Independence

by John Ferling

  Like John Adams, Wilson largely remained aloof from politics until the Tea Act and Intolerable Acts crises, when he served on local committees that opposed parliamentary taxation. Later, he was part of the movement that pressured Galloway to have the assembly sanction the Continental Congress. Also like Adams, Wilson published a pamphlet in 1774 that attacked Parliament’s claims of unlimited power over the colonies. In most respects, Wilson shared Dickinson’s outlook, especially with regard to American independence. The one significant difference in their outlook was that, by the eve of the war, Wilson denied that Parliament could exercise any authority over the colonies.

  Dickinson and his former student remained close. When Galloway resigned from the Pennsylvania delegation to the Second Continental Congress, Dickinson had a hand in securing Wilson’s appointment to the vacant seat in May 1775. Wilson remained a backbencher throughout his first year in Congress, in part perhaps because his somewhat standoffish manner and forbiddingly cold exterior prevented close relationships with delegates from other colonies. In addition, like Adams at the First Congress in 1774, Wilson, somewhat unsure of himself, likely was overawed for a time by his more experienced colleagues. Yet while Wilson seldom entered debates, he served on numerous committees, where he established a reputation as a bright, thoughtful, and dependable colleague. In the summer of 1775 John Adams pronounced that Wilson’s “Fortitude, Rectitude, and Abilities too, greatly outshine” those of Dickinson.3

  James Wilson. A staunch reconciliationist and follower of John Dickinson, Wilson opposed independence until the last minute, when he voted to break with Great Britain. He had a long career as an American public official following independence. (Private Collection/ The Bridgeman Art Library)

  When Wilson took the floor in January 1776, he may have felt that the time had arrived for him to play a more prominent role. He may also have been driven by desperation, given the increasing plight of the reconciliationists. The possibility exists, too, that those who shared his outlook selected him to take the lead in this fight not only because he was a fresh face but also because his outlook on Parliament’s supremacy was slightly more progressive than Dickinson’s. Or, Wilson may have acted when he did because of the role he was playing at the time in a largely forgotten episode—negotiations with a self-appointed emissary of Lord North.

  Through contacts with talkative New York and New Jersey delegates who had attended the First Congress, Thomas Lundin, Lord Drummond, had learned in December 1774 of the narrow defeat of Galloway’s compromise proposal. Drummond, a Scotsman who had crossed to America and settled in New Jersey three years after Wilson’s emigration, also appears to have gleaned that the initial Congress had been deeply divided and that many moderate congressmen distrusted their more radical colleagues from New England. Armed with this inside information, Drummond hurried to London shortly after the First Continental Congress adjourned. During the winter of 1775, hard on the heels of Dartmouth’s failure to lure Franklin into meaningful negotiations, Drummond was given an audience with Lord North and the American secretary. The Scotsman presented a peace proposal that he had drafted, a plan that bore a striking similarity to the so-called North Peace Plan recently presented to Parliament. Both North and Dartmouth thought Drummond might be useful, but the prime minister made no decision about using him as an emissary for another six months.

  In the wake of Lexington-Concord and Bunker Hill, with the ministry scrambling to find additional troops to send to America, and with North at least privately despairing of ever suppressing the American rebellion by force, the prime minister decided to put Drummond to use as an unofficial envoy. North asked him to return to Philadelphia. Drummond was to use his contacts to determine what Congress would accept, and what London would have to relinquish, to settle Anglo-American differences. No doubt, too, Lord North was searching for a means of sowing fatal divisions among the congressmen. It seems clear that Drummond was instructed not to drag his feet. North wanted to know whether any chance existed for fruitful negotiations before substantive military operations began in the spring or summer of 1776. The thirty-three-year-old Scottish nobleman sailed from London in September and reached Philadelphia late in December, arriving in the city around the same time as Bonvouloir, Penet, and Pliarne. Within days, possibly hours, Drummond had quietly opened discussions with delegates from at least four colonies: New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania. One of the delegates with whom he met was James Wilson.

