Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor

by Richard R. Beeman

  As the subcommittee on rights argued about the limits of parliamentary authority, the committee on parliamentary statutes affecting trade and manufactures and the subcommittee on infringements of American rights went about their work. The Congress met briefly on September 19 to receive the report from the subcommittee on trade and manufactures, which it promptly referred to the subcommittee on rights. At that point, the committee on trade and manufactures effectively ceased to exist, and Thomas Cushing, Patrick Henry and Thomas Mifflin, who had served on that committee, joined the rights subcommittee.25

  On September 22, the subcommittee on rights, no doubt driven by radicals like John Adams and Samuel Ward, requested that the full Congress assemble in order to adopt a more explicit endorsement of the Suffolk Resolves: in essence, an immediate boycott of all trade with Great Britain.26

  The twelve delegations in the Congress agreed to endorse the Suffolk Resolves, but they soon discovered that the devil was in the details. On September 26, Richard Henry Lee, acting on the instructions of the Virginia Convention, introduced a motion for a “Non-Importation” to begin on November 1, 1774. Although not mentioned in the congressional journal, Lee’s motion apparently extended to American exports to Great Britain as well as imports, with the ban on exports to begin on August 10, 1775.27

  Some feared that if non-importation were implemented too quickly, it would place too great a burden on those colonists who had ordered goods from British merchants but who, given the uncertainties of ocean transport, might not receive them until after November 1. Thomas Mifflin, one of the few stalwart radicals in the Pennsylvania delegation, supported the November 1 start date, arguing that the colonies’ intention to enter into a non-importation agreement had been known to all by late spring and that “no honest orders” would have been placed after that date. The debate continued for another several days, with some worrying that the November 1 date might prove impracticable, but finally, on September 27 the delegates reached what seemed like a fair compromise, unanimously agreeing that beginning December 1, “there be no importation into British America from Great Britain or Ireland, of any goods, wares, or merchandizes whatsoever.”28

  The matter of exports would prove far more contentious than that of imports. Unlike the debate over the start-date for non-importation, which seemed genuinely to be shaped by the delegates’ modestly differing opinion about the fairness of the various alternatives, the debate over non-exportation was plainly driven by the delegates’ calculations of the economic interests of their respective colonies.

  On September 27, Samuel Chase of Maryland rose to argue for a complete and immediate ban on all American exports to Great Britain and the West Indies. He did so in spite of the fact that a ban on tobacco exports would have caused severe economic disruption to his home colony, but, arguing that a ban on American exports to the mother country would produce a “national bankruptcy” in Great Britain in short order, he thought it worth the risk. The tobacco trade alone, he calculated, involved some 225 British ships, which would be idled should the trade cease. In fact, as later events would prove, Chase was overly optimistic in his prediction, but at that moment, he, like others, believed that the Americans could count on the British merchants so affected to rally to the American side. And any delay, he argued, would deprive the colonies of one of their strongest points of leverage.29

  The two South Carolina radicals, Thomas Lynch and Christopher Gadsden, whose commitment to any and all measures that would increase America’s bargaining position vis-à-vis the British government outweighed their desire to protect their colonies’ thriving export trade with Great Britain in rice and indigo, also rose in support of an immediate implementation of non-exportation. They were followed by Patrick Henry. The instructions from the Virginia Convention recommended that a ban on exports be delayed until August of the following year, but Henry, risking some disapproval from his constituents back home, spoke in favor of fixing December 1, 1774, as the start-date for non-exportation.30

  But not all delegates were willing or able to overlook the provincial interests of their colonies. William Hooper of North Carolina had been instructed by his legislature to oppose a ban on exports of naval stores such as tar, pitch and turpentine, for those commodities, he claimed with some exaggeration, amounted to the “whole of the subsistence of People in the Southern Parts.” John Sullivan of New Hampshire sought to protect his colony’s exported ship masts, boards, plank, fish, oil and potash. Edward Rutledge, parting ways with his colleagues Lynch and Gadsden, reminded the delegates that South Carolina rice was an enumerated commodity—in other words, it was among those products that had enjoyed a special subsidy from British trade legislation on the condition that it be exported only to Great Britain. An immediate ban on exports would effectively put an end to all trade in South Carolina’s principal crop; surely it was unfair to expect one colony to bear such a high burden.31

