This lecture is
best viewed with screen resolution set at 1440 x 900.THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION
Lecture 9: The Decision for Independence
| Awaiting England's Response |
Americans were anxious while they awaited a response from Parliament
and the king to their Declaration of Rights and Grievances, but they
were not idle. In most colonies, a transfer of political power
was underway as most Americans withdrew their support for and obedience
to royal governments and recognized the authority of anti-British,
patriot governments. The king might expect blows to decide the
issue of colonial autonomy, but independent local governments were
becoming a reality before any shots were fired. Imperial control broke down as communities in each colony refused to obey royal laws or acknowledge the authority of royal officers. For example, when General Thomas Gage, the acting governor of Massachusetts, refused to convene the Massachusetts assembly, its members met anyway. Their first order of business was to prepare for military resistance to Gage and his army. While the redcoats occupied Boston, the rebellious assembly ordered the colonists to stockpile military supplies near the town of Concord. In most colonial towns and cities, patriot committees arose to enforce compliance with the boycott of British goods. These committees publicly exposed those who did not obey the Continental Association, publishing violators' names in local newspapers and calling on the community to shun them. These tactics were effective against merchants who wanted to break the boycott and consumers willing to purchase English goods if they could not find them. When public shaming did not work, most committees were ready to use threats of physical violence and to make good on them. Colonists suspected of sympathizing with the British were brought before committees and made to swear oaths of support for the patriot cause. Such political pressure often gave way to violence. In Connecticut a group of patriots hauled a seventy year old Anglican man from his bed, dragged him naked into the winter night, and beat him brutally because his loyalty to the Church of England made him suspect. In New England, many pro-British "loyalists" came to fear for their lives. In the wake of the Intolerable Acts, hundreds of them fled to Boston, hoping General Gage could protect them from their neighbors. |
|
Lexington
and Concord
|
The American situation was frustrating, but King George continued to
believe that resistance in most colonies would fade if Massachusetts
radicals were crushed. In January 1775, he ordered General Gage
to arrest the most notorious leaders of the rebellion in the colony,
Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Although storms on the Atlantic
prevented the king's orders from reaching Gage until April, the general
had independently decided it was time to take action. Gage
planned to dispatch a force of redcoats to Concord with orders to seize
the rapidly growing stockpile of weapons and arrest the two patriot
leaders along the way. The patriots, of course, had their spies in Boston. Reports of the arrest orders and of suspicious troop movements reached the militias gathered outside the occupied city. The only questions was when and where Gage would attack. The Americans devised a warning system: as soon as Gage's troops began to move out of Boston, spies would signal the route with lanterns hung in the bell tower of the North Church. On April 18, 1775, riders waiting outside Boston saw one lantern, then another, flash from the bell tower. Within moments, silversmith Paul Revere and his fellow messengers rode off to give news of the British army's approach to the militia and the people living in the countryside. Around sunrise on April 19, an advance guard of a few hundred redcoats reached the town of Lexington, where they expected to apprehend Adams and Hancock. In the pale light, they saw about seventy colonial militiamen drilling on the village green. The commander of the British troops ordered the militia to disperse, which they did. However, a few eager redcoats broke ranks and rushed forward, sending up a triumphant cheer. No order came to fire, but in the confusion shots rang out. Eight Americans were killed, most of them shot in the back as they ran for safety. Nine were wounded. Later Americans told the story of the skirmish at Lexington would insist that the first musket fired there sounded a "shot heard 'round the world." The British troops marched from Lexington to Concord. Surprised to find the town nearly deserted, they began a methodical search for weapons. All they uncovered were five hundred musket balls, which they dumped in a nearby pond. They then burned down the towns' "liberty tree." Ignoring this act of provocation, the Concord Militiamen, in hiding nearby, waited patiently. When the moment seemed right, they swooped down on the unsuspecting British troops guarding the town's North Bridge. The sudden attack by the Americans shocked the redcoats, who fled in panic back toward Boston. The Minutemen followed, gathering more men along the path of pursuit. Together, these American farmers, artisans, and shopkeepers terrorized the young British soldiers, firing on them from behind barns, stone walls, and trees. When the shaken troops reached the British encampment across the Charles River from Boston, 73 had been killed, 174 wounded, and 26 missing. The day after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, thousands of New England militiamen poured in from the surrounding countryside, dug trenches, and laid siege to Boston. As far as they and thousands of other Americans were concerning--including the loyalist refugees crowded into the city--war had begun. |
|
| The Second Continental Congress |
As arranged during the previous continental congress, representatives
from the colonies gathered again in Philadelphia in May. The Second Continental Congress
contained representatives from all thirteen colonies this time, but
rather than gathering simply to consider the success of the Declaration
of Rights and Grievances, the Congress had to face the reality of armed
conflict and rebellion in Massachusetts. The Congress could have
distanced themselves from the local conflict, but as they had during
the previous meeting, they stood united with Massachusetts and took
steps to ready all the colonies for war. They authorized the
printing of American paper money (Continentals) for the purchase of
supplies, and appointed a committee to oversee foreign relations.