  Not every member of Congress welcomed Drummond’s presence or wanted his colleagues to meet with the Scotsman. Samuel Adams hurriedly demanded that Drummond be arrested, as did the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, which feared that the Scotsman might share with the British military what he learned of Philadelphia’s defenses. However, several congressmen from the middle and southern colonies objected with “grt Warmth” to Adams’s proposal and by an eight-to-three vote—if Drummond is to be believed—Congress sanctioned the unofficial talks.4

  Drummond told the congressmen with whom he met that North’s ministry was “heartily tired of the controversy” with America and “astonished at the Union and Strength of the Colonies.” The prime minister, he added, was confident that the differences between the colonies and mother country “might be easily settled.” Drummond advised that under North’s conciliation plan the amount of revenue each colony would be asked to provide would be “a very small sum Annually so as to save appearances.” If Congress would consent, Drummond went on, North would ask Parliament to repeal the Tea Act and the Coercive Acts.

  The discussions between Drummond and several delegates spun out for nearly two weeks until, in mid-January, North’s envoy was convinced that seven congressional delegations were willing to accept what North had offered. Drummond may have been so eager to succeed as a peacemaker that he imagined greater support for North’s offer than actually existed, but at that point he was certain that a majority of congressional delegations were prepared to accept the Declaratory Act if, in turn, Parliament renounced the right to tax America, agreed to remove some restraints on colonial trade, and relaxed the restrictions on American manufacturing. Drummond also believed that the seven delegations with which he had supposedly reached an accord would ask Congress not only to approve the terms that had been hammered out but also to send a three-member delegation—consisting of John Jay of New York, Thomas Lynch of South Carolina, and Andrew Allen of Pennsylvania—to London to conduct formal negotiations.5 Reading between the lines of Drummond’s sketchy notes, it seems likely that the seven provinces with which the Scotsman believed he had come to an agreement were New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. It is a safe bet that James Wilson was ready to make peace with the mother country on these terms. Wilson also doubtless saw his motion to have Congress declare where it stood on the issue of American independence as inextricably linked with the Drummond negotiations.

  Tall, ruddy, and solidly built, Wilson, as was his custom, wore thick glasses and a white wig when he addressed Congress on January 9. Like many lawyers, he had polished his speaking talents before countless juries, but Wilson surpassed most rivals, winning a reputation in Pennsylvania as a consummate orator blessed with “the powers of a Demosthenes and a Cicero.”6 Wilson had been in Congress long enough to know that his oratory was unlikely to win any converts, but there can be little doubt that what he said that day in his thick Scottish accent was well organized and carefully crafted.

  Wilson hoped that a congressional repudiation of independence would lead to successful negotiations with Drummond. An agreement with Drummond, he thought, would make it easier for both North and the king to accept the terms desired by a majority of the congressional delegations. Eighteen months after Galloway had failed to persuade the First Congress to adopt a compromise scheme, another Pennsylvanian—and an archfoe of Galloway at that—was deeply involved in yet another attempt to preserve the Anglo-American union through negotiation and c
ompromise.

  Congress deferred consideration of Wilson’s proposal for three days, which was not uncommon, then delayed action for twelve additional days. The second postponement likely occurred in part because talks with Lord Drummond were still in progress. In addition, Samuel Adams may have had a hand in putting off consideration of Wilson’s surprise proposal. Adams wanted time to better organize the opposition. It was rare for Adams to emerge from the shadows to play an open and leading role in a floor battle, but he did so in this instance because John Adams, like several congressmen, had returned home in December for a visit with his family. It quickly was apparent that Samuel Adams’s method of coping with the reconciliationists was considerably different from that of his cousin. Patience and negotiation had been John’s watchwords, as he had steadfastly believed that if Congress’s unity behind the war could be maintained, events would in time transform most of his foes into advocates for independence. Samuel was more confrontational. He countered first by pulling strings with his allies at home to have Thomas Cushing recalled as a member of the Massachusetts delegation. Cushing was replaced by Elbridge Gerry, who was thought to be favorably disposed to American independence. Before January ended, all of Congress knew of the change among Massachusetts’s representatives, and all knew what it meant. Previously, three of the Bay Colony’s five congressmen—Cushing, Hancock, and Robert Treat Paine—had been either staunch reconciliationists or willing to consider concessions in order to restore ties with the mother country. Those three Yankees found a peaceful Anglo-American reunion on acceptable terms preferable to declaring independence and waging a long, costly, and uncertain war. But a change of one individual in Massachusetts’s delegation altered everything. Gerry and the two Adamses barely hid their yearning for independence.7 But this was not Samuel Adams’s only way of fighting back. He also resurrected Franklin’s proposal to write an American constitution, a step that had been tabled six months earlier, as it was seen as tantamount to a declaration of independence.