  Massachusetts’ Thomas Cushing closed the day’s debate with an impassioned plea for an immediate imposition of non-exportation: “Great Britain has drawn the sword against Us, and nothing prevents her sheathing it in our Bowells but want of sufficient force. . . . I think it absolutely necessary to agree to a Non Importation [and] Non Exportation immediately.”32

  As the day came to a close, it was clear that the tug of war between the particular economic interests of individual colonies and the need for an effective and unified means of gaining the necessary leverage against their British antagonists was still continuing. It was one thing to offer unanimous and enthusiastic rhetorical endorsement of the principles enunciated in the Suffolk Resolves, but it was quite another to persuade at least some of the delegates to offer up the economic interests of their colonies in sacrifice to the common cause.

  The delegates had come a long way in the three weeks since they began discussions about American rights, British infringements on those rights and the best means of persuading, or, if necessary, coercing, the British to back off from their current punitive policies. And for the most part, the radicals in the Congress had had their way. They had gained tentative, though not universal, approval of the principle that American rights were founded not only on the principles of that unwritten English constitution but also on the laws of nature. They had not only gained a unanimous endorsement of the principles articulated in the Suffolk Resolves, but they had, by setting the date of December 1, 1774, as the point at which Americans would cease all importation of British goods, taken an important step in implementing those principles. At least at that moment, however, the Congress had not yet been able to reach a consensus on either the timing or the scope of a similar commitment on the part of the colonies to place a ban on all exports to Great Britain. The debate on that subject had produced the first signs of tension between provincial self-interests and the common cause of protecting American liberty.

  With the issue of non-exportation still unresolved, the most resolute conservative in the Congress, would take the floor. And in so doing, he would attempt to put the Congress on an entirely different course.

  SEVEN

  GALLOWAY‘S LAST STAND

  FEW PEOPLE EITHER inside or outside Philadelphia really liked Joseph Galloway. His manner—cold, distant, even haughty—did not invite either warmth or ease among those in his company. But whatever his inner demons, there was no denying his worldly success. His father, Peter Bines Galloway, had accumulated substantial wealth as a merchant and farmer in both Maryland and Pennsylvania. Growing up first in Maryland and then Delaware, Joseph apparently had no formal education, relying on family tutors for his early learning. Moving to Philadelphia after the death of his father, Joseph began the study of law, and through a combination of his extensive social connections and acute intellect, he was able to build a lucrative law practice. His rise to prominence was aided by his marriage, in 1753 at the age of twenty-two, to Grace Growden, the daughter of one of the richest men in Pennsylvania. From that time forward Galloway began to expand his economic
, intellectual and political activities. He continued his legal practice, acquired a stake in a number of Philadelphia merchant houses and began to speculate in western lands. He also joined Benjamin Franklin’s American Philosophical Society, in which he served as vice president for several years.

  It was in part through his association with Franklin that Galloway decided to enter politics, becoming a member of the so-called Quaker Party (even though neither Franklin nor Galloway were Quakers) and, with Franklin’s support, gaining election to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1756. Although there was nothing in his personality that endeared him to the voters of Philadelphia, his combination of hard work and shrewd politicking led to his steady ascendancy in Pennsylvania politics, particularly during the years in which Franklin was in London, when Galloway took over some of the duties his political mentor had been performing. From 1766 to 1775, Galloway was elected every year to the speakership of the Pennsylvania legislature. In Pennsylvania, the legislature was by far and away the most powerful institution in the colony, and so Galloway, as Speaker, was the most powerful person in that most powerful body. As the political conflict with Great Britain escalated during the years of his speakership, Galloway was firm in his defense of American rights, but his legalistic instincts always caused him to view that conflict in narrowly constitutional terms and to disapprove of much of the popular opposition to British policies occurring on the streets of Philadelphia. Moreover, Galloway, even more than his legislative colleague and political rival John Dickinson, was a devout believer in the inherent greatness of the British empire. However much he may have disapproved of some of the recent acts of Parliament, his commitment to Pennsylvania’s connection to that empire would prove to be unbreakable.1

