OPPOSITION TO THE NORTH MEASURES

In laying their plans to secure independence, the Massachusetts radicals needed a compelling issue on the strength of which they could appeal to the other colonies for help. The issue was furnished them by Lord North, in his coercive policy, which was severe enough to create intense feeling. And Adams planned to direct the excitement into channels of his own making. He was planning for an allinclusive non-intercourse agreement, something so complete and far-reaching that all trade with Great Britain, both import and export, could be stopped. This was the germ of the Continental Association. With this end in mind, his committee of correspondence proceeded to lay the proposal before the radicals in other colonies. Realizing the desirability of haste, so that action might be taken before the popular animosity should have a chance to cool, he expressed the hope that an agreement might be made, on the basis of his proposals, without waiting for a Congress.

After sending off Paul Revere with the letters to the other colonies, Adams and the committee of correspondence proceeded to pledge the towns of Massachusetts in support of his plan. The Boston leaders drew up a non-consumption agreement, and the Boston committee sent copies to every committee of correspondence in the province. The plan was to have the agreement make its first public appearance in the form of local town resolutions, so that it might seem to be the result of a spontaneous movement in the country. In this way it was kept under cover in Boston until the towns began to act, and then the Boston committee announced that the mechanics and farmers had initiated the movement!

Thanks to the preliminary work done by the committees of correspondence, there was an imposing show of popular support for the proposal, and in Massachusetts the non-consumption covenant was a marked success. But the other colonies were slow to move, and then the leaders determined to call a Congress, something which they had been discussing for several years. On account of the numerous references to a Congress in the correspondence of the leaders, it is impossible to tell just where the idea first took definite form. It seems that the Rhode Island legislature was the first one to act, and others followed in quick succession.

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

In Massachusetts, Samuel Adams made ready to bring the matter before the General Court, and that body appointed a committee to consider the question. On June 17, 1774, the committee prepared to report. All visitors were ordered out, the doors locked, while the key reposed safely in the pocket of Samuel Adams. Then, while the royal secretary was standing outside the door, reading the governor's order dissolving the Court, the House voted to send delegates to a Continental Congress. There, along with representatives from other colonies, they were to decide upon measures for the recovery and establishment of their rights and liberties, and the restoration of harmony between Britain and her colonies. As Professor Schlesinger has said, the instructions embodied, not what the radicals wanted, but merely what they dared put down on paper. Thus the suggestion of restored harmony was a mere rhetorical gesture.

The other colonies fell in with the suggestion, and delegates were duly appointed. They were chosen, in some cases by the legislatures, and in others by extra-legal bodies, by members of legislatures dissolved by the governors, or by committees of correspondence.

Philadelphia had been selected as the place of meeting for this first Continental Congress, and the delegates began to arrive there a week before the date set for opening. These few days were spent in getting acquainted, and in trying to analyze the situation. It was clear that there would be two distinct groups of delegates, one radical, and one conservative. The radicals wanted independence; the others were looking for the continuance of the colonial status, under more favorable conditions. Although the two groups were almost equal in numerical strength, from the very beginning the radicals had a slight advantage. They selected the meeting place and they chose the presiding officer, Charles Thomson, a Philadelphia radical who had failed to secure an election as delegate.

The aim of the Massachusetts leaders, Samuel and John Adams, Elbridge Gerry, and Robert Treat Paine, was to win the Congress over to an approval of the Boston plan of non-intercourse. They were supported in this by the Virginians and by Christopher Gadsden, of South Carolina. But the Bostonians encountered no little opposition because of their extreme radicalism, and they had to proceed with unusual care. John Adams has left an interesting account of their

methods. "We have had numberless prejudices to remove here. We have been obliged to act with great delicacy and caution. We have been obliged to keep ourselves out of sight, and to feel pulses and sound depths, to insinuate our sentiments, designs, and desires, by means of other persons, sometimes of one province, sometimes of another." A conservative member from Maryland put the situation somewhat more bluntly. "Adams with his crew, and the haughty sultans of the South, juggled the whole conclave of the delegates." As is generally the case in political gatherings, the real work was done not in the formal sessions, but by the leaders meeting in little groups outside. John Adams and other delegates describe the round of dinners, luncheons, and parties, all of which afforded opportunities for getting acquainted, and for reaching agreements.

Three of the proceedings and acts of the Congress stand out with particular significance. One was the adoption of the Suffolk resolves, the product of the Boston radicals. These declared that no obedience was due to the Coercive Acts, and advised the people to prepare for defense. In giving its approval to these sentiments, the Congress committed itself finally and definitely to a policy of extreme radicalism. In addition to this official vote, Samuel Adams received private assurances that, should Massachusetts be driven to war, she could depend upon help from the other colonies.

