The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (56 page)

The Association provided that the ban on imports from Britain would take effect on December 1; nonconsumption of East India Company tea would begin immediately; the prohibition of exports to Britain would, if it were still necessary, be observed after September 10, 1775. Everyone recognized that these instructions had little chance of success without force behind them. To give. them force the Congress called for the election of a committee "in every county, city, and town" by those qualified to vote for representatives in the legislature. The committees would enforce the Association as committees in the preceding ten years had enforced earlier agreements. Not every town had such a committee, of course, but layers of committees would not leave much room for evasion. Under the Association, the committees were charged to operate as no government in America had ever operated. They were to inspect custornshouse books, publish the names of offenders in local newspapers, and "break off all dealings" with violators, now baptized as "the enemies of American liberty."
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The delegates signed the Association on October 20. They spent the next few days on the petition to the king and the addresses to the people of Great Britain, America, and Quebec. Petitioning the king aroused no great enthusiasm; Washington and John Adams, for example, believed that it held no promise of bringing a redress of grievances. The Congress did not even bother to send one to Parliament, in part no doubt because a petition might be understood as an admission that Parliament had some authority in America.

On October 26, Congress dissolved itself with the understanding that if need arose a second meeting would be held on May 10, 1775. An outsider reading the letters and diaries of the delegates might have concluded that dissolution came just in time. The delegates showed fatigue; they had worked hard. But they may have been as tired of one another as they were from their labors.
John Adams who had squirmed under

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the wit and eloquence of his colleagues throughout the meeting gave way to his temper two days before the Congress closed up. "In Congress grumbling and quibbling as usual." And then, because some got on his nerves more than others, this entry on Edward Rutledge, "Young Ned Rutledge is a perfect Bob o'Lincoln -- a Sparrow -- a Peacock -- excessively vain, excessively weak, and excessively variable and unsteadyjejune, inane, and puerile."
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Despite such feelings, the delegates departed Philadelphia full of respect for one another. They had demonstrated that they and the people they represented shared common interests and values. For a while their interests, especially their economic interests, had threatened to pull them apart, but in the end they put together the Continental Association. The Association expressed values which tied Americans together and suggested that in their desire to protect their right to self-government there was a moral concern transcending the constitutional questions in conflict. Morality made its way into the Association through the resolve to "encourage frugality, economy, and industry" and in the avowal to "discountenance and discourage every species of extravagance and dissipation, especially all horse-racing, and all kinds of gaming, cock-fighting, exhibitions of shews, plays, and other expensive diversions and entertainments. . . ."
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In declaring their intention to honor Puritan standards, Congress did not argue that it had found another weapon against tyrannical government. But of course it had. For it intended to remind Americans that their virtue -- their commitment to the public interest -underlay their political freedom. Indeed the Congress intended that Americans should remember that without virtue all kinds of freedom would perish. That the Congress cited frugality, economy, and industry and scourged extravagance and dissipation was no accident. It chose the only words Americans knew, words born of the Protestantism that had existed in the colonies since their founding. The emphasis on the ethics of Puritanism recalled Americans to an older way of life, one perhaps that they were in danger of forgetting in the urge to get and spend that filled so much of their lives in the eighteenth century. Now in the crisis with Britain they continued to consider what sort of people they were, and the Congress in its incantation to lean and spare living threw up a challenge to them.