  Indeed, Joseph Galloway would eventually throw his lot in with the British, fleeing to England in 1778 and living there until his death in 1803, at the age of 72. But on the morning of day seven of the importation/exportation debate, September 28, Galloway was still a Pennsylvanian, still an American. Undeterred by his opening-day failures to set the venue for the Congress or to keep his political rival Charles Thomson out of the proceedings, Galloway took the floor in what would be his most important attempt to shape America’s constitutional relationship with Great Britain. Although there were no doubt some in the Congress who had already decided to oppose almost anything that Galloway proposed, most of the delegates respectfully listened to his proposals with an open mind.

  Galloway had most likely been working on his proposals for some time—at least as early as July of 1774 and perhaps even earlier. Why he waited until September 28, in the middle of the fourth week of the Congress’s deliberations and well after many of the more radical proposals defining America’s relationship with Great Britain were already well under way, is something about which one can only speculate. Perhaps it took him that long to realize that the radical agenda of many of the New England and Southern delegates was already picking up steam, and that he had better interrupt their discussion of non-importation and non-exportation to prevent that particular train from going any further down the tracks. Whatever the case, on that Wednesday morning, in a relatively brief speech, he offered a critique of what had gone on in the Congress up to that time, and then presented his “Plan of a Proposed Union Between Great Britain and the Colonies.”2

  Galloway began his speech that morning with a belated critique of many of the proposals on which the Congress had already agreed. He criticized the demand that Great Britain return the colonies to the state they had been in prior to 1763 as both impractical and intentionally calculated to provoke “further discontent and quarrel.” He denounced the proposed ban on imports and exports as wholly illegal, taking particular aim at the proposed ban on exports, claiming that it would have a devastating impact on the economies of nearly all of the colonies, throwing tens of thousands of people out of work and wholly devastating the shipping industry throughout all of America.3

  After that harsh denunciation of the actions of the Congress to date, Galloway changed his tone, seeking to present a positive alternative to the hostile and provocative course on which the Congress seemed to be setting itself. Although an ardent admirer of all things English, he acknowledged that there was a “manifest Defect” in the much-vaunted English constitution. That defect arose, he explained, because the notion of colonies and colonization had not been anticipated at the time of the origin—dating back to 1215 and the Magna Carta—of the British system of government. That defect notwithstanding, Galloway insisted that it was hardly serious enough to justify sundering ties with England. Indeed, he held, most colonists still retained a deep love of their mother country and had desired to do everything possible to retain that union.

  The challenge, Galloway observed, was to find a way to give the American colonies some form of representation within the British system of government. The solution, in his view, was the creation of an American version of the British Parliament charged with setting the rules for the regulation and administration of all activities in which the interests of the mother country and the colonies intersected. This new legislative body was to consist of a president-general appointed by the king, and a Grand Council, whose representatives would be chosen by the legislatures of the several colonies. The Grand Council would meet at least once a year, but could meet more often if circumstances required it. In Galloway’s formulation, the council would “hold and exercise all the like rights, liberties, and privileges as are held and exercised by and in the House of Commons in Great Britain.”4

  At first glance, Galloway’s Plan of Union held some promise, for it seemed to offer a way in which the colonies could achieve some parity with, and therefore a check upon, the House of Commons in all legislation affecting them. But upon closer analysis, this new legislature’s parity was undercut by two other provisions in his plan. The president-general would have a veto over all acts passed by the Grand Council; moreover, Galloway made it clear that the “said President-General and the Grand Council [were] to be an inferior and distinct branch of the British Parliament.” Not only would the president-general have a veto over any legislation emerging from the Grand Council, but the Parliament would also have to add its assent to any acts or statutes emerging from the council.5

