Independence

  During the first week of June, Lee and his fellow Virginia delegates must have conferred and decided that the time had come to act. When Lee walked from his lodging to the Pennsylvania State House on that bright morning of June 7, he knew that he would offer a resolution that very day calling for American independence. If he had any reservations over whether the timing was appropriate, they vanished during the initial moments of the session. The final reports sent from Montreal by Chase and Charles Carroll were read. The news was so “truly alarming” that Congress directed its president to inform Washington that the army of the Northern Department was “almost ruined” and barely maintained a toehold above Ticonderoga.36

  Sometime shortly after the customary daily business was completed, Lee took the floor. He slowly read his resolution. It contained three parts. Lee urged Congress to declare that the thirteen American colonies were “free and independent States … absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown.” The resolution also called on Congress to undertake “the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances” and to prepare a “plan of confederation”—a constitution for the American union of states—that was to be transmitted to the states for ratification.37

  Some delegates objected to beginning debate on Lee’s resolution on that day. There was another pressing matter to tend to: how to cope with the circulation of counterfeit congressional bills of credit. Some delegates said that issue was too important to wait. In all likelihood, they wanted time to organize their response to what Lee had proposed. Congress voted to defer consideration of Lee’s resolution until the next day.

  In an unusual plea, Hancock “ordered” the congressmen to “attend punctually at ten o’clock” the next morning, a Saturday session that the president of Congress must have expected to be lengthy. Presumably, most delegates obliged, and once the customary business was out of the way, Congress formed itself into a committee of the whole. Lee’s motion was reread, and for the first time an entire session was devoted exclusively to the question of declaring independence. According to a New Englander, the issue was “cooly discussed” in a very long debate. The session stretched until seven in the evening, three hours or more beyond the normal quitting time, and on Monday the discussion resumed.38

  The case against an immediate declaration of independence was made by Dickinson, Wilson, Livingston, and Edward Rutledge. Little had been seen of Dickinson since early in the year, when he had tried without success to send delegates to London to seek to open negotiations with the Crown. But on June 8 Dickinson notified his colleagues in the Pennsylvania assembly that Congress’s business “in a very particular Manner demand[ed] his Attendance this Morning.” He hurried down to the first floor to join the fight against separating from the mother country.39

  Dickinson was often the first to speak when reconciliation was threatened. While it is not certain that he was the first to obtain the floor on this day, he likely spoke longer than anyone else. Dickinson’s prepared, though sketchy, notes ran several pages, indicating a speech that probably would have required more than an hour to deliver.

  Dickinson’s speech against declaring independence was organized around three arguments. He pointed out that several colonies had not authorized their representatives to vote for independence. Most delegations had been charged with defending the colonists against British actions, nothing more. Besides, to “change a Government” required “a full & free Consent of the People plainly exprest.” Secondly, he denied that military necessity demanded independence. Never mentioning Canada, he pointed to Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights as evidence that the colonists could adequately resist Britain’s armed forces. He knew that Congress was avid for French assistance, he said, but warned that “We must pay some price for it.” No one knew what that price would be. He raised the specter of falling under France’s thumb. That would only be the beginning of problems for an independent America, he continued. An independent America would be a republican America, and the history of republicanism was one long dismal record of “Convulsion” that invariably ended in despotical rule, the only means of restoring order.

  Finally, Dickinson fell back on his hard-wearing theme that reconciliation with Great Britain was in America’s best interest. The commercial advantages offered by the British Empire were too great to be relinquished. Was it not preferable, he asked, to be allied with the British people, whose “Religion, Blood, Manners, Customs” were similar to those of the American people, rather than to join hands with the French, who were different in every way from Anglo-Americans? He begged Congress to do nothing before the peace commissioners arrived. Americans were united behind the war, but the British were deeply divided, he said. Congress could play on those divisions in the negotiations with the commissioners. Furthermore, following the heavy losses that the British army would almost certainly suffer in the fighting for New York, the colonists could win a just settlement that permitted them to enjoy the fruits of the empire while being “render[ed] … independent” within it.40

  The other foes of independence mostly offered variations on the themes presented by Dickinson, but some of what they said was novel. Wilson and Livingston said they thought reconciliation an “impossibility,” but they opposed a formal break “at this time.” They observed that during the month since Congress had voted “for suppressing the exercise of all powers derived from the crown,” not a single mid-Atlantic province had authorized its delegates to vote for independence. This demonstrated that the inhabitants of these four colonies “had not yet accommodated their minds to a separation from the mother country.” Should Congress declare independence, there was a danger that those colonies—Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, and New Jersey—“might secede from the Union.” If even one or two colonies seceded, it was inconceivable that France or Spain would remain interested in providing assistance to the rebels. One of these speakers—it is not clear who—even declared that France and Spain would never aid the American rebels. It was “more likely,” he asserted, that they “should form a connection with the British court” to suppress the American rebellion and secure “a partition of our territories.” To keep its European rivals neutral, London would return Canada to France and Florida to Spain. Rutledge contended that it was ludicrous—in private he said that “a Man must have the Impudence of a New Englander” to consider such a thing—to declare independence and claim to be a sovereign state without first having written and ratified a national constitution.41