It also approved the formation of a Continental Army and chose
George Washington of Virginia as its commander. The first order
of business for Washington was to gather troops and take them to Boston
to aid the militias in their siege. Having taken steps in support of the rebellion, the Congress nevertheless determined to take one last step at averting war. They drafted a document called the Olive Branch Petition, which offered the king a choice: the colonists would end their armed resistance if the king would withdraw his troops and end the Intolerable Acts. Many delegates must have doubted the king's willingness to make such concessions, for the next day the Congress issued a public statement in defense of the war preparations. This Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms boldly accused the British government of tyranny. It stopped short, however, of declaring colonial independence. Across the Atlantic, British leaders struggled to find some negotiating points despite the king's refusal to bend. Almost two months before Lexington and Concord, Lord North had drafted a set of Conciliatory Propositions for Parliament and the American Continental Congress to consider. North's proposals gave no ground on Parliament's right to tax the colonies, but they did offer to suspend taxation if Americans would raise funds for their own military defense. Members of Parliament who were sympathetic toward the Americans also pressed for compromise. They insisted that it made better sense to keep the colonies as a market for English goods than to lose them in a battle over raising revenue. Cooler heads, however, did not prevail. Americans rejected Lord North's proposals in July 1775. The king, moreover, loathe to compromise, rejected the Olive Branch Petition. In October, he persuaded Parliament to pass the American Prohibitory Act instructing the Royal Navy to seize American ships engaged in any form of trade "as if the same were the ships...of open enemies." For all intents and purposes, King George III declared war on his colonies before the colonies declared war on their king. |
|
Common Sense
|
War was a fact, yet few American voices were calling for a complete
political and emotional break with Britain. Even the most ardent
patriots continued to justify their actions as upholding the British
constitution. They were rebelling, they said, to preserve the
rights guaranteed English citizens, not to establish and independent
nation. Their drastic actions were necessary because a corrupt
Parliament and corrupt ministers were trampling on these rights. Although in 1764 Patrick Henry had dramatically warned the king to remember that tyrants were often deposed, few colonists had yet traced the source of oppression to George III himself. If any American political leaders believed the king was as corrupt as his advisers and his Parliament, they did not make these views public. Then, in January 1776, an Englishman who had emigrated to America a few years earlier published a pamphlet called Common Sense. Paine's pamphlet broke the silence about King George III. Tom Paine was a corset maker by trade but a political radical by temperament. As soon as he settled in Philadelphia, he became a wholehearted and vocal supporter of the colonial protest to defend colonial rights, but he preferred American independence. In Common Sense, Paine spoke directly to ordinary citizens, not to their political leaders. Like the preachers of the Great Awakening, he rejected the formal language of the elite, adopting instead a plain, urgent, and emotional vocabulary and writing style designed to reach a mass audience. Common Sense was unique in its content as well as its style. Paine made no excuses for his revolutionary zeal. He expressed no admiration for the British constitution or reverence for the British political system. Instead, he attacked the sanctity of the monarchy head-on. He challenged the idea of a hereditary ruler, questioned the value of monarchy as an institution, and criticized the personal character of the men who ruled as kings. The common man, Paine insisted, had the ability to be his own king and was surely more deserving of that position than most of the men who wore crowns. Paine put it bluntly and sarcastically: "Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived." He dismissed George III as nothing more than a "Royal Brute," and he urged Americans to establish their own republic. Common Sense sold more than 120,000 copies in its first three months in print. Paine's defiance of traditional authority and open criticism of the men who wielded it helped many of his readers discard the last shreds of loyalty to king and empire. The impact of Paine's words resounded in the taverns and coffee houses, where ordinary farmers, artisans, shopkeepers, and laborers took up his call for independence and the creation of a republic. Political leaders acknowledged Paine's importance, although some begrudged the popular admiration lavished on this poorly educated artisan. The Harvard-trained John Adams reluctantly admitted that Common Sense was a "tolerable summary of the arguments I have been repeating again and again in Congress for nine months." But Adams' social snobbery led him to criticize Paine's language and flamboyant writing style, suitable, Adams insisted, only "for an emigrant from new Gate [and English prison] or one chiefly associated with such company." Unshaken by such criticism, Tom Paine was content to see his message move so many into the revolutionary camp. |