  If one puts aside (and one suspects that many of the New Englanders and Virginians would have found it difficult to do so) the harshness of Galloway’s critique of the actions of the Congress up to that point, the details of his proposed plan of union had much to recommend it. Although still leaving the colonies ultimately in a state of subordination to the king and Parliament, it did represent a step toward solving the problem of giving the colonies some form of representation within England’s parliamentary system. And many delegates, far from dismissing it as just another one of Galloway’s attempts at forcing the colonies into submission, took the proposal seriously. Had he proposed his plan a decade earlier, it is possible that a gathering such as that meeting in Carpenters’ Hall might have regarded it as a constructive, forward-looking set of suggestions.

  But Galloway’s fellow delegates, and indeed all Americans, had traveled a good distance along their own constitutional path in the ten years since their first protests against English attempts to tax them. Although not emotionally or psychologically ready to declare their independence in the fall of 1774, most Americans considered themselves sufficiently independent of British authority that they were unlikely to concur with several ingredients of Galloway’s formula. The granting of a veto to the president-general, who was, just like the royal governors, sure to be an agent of royal, not provincial, interests, was probably a non-starter. More serious, the fact that the Grand Council would be inferior to the British Parliament—a Parliament that in the past decade had arbitrarily and capriciously sought to impose its will upon the colonies—seemed to many delegates simply unacceptable.

  Still, it was a constructive proposal, and it was eagerly seconded by John Jay, James Duane and Edward Rutledge. Indeed
, Rutledge praised it as “almost a perfect Plan.” Perhaps if it had been presented by a more sympathetic figure, its fate in the Congress might have been different. But, true to form, Galloway, in the debate that followed, did little to try to win over those delegates who might have been wavering on either side of the question. In what must have seemed to many delegates an outrageous misrepresentation of the facts, he reminded the delegates that many colonies, including his own Pennsylvania, failed to provide adequate support for the British war effort during the Seven Years’ War. It was those “Delinquencies,” he said, that had depleted the British treasury and had resulted in the Stamp Act. Yes, Parliament had been mistaken in its decision to impose the Stamp Tax on Americans without consulting them. But this did not justify a blanket denial of Parliament’s constitutional authority over taxation, a move that had eliminated any reasonable grounds for resolving the dispute. And what of the means used to oppose the Stamp Act—rioting, harassment of royal officials and, in some cases, violence against property. With eyes surely turned toward the Massachusetts delegation, Galloway stridently derided those who were still doing everything possible to obstruct reasonable negotiations with Great Britain and to ignore reasonable alternatives to their militant denial of all parliamentary authority.6

  Galloway insisted that Parliament was constitutionally entitled to its claim of supremacy over the colonies. He was lavish in his praise for the way in which the mother country had nurtured her colonies from the time of the earliest settlements forward, providing for those colonies essential protection from hostile adversaries both within and beyond America. It was both illogical and unjust to claim a right to protection from the British government while denying the authority of that government. “Protection and allegiance are reciprocal duties,” he proclaimed, “the one cannot exist without the other.” Then, in what must have been particularly galling to those who had gathered in Philadelphia seeking to strengthen their sense of common purpose, Galloway reminded the delegates of the “seeds of discord” that had on more than one occasion caused open hostilities between the colonies, as was the case with the recent border wars between New York and New Jersey and between Pennsylvania and Maryland. It was only the gentle intervention of the “Parent State,” he claimed, that suppressed the natural tendencies of the colonies toward internecine war. Should the authority of the parent state be weakened or annulled, he predicted, new conflicts would emerge, conflicts that would inevitably degenerate into civil war. Nor did the dangers only come from within. France still coveted territory in America. Disunited and without the protection of the “mother state,” with the “weak exposed to the force of the strong,” the colonies would in all probability lose much of the land on their western borders to the French. Galloway concluded his defense of “moderation” with a plea to the delegates to pay heed to the