  These presentations, by delegates from what Rutledge in private called the “Sensible part of the House,” were answered by Lee and Wythe from Virginia; several Yankees, including John Adams; and one of Georgia’s two delegates in attendance, either Button Gwinnett or Lyman Hall. Their arguments, in the opinion of Elbridge Gerry, reflected the views of “the vigorous” delegates and were directed at “the slow people” who for too long had “retarded” the Congress.42 Adams asserted that a declaration of independence would merely confirm what already existed. The colonists, he and others maintained, had “alwais been independent” of Parliament and they had ceased to be bound by allegiance to the king once he consented to “levying war on us.” Some who spoke contended that the overwhelming majority of Americans favored independence. Others took the position that most Americans “wait for us [Congress] to lead the way.” They stressed that it “would be vain to wait either weeks or months for perfect unanimity,” as that was unlikely to ever be realized. But the heart of their argument centered on military necessity. France was willing to provide help now, but it might not be so inclined should America “be unsuccessful” on the battlefield in 1776. They warned, too, that time would be required to negotiate an alliance, making it imperative that talks begin soon in order to ensure assistance before the campaign of 1777. Finally, some of these speakers asserted that had independence been declared months earlier, not only might foreign assistance have prevented the disasters in Canada, but also a French alliance probably would have deterred the Germa
n principalities from furnishing soldiers to Great Britain.43

  Sometime after the conclusion of Saturday’s session, Rutledge decided to move on Monday that the issue be postponed for up to four weeks. In the meantime, Congress could consider a constitution and the terms it would and would not accept in a treaty of alliance with France. Others were thinking along the same line. Not a few also hoped that within the ensuing twenty-five or thirty days, each holdout colony would authorize its representatives in Congress to vote to fall “from the parent stem,” as one delegate put it.44 There was one other matter to consider. Since its inception, Congress had accompanied every major step with a formal pronouncement. If it declared independence, it would probably wish to accompany its vote with a declaration explaining its action. Delaying the discussion on Lee’s resolution would provide time for the declaration to be drafted.

  When Congress gathered again on Monday, the debate began again. This time it was short-lived. After a bit of discussion, someone—almost certainly Rutledge—introduced a motion “to postpone the final decision to July 1.” The motion carried, terminating debate on independence for the time being.

  Congress then voted to create a committee “to prepare a declaration of independence,” though it did not flesh out the committee until the following day. Overnight, possibly as a result of discussions among key delegates from each of the three geographical sections in Congress, an agreement was reached on the composition of the committee. On Tuesday, June 11, Congress named Franklin, Jefferson, Livingston, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and John Adams to sit on the committee. In the next day or two Congress created separate committees to cope with the two other components of Lee’s motion. One committee, composed of Dickinson, Franklin, Morris, Harrison, and John Adams, was “to prepare a plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers.” The other, composed of one delegate from each colony—Livingston was chosen to represent New York, Samuel Adams for Massachusetts, and Dickinson for Pennsylvania—was to draft “a plan of confederation.”45

  With the creation of the five-member committee charged with drafting a declaration of independence, it seemed assured that the “Grand Question of Independence” would be answered on July 1, or a day or two thereafter. Virtually every congressman now took for granted that “Every Thing is leading to the lasting Independancy of these Colonies.” On June 15 Connecticut’s Oliver Wolcott proclaimed that the American people “seem at present to be in the Midst of a great Revolution,” a sentiment that echoed the view John Adams expressed on June 9: “We are in the very midst of a Revolution, the most compleat, unexpected, and remarkable of any in the History of Nations.”46

  CHAPTER 12

  “THE CHARACTER OF A FINE WRITER”

  THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE DRAFTING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

  THE COMMITTEE CHARGED WITH drafting a declaration of independence had to act rapidly. Formed on Tuesday, June 11, the Committee of Five, as many delegates referred to it, faced a deadline of Monday, July 1. During that time, a draft had to be written and a majority of the committee had to agree to its wording, and it all had to be done while those on the panel were busy with the daily sessions of Congress and committee assignments. Given the time constraints it faced, the Committee of Five probably met for the first time either late on the day it was established or before the next morning’s session of Congress.

  The five committee members were hardly strangers. Adams and Sherman had known each other since the First Congress. Livingston and Franklin had entered Congress in May 1775, Jefferson a month later. Only the appointments of Franklin and Adams to this committee had more or less been a foregone conclusion. Franklin was Congress’s most renowned member and its most prolific writer. For the past year, Adams had led the faction that leaned toward independence. Livingston’s choice was curious. It may have stemmed in part from his competent service on other committees that had prepared documents for publication, but he was probably selected mostly because the proponents of independence thought his inclusion would sway votes among those delegates who still clung to the hope of reconciliation.