  The actions of Wilson and Samuel Adams brought Congress to the brink of a potentially great crisis. About half the delegations in Congress appear to have been willing to renounce independence and dispatch emissaries to London to conduct peace talks. But with American independence seemingly so close that they could taste it, the other half were desperate to prevent their congressional foes from ruining their dream of setting America free of Great Britain. This was not the first time that Congress had been deeply divided, though not since the First Congress had a clash of such diametrically opposite choices confronted the delegates. The war was raging, and all knew that it would broaden and deepen as the military campaign of 1776 unfolded. Thomas Paine had brought talk of independence into the open. The war and all that went with it had hardened the attitudes of many in Congress. But just as surely, hostilities had increased the apprehensions of other deputies, quickening their desire to bring the war to a suitable conclusion. For at least some among the latter, the belief was palpable that Drummond’s mission presented them with a great opportunity—perhaps their last—to snatch back reconciliation from the seeming maw of independence.

  Congress set January 24 as the day for taking up Wilson’s motion. All knew the stakes were high. George Read of Delaware, who had returned home to nearby New Castle to tend to urgent personal matters, hurried back to Philadelphia when he learned from reconciliationist friends in the North Carolina and Pennsylvania delegations that Wilson needed support for his “business of the last importance.” Read rounded up Caesar Rodney, his Delaware colleague who was also at home, and both were back in their seats when Congress assembled. Samuel Adams was ready for a fight as well. Wilson’s move had to be defeated, lest “we might get our selves upon dangerous Ground,” he said. Adams confided to one of New England’s general officers in the Continental army that rather than renouncing independence, the time had come for Congress to throw off Great Britain’s “Chains & Slavery” and “assume that Character” of independence that the “great Law of Nature points out” for America.8

  When Wilson’s motion came to the floor for discussion on that cold January morning, John Dickinson was the first congressman on his feet. Dickinson’s attendance in Congress had been spotty during the past several months, as he divided his time between the Pennsylvania assembly and his service as a colonel of one of the four militia battalions raised by Philadelphia. He took soldiering seriously. Even John Adams admitted that Dickinson “setts a fine Example [and] is much talk’d of and applauded” by the members of Congress for the time he devoted to drilling his men, procuring and inspecting weaponry and powder, and planning the city’s defenses.9

  But Dickinson knew the crucial nature of this debate. He returned to be heard and to lead the fight. He opened the discussion with a lengthy, impassioned, and legalistic speech that aimed at demonstrating the colonists’ “Constitutional Connection” with the Crown at every step from the founding of the British Empire down to 1776. However, the heart of Dickinson’s presentation was his call for Congress to renounce independence and dispatch diplomats to London to seek to open negotiations leading to peace. He moved that Congress in a “humble and dutiful” manner petition the king once again—it would be Congress’s third address to the monarch in fifteen months—informing him that America was not “contending for Empire & Independence,” but that it sought a “mutually beneficial Accommodation” with the mother country.