The second step of outstanding importance was the defeat of the Galloway plan of union, the constructive program of the conservative delegates. This measure, prepared by Joseph Galloway, a conservative delegate from Philadelphia, aimed at the establishment of colonial rights within the empire, upon a solid institutional foundation. Under his plan each colony would retain its own legislature, with control over all local questions. For intercolonial affairs, and for imperial matters, there was to be a central government, with a President-General, appointed by the king, and a Grand Council, the members of which were to be chosen by the colonial assemblies. This body would act in all matters in which Great Britain and the colonies, or the colonies as a whole, or any two or more colonies might be interested. So far in its main outlines the Galloway Plan was similar to the Albany Plan of 1754. But there was a unique feature in Galloway's proposal which stamps him as something of a genius. The Grand Council was to have the standing of a branch of Parlia ment. Measures pertaining to the colonies might originate either in

Parliament or in the Council, and the approval of both bodies was necessary before an act could become effective.

The plan had certain obvious advantages: it provided for the badly needed central authority, but at the same time preserved the colonial legislatures; and Parliament, under this plan, would have had little chance to impose an unsatisfactory law upon the colonies. The Congress set apart a day for discussing the plan, and then, after discussion, defeated it, by the vote of a single colony. The radicals immediately expunged from the records every reference to the Galloway Plan, so the official Journal contains not a single hint even that such a measure existed. What the radicals wanted was unanimity, or if that was impossible, the appearance of it. It would never do to let the country at large know how much conservative strength there was in the Congress.

The third step was the adoption of the Continental Association. This recommended that after December 1, 1774, all imports of British goods should cease, and that, with few exceptions, there be no more purchases from Great Britain. Then, after September 10, 1775, all exports to England and to the West Indies were to be shut off. That the Association might be enforced, Congress advised every county, city and town throughout the colonies to appoint committees, with authority to blacklist all those who refused to comply with the Association.

The Congress also drew up a series of letters, communications, and resolutions, in which they set forth the colonial theory of government and taxation. These furnished the constitutional arguments which justified opposition to the assumed right of Parliament to tax the colonies, and there is no doubt that this battery of precedents makes an imposing display. These would appear, however, largely as products of the rationalizing process of the human mind. They were the ostensible reasons for colonial action, worked out to justify the real reasons. Samuel Adams, as a practical politician, understood this principle. "You know, there is a great charm in the word 'constitutional,'" he wrote at one time.

Important as these philosophical dissertations may have been, they cannot be compared in significance to the practical working agreements, like the Association, or to the unofficial assurances of help in case of war, which Adams got from the other delegates. It is this sort of thing, rather than the theorizing, which explains the Revolution.

APRIL 19, 1775

In the meantime, while the Congress was in session, and afterwards, the people in Massachusetts proceeded to sever the remaining ties that bound them to the British system. They did this with comparative ease, and the transition from dependent colony to independent state was soon complete. Towns held their meetings, regardless of the Act of Parliament prohibiting them, county conventions were held, and in October a so-called Provincial Congress met. Under the directions of this body the towns raised and trained their militia, while the Provincial Congress itself appointed committees of safety and supply. Once aroused, the country towns were impatient at the delay, and anxious to begin hostilities. Samuel Adams, however, hoped to throw upon General Gage the odium of making the first move, and during the winter he and other leaders succeeded in holding the towns in check.

On April 14 the Provincial Congress adjourned for a month. Gage, who had been watching proceedings carefully, felt that the time had come to arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams, and incidentally to seize or destroy some of the military stores which the committee of supply had been collecting at various points. Rumors of his proposed move were soon afoot, and on April 18, the leaders sent out a hurried call for the Provincial Congress to reassemble. On that very night, Gage started his famous expedition on its way to Lexington and Concord. The countryside was warned by William Dawes and Paul Revere, so that the reception accorded the troops was considerably warmer than Gage had anticipated. Failing to get either Hancock or Adams, the troops succeeded in destroying some of the stores. Then, pursued by steadily increasing bands of "minute men," they made their retreat back to Boston.

The news was carried rapidly from place to place, reaching New York on Sunday, April 23, Philadelphia at five p. m., April 24, Virginia April 30, Charleston, South Carolina, May 8, and from all quarters came reports of a determination to stand by Massachusetts. On May 10, 1775, the second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia.

In Boston, Gage's forces were virtually besieged by the heterogeneous collection of local militia groups. The next engagement, on June 17, was the battle at Bunker Hill. News of this confirmed the views of the British Cabinet that the Americans must be suppressed