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The delegates to the first Continental Congress rode home to the applause and admiration of the continent -- or a part of it. The Massachusetts delegates found their pace slowed by invitations to dine and to be entertained. For a time it seemed that every town between Philadelphia and Boston wanted to pay its respects. The Massachusetts men, having been dazzled by the food and wine and elegance in Philadelphia, managed to control their appetites on the road, begging off as politely as possible from all but necessary stops. In Palmer "alias Kingston," Massachusetts, they lodged with one Scott and his wife, both "great Patriots" according to John Adams. Scott and the local physician, Dr. Dana, were delighted by the Congress, believing that Parliament would repeal the Intolerable Acts and thereafter content itself with regulating trade. "Scotts faith is very strong that they will repeal all the Acts this very Winter," Adams noted in his
Diary
, adding skeptically that "neither the Doctors nor Scotts faith are my Faith."
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This expectation of Parliament's surrender may have accounted for a part of the approval of the Congress. Perhaps more Americans shared John Adams's skepticism and did not mind very much that the crisis would most likely continue. Adams learned more in Palmer about the so-called "Powder Alarm," begun by the rumor that swept through many of the colonies early in September that Gage had seized the powder stored in Charlestown -- learned indeed that some had been disappointed when the rumor turned out to be false, thereby depriving them of a chance to fight the regulars.
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Those delegates who recorded their opinions believed that prospects for peace were bleak; and peace would continue only if Britain backed down. John Dickinson wrote Arthur Lee, then in London, that "I wish for peace ardently; but must say, delightful as it is, it will come more grateful by being unexpected." Dickinson's phrasing is interesting, implying that the circumstances the colonies found themselves in were something less than war, though hardly peaceful. Dickinson's and Adams's expectations probably represented prevailing views in the Congress. Although neither man made much of the possibility that they might be seized as rebels and shipped off to England for trial for their part in the Congress, other delegates did admit to being nagged by this fear during and after the meeting.
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Still, the applause gratified most of the delegates, especially since it did not stop. The newspapers printed the Continental Association, and provincial conventions and local committees sent their congratulations and hastened to reimburse the delegates for the expenses incurred in Philadelphia. But if the admiration of the colonies continued to pour forth, it soon ran up against its opposite, a tide of abuse and criticism of the Congress and all its works. Much of this criticism was in the form of anonymous essays published in newspapers and tracts. Many of the answers these pieces incited were also unsigned. Almost all of them were undistinguished, though many were composed by men already distinguished or soon to become so.

The critics of Congress included one of its members, Joseph Galloway. He had thought hard before the Congress met about the relations of the colonies to England, and nothing he heard in Philadelphia changed his mind: Parliament must hold supreme power in the empire. But the colonies had rights, and Galloway remained convinced that an AngloAmerican union would provide the best means to protect them. Galloway had little more of substance to offer. He had, however, in the Congress caught a glimpse of the future: he had seen a desire for independence -the "ill-shapen, diminutive brat, INDEPENDENCY" -- and his vision made him unhappy.
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Galloway explained himself in a pamphlet which did not conceal his disdain of popular leaders.
Others shared his feelings, though not necessar-

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ily his grand plan for a union of England and America. Among the most scornful of Congress was Daniel Leonard, a lawyer who lived in Bristol County, Massachusetts. Leonard wrote as "Massachusettensis"; and John Adams answered him as "Novanglus." The letters of these two men saw rough charges exchanged -- and the desire for independence raised and denied.
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The pamphlet conflict between Samuel Seabury, an Anglican priest, and Alexander Hamilton, a student at King's College, New York, was even harsher. Seabury predicted war would occur if Americans followed the lead of Congress. Hamilton does not seem to have feared war. His answers to Seabury showed a rhetorical skill and a firm commitment to American rights.
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These exchanges -- and many others -- revealed that divisions over Parliamentary power persisted in America. Congress was a popular body -it had the support of the majority of the American people, one suspects -but some opposed its measures. Still more held back, restrained by old loyalties and by fear of a future outside the empire.

In a situation of ambiguity, the initiative belonged to those on the attack, to those with a program or a policy to carry out. The Association, of course, expressed the policy and proposed the means of carrying it outthose seemingly ever-present provincial, county, and town committees whose formal power did not exist but who now assumed the powers of government. In their most successful form -- that is, their most extreme form in Massachusetts and Virginia -- they simply took over and all but expelled traditional authority.

General Gage unwittingly gave these bodies their opportunity when he dissolved the Massachusetts legislature early in October before it even met. The first Provincial Congress eased into its place later in the month and Massachusetts had something approaching a revolutionary

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