  Dickinson proposed that two or more members of Congress carry the petition to London, and if the monarch was willing, conduct talks with his representatives. Congress’s envoys were to tailor their demands to what they found in England. For example, if they discovered that the armed forces being sent for the campaign of 1776 were so great that the colonies seemed certain to be “in Danger of suffering any great Calamity … likely to have a Decisive Influence on the Event of the War,” Congress’s representatives were to scale back their demands. If that was not the case, America’s diplomats were to demand an immediate armistice and exchange of prisoners of war, followed by negotiations aimed at securing a renunciation of Parliament’s power to tax the colonies, a guarantee that the colonial charters were inviolate, greater freedom for colonial manufacturing and trade outside the empire, the right of the colonies to issue their own currency and pay the salaries of their civil officials, and the “Redress of Grievances.” The principal American concession envisaged by Dickinson was to consent to the prime minister’s February 1775 peace plan proposal that each province agree to furnish a stipulated amount of revenue to the imperial government in London. Dickinson concluded by asking Congress to inform the American people that it was committed to reconciliation, not independence.10

  Dickinson had not mentioned the negotiations with Drummond, but the terms of his proposal were strikingly similar to those that some congressmen appear to have reached with North’s envoy.

  Dickinson’s stance in January 1776 revealed that changes had occurred in his outlook over the years. He now demanded greater trading rights for Americans. Even so, he appeared willing to consent to more British control of American affairs than Galloway would have yielded in his compromise scheme back in the autumn of 1774.

  “Most of the day was spent” in deliberating what Dickinson had said, one delegate noted in his diary.11 The discussion focused on whether to make a statement espousing reconciliation and disowning independence, not on the matter of negotiations. It was Dickinson’s misfortune that so much had occurred—that radicalizing events just kept happening, to paraphrase Samuel Adams—in the two weeks since Wilson’s speech and in the several days following the culmination of the talks with Lord Drummond. Many southern congressmen, including some who had been ready to concede much in negotiations leading to reconciliation, were outraged at learning on January 16—scant hours after the discussions with Drummond concluded—that Governor Dunmore had bombarded Norfolk. William Hooper of North Carolina knew all too well “the defenceless State” of his colony and feared that its hamlet
s would also experience “total destruction” unless outside assistance was provided. That help, Hooper had to know, might depend on keeping the Yankees in Congress happy. The following day, January 17, word reached Philadelphia of the failed invasion of Canada, America’s first real setback in the war. The news “restrain[ed] the Expectations”—to use Dickinson’s words—of America’s chances of securing favorable terms in negotiations with the Crown. Not only that, but even some who had been in on the talks with Drummond now spoke of “making alliances” in order to successfully wage the war, a step that they acknowledged required “a total seperation with Britain.” Finally, by the time of Dickinson’s speech, every congressman had been startled by the “Surprizing run” of Paine’s Common Sense and by the popularity of his call for cutting all ties with the mother country.12

  As the long shadows of late afternoon fell over the State House, Congress voted against petitioning the king or sending envoys to London. It also declined to take action on Samuel Adams’s move to consider Franklin’s plan for a national government. But with the thought of solidifying the bond between the colonies, it appointed a committee, which included both Dickinson and Wilson, to draft an address to the American people on the reasons for waging the war. Congress hoped that the address would persuade the colonists that neither British armed forces nor Lord North’s machinations could break up the American union.13 Dickinson and Wilson agreed with that, but both intended to produce an address that renounced American independence. Their foes, expecting as much, anticipated a savage floor fight to resolve the issue.

  Had the committee completed its work rapidly, it might have won a more favorable response from Congress. But a week slipped by, then a second week, and ultimately a third week passed while Wilson and Dickinson dithered over what to include in the document, and even over the choice of words. The committee selected Wilson, who had first asked Congress to declare where it stood on independence, to write the initial draft. Dickinson, objecting to much that Wilson included, rewrote entire passages, liberally adding and deleting sections. Wilson, in turn, struck out much that Dickinson had penned and crafted the document as he saw fit. In the end, they produced an incredibly lengthy document. It ran some six thousand words, one third as long as Common Sense and five or six times longer than most newspaper essays. Wilson was a political novice, and Dickinson was mulish and accustomed to having his way, and in this instance neither was the least bit savvy.