|
Declaring Independence
Visit this site to read the Declaration of Independence (required) |
The Second Continental Congress, lagging
behind public opinion on the issue of independence, inched its way
toward a formal declaration of independence. But even John Adams,
who had fumed at its snail's pace, took heart when Congress opened
American trade to all nations except Britain in early April 1776 and
instructed the colonies to create official state governments.
Then, on June 7, Adams's close ally in the struggle to announce
independence, Virginia lawyer Richard Henry Lee, rose on the
floor of
the Congress and offered a straightforward motion: "That these
United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent
States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British
Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of
Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." Lee's resolution was no more than a statement of reality, yet Congress chose to postpone its final vote until July. The delay would give members time to win over some of the faint-hearted delegates from the Middle Colonies, who felt their constituents had not sent them to Philadelphia to create an independent country. The delay would also allow the committee appointed to draft a formal declaration of independence time to complete its work. Congress had chosen an all-star group to draft the declaration, including John Adams, Connecticut's Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, and New York land owner Robert Livingston. But these men delegated the task of writing the document to the fifth and youngest member of the committee, Thomas Jefferson. They chose well. The thirty-three year old Virginian was not a social radical like Tom Paine or Samuel Adams. He was not an experienced politician like John Adams or Benjamin Franklin. And he lacked the reputation of fellow Virginians Richard Henry Lee and George Washington. But he had his strengths, and fellow committee members recognized them. Jefferson could draw upon a deep and broad knowledge of political theory and philosophy. He had read the works of Enlightenment philosophers, classical theorists, and seventeenth-century English revolutionaries. Although shy and somewhat halting in his speech, Thomas Jefferson was a master of written prose. Jefferson began the Declaration of Independence with a defense of revolution based on "self-evident" truths about humanity's "inalienable rights"--rights that included life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. (In a later draft, the rights became "unalienable" and "property" became "happiness"--a wise substitution, as many skeptical common people feared a revolution confined only to property owners.) Jefferson argued that these rights were natural rather than historical. In other words, they came from the "Creator" rather than developing out of human law, government, or tradition. Thus they were broader and more sacred than the specific "rights of Englishmen." With the philosophical groundwork in place, Jefferson moved on to list the grievances that demanded that America end its relationship with Great Britain. He focused on the king's abuse of power rather than of the oppressive legislation of Parliament. All government rested upon the consent of the governed, Jefferson asserted, and the people had the right to overthrow any government that tyrannized rather than protected them, that threatened rather than respected their unalienable rights. The genius of Jefferson's Declaration was not that it contained novel ideas but that it contained ideas that were commonly accepted by America's political leaders as well as ordinary citizens. Jefferson gave voice to these beliefs, clearly and firmly. He also gave voice to the sense of abuse and injustice that had been growing in colonial society for several decades. Delegates to the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776, and made their approval public on July 4, 1776. As John Adams was fond of saying, "The die has been cast." Americans had chosen independence. However, having chose it, they now had to win it. The life or death of the new United States of America would be decided upon the field of battle. |
|
| Proceed
to The Revolutionary War |
