first Congress, Washington, whose frank sincerity stands unimpeached, denied that the colonies wished for, or could safely, separately or together, set up for independence. Before Congress again met in May, the first blood had been shed at Lexington and Concord; and Massachusetts, as the first colony to set up as a consequence its own autonomy, sought and received the ratification of its conduct by Congress, after it had assembled.
The instructions to the delegates still held them to seeking a redress of grievances and the restoration of harmony, as "desired by all good men", and in pursuit of this object a second letter or petition to the king, which John Adams calls "Dickinson's letter", was prepared and adopted by Congress. It was respectful, earnest, tender in its professions and appeals. It besought the king himself to interpose between his much-abused and long-enduring subjects and the oppressive measures of his ministers, as if he himself was misled and imposed upon by them. The bearing which this most remarkable letter has upon the charge of insincerity and hypocrisy in the action of Congress is apparent. It is enough to say here that Richard Penn, the messenger who bore the letter, was not permitted to see the king, whose only recognition of it was a violently toned proclamation for suppressing rebellion and sedition among his American subjects. Startling was the effect on the Congress of this royal declaration of an unrelenting purpose, which arrived on November 1st, coupled with the intelligence of a large reinforcement of the British army and navy, and with the purposed employment of seventeen thousand German mercenaries. The same day brought an account of the burning of Falmouth, now Portland, by Captain Mowat, reasonably exciting an alarm in all the settlements on the seaboard. What might be lacking in the final resolution of some of the leading members of Congress to come to the issue was well supplied by these last measures of government, which could work only in the direction of an implacable rupture. Still it is a matter of fact, now attested by full evidence, that the majority of Congress, either held by their lingering hope of some scheme of conciliation, or even doubtful if their constituents would reinforce their own resolution now, would not entertain a motion for independence.[666] A recess of the Congress from August 5th to September 5th gave to some of the members an opportunity to try the pulse of their constituents. The king in his speech, October 26, 1775, reiterated his stern purposes. It is noticeable that in the comments made upon it by speakers in the opposition, the avowals of members in the Congress were confidently quoted as repelling the charge that they were aiming for independence; but General Conway said significantly, "They will undoubtedly prefer independence to slavery."
The delegates of the thirteen colonies—Georgia being now represented—met in Philadelphia, May 12, 1776, having now the whole bearings of the struggle fully before them. The members had found their way to the assurance that their professed loyalty to the constitution of the realm consisted with, and might even require, a defiance of its monarch. There were those who still held back. We note that personal alienations declared themselves between members, starting from differences of opinion or strength of resolve, as they faced the final question. Perhaps it is well that oblivion has been allowed to settle over the attitudes and words of some of the actors of the time, whether in or out of Congress. Gadsden, Lee, the Adamses, and Patrick Henry were ready and eager for the boldest venture, supported by Chase of Maryland, Ward of Rhode Island, Wolcott and Sherman of Connecticut, and at last by Wyeth of Virginia. Wilson of Pennsylvania held back. So did the strongly patriotic Dickinson, restrained by Quaker influence. He was yet to be reassured, and his ballot was to be the decisive one. Massachusetts should have been a unit; but Samuel Adams and Hancock were alienated, and Paine and Cushing were not yet full-strung, but the last-named was soon superseded by Gerry, who was in entire sympathy with the Adamses. Congress recommended the colonies whose governors had deserted their posts to set up governments of their own, if only for a temporary purpose, till constitutional rule should be reëstablished. Then, after an emphatic but calm restatement of grievances, and the failure of all efforts to secure a redress, Congress engaged with the question whether all the colonies might not be forced to set up such a government of their own. The dastardly conduct of Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, in following his own flight for refuge on board a frigate with a proclamation to stir an insurrection among the slaves, might well have left it to R. H. Lee, by direct instruction from his constituents, early in May, to announce that on an appointed day he should move for a declaration of independence. He did so on Thursday, the 7th of June. His motions were for such a declaration, with a complete dissolution of all political connection between the colonies and Great Britain; for the forming of foreign alliances, and a plan of confederation. John Adams seconded the motions. They were discussed on Saturday in a committee of the whole. On Monday, after a long debate, Rutledge moved a postponement of the question for three weeks. Up to this point Jefferson says that New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South Carolina were not ready for the decision, and thought it prudent to wait, though fast stiffening for the issue.
On June 10th Congress resolved that the consideration of Mr. Lee's first proposed resolution—that declaring independence—be postponed to the 1st of July; but that no time should be lost in the interval, it appointed, on June 11th, a committee to prepare such a declaration. This committee was Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.[667] This postponement was in deference to the unreadiness of the delegates of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina to take the decisive step. Some unnamed member had procured the passage of a vote that on whichever side the majority should turn, the decision should be pronounced unanimous, for or against the resolutions. The vote of each colony was to count for one, whatever the number of its delegates, the majority in each delegation pronouncing for its colony. The debate was sharp and intensely earnest. The vote of Pennsylvania was divided. Those of the six colonies just named being in opposition, there was no decision. Two of the halting Pennsylvania delegates being induced to absent themselves on the next day, fifty delegates being present, the resolutions prevailed by a majority of one province.[668] They had been bitterly opposed by Livingston of New York, Dickinson and Wilson of Pennsylvania, and Rutledge of South Carolina. Argument, persuasion, and appeal were diligently pressed to draw the hesitating to acquiescence. Meanwhile several of the colonies were anticipating the action of Congress in taking their stand for independence: North Carolina, in April, 1776, and also Massachusetts, at the same date; Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New Jersey followed; and New York, as we shall see, soon came into line.