  Jefferson enjoyed a deserved reputation as a writer, and that alone accounted for his selection to the Committee of Five. Most delegates were unknown outside their province when they entered Congress, but Jefferson was renowned for his flair with the pen when he arrived in Philadelphia in 1775. An essay that Jefferson had written a year earlier had gained notice in three London periodicals and sparked rumors—which were untrue—that his name had been added to a bill of attainder passed by the House of Lords.1 So great was Jefferson’s reputation as a wordsmith that he had barely unpacked his luggage before Congress assigned him to the committee that was to prepare the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms. His colleagues on that committee, in turn, asked Jefferson to draft the document. Pleased with his work, Congress a few days later asked him to write its response to the North Peace Plan.

  Jefferson’s reputation as an essayist notwithstanding, happenstance played a crucial role in his inclusion on the Committee of Five. For one thing, Jefferson had written to the authorities in Williamsburg in mid-May requesting that he be recalled so that he might join in the writing of the state’s first constitution. The Virginia Convention had ignored his plea.2 Furthermore, had Richard Henry Lee wished to write the Declaration of Independence, or at least to have a hand in its composition, he almost certainly would have been chosen for the committee instead of Jefferson. The leader of Virginia’s delegation, Lee not only had introduced the motion on independence; he also had served in Congress considerably longer than Jefferson. But like Jefferson, Lee was anxious to return home and play a role in provincial affairs. Lee’s fervor to do so was quickened by his understanding that late in June the Virginia Convention would take up the proposed sale of lands in the Ohio Country, a region in which he had invested heavily. Lee simply announced that on June 13 he would be leaving Philadelphia for Williamsburg. His impending departure opened the way for Jefferson’s selection to the Committee of Five.3

  If it seems odd today that Jefferson and Lee preferred to tend to state business rather than to seize the opportunity to gain immortality by writing the Declaration of Independence, it should be recalled that no one in Congress anticipated that the Declaration would long be remembered. Every delegate knew that declaring independence would be Congress’s most important act, but nothing that Congress had adopted and published in the two previous years had caught the public’s fancy. There was little reason to think its declaration on independence would be any different.

  As two delegates on the Committee of Five had been chosen from mid-Atlantic colonies, the last member almost had to be either a Southerner from outside Virginia or a New Englander from one of the three provinces other than Massachusetts. Six delegates from the seven eligible colonies had served since the First Congress. Matthew Tilghman and Joseph Hewes were backbenchers who neither had risen to a leadership role nor were considered when crucial assignments were doled out. Maryland’s Samuel Chase did not return to Congress from his trying Canadian mission until the day the Committee of Five was named. Rhode Island’s Stephen Hopkins had begun his congressional career by supporting Joseph Galloway in 1774 and shrank from endorsing independence until May 1776. Twenty-six-year-old Edward Rutledge had taken a back seat in South Carolina’s delegation until his older brother, John, left Congress in the autumn of 1775. When he came into his own, Edward had steadfastly opposed independence.4 Congress, of course, was not committed to packing the Committee of Five only with those who had served since 1774, as the selection of Livingston, Franklin, and Jefferson demonstrated. But none among those who had become delegates since May 1775 especially stood out, and none overshadowed Connecticut’s Roger Sherman, who had been in Congress from its first day.

  Fifty-five years old in 1776, Sherman was a native of Massachusetts who had moved to Connecticut when he came of age, eventually settling in New Haven. Sherman, who had grown up in a comfortable farm fa
mily, had only a “slender” formal education, as one of his congressional colleagues put it, but he was enterprising and a quick learner. By the time he was thirty, Sherman had farmed and worked as a cobbler, spent a few years as a self-taught surveyor, speculated in frontier lands, and published an almanac. Before he turned forty, Sherman had become a lawyer, launched a potash business on the side, continued as an absentee farmer, and ultimately opened several retail shops that sold books, cloth, tea, coffee, indigo, and assorted imported goods from England. By then too he had entered public life, serving first as a selectman—or town councilman, as it would be called today in most communities—then as a member of the Connecticut assembly.

  Busy as he was, Sherman found time for family life. He married at the relatively late age of twenty-nine. His first marriage lasted eleven years. Following his wife’s death, he remained a widower for three years before marrying a second time. He fathered fifteen children in his two marriages.

  A conservative in Connecticut’s internal politics, Sherman actively resisted parliamentary taxation from the outset. He joined the protest against the Stamp Act in 1765 and never wavered in his opposition to London’s policies. In 1772 he declared that it was “a fundamental principle in the British Constitution … that no laws bind the people but such as they consent to be governed by.” By then, at least in the view of his biographer, Sherman already favored American independence. He told John Adams that his constitutional views had been shaped by the writings of James Otis, Adams’s friend and legal mentor, and from the First Congress onward there was little difference in the outlook of Sherman and Adams with regard to the proper response to British policies. (That may explain why, from the day they met, Adams characterized Sherman as “a solid sensible Man.”) Once the war broke out, Sherman openly embraced a hard-line position. When he learned a few weeks after Bunker Hill that Lord North was sending massive military reinforcements to North America, Sherman declared that every colony ought to “take Government fully into their own hands.”5