First Founding Father

by Harlow Giles Unger

  At the time French military depots were bulging with obsolete arms and ammunition from the Seven Years’ War. Although technological advances had rendered much of the artillery obsolete for European warfare, it was more than adequate for American rebels in the wilderness. The French military had about 400 cannons dating back to the seventeenth century bearing the back-to-back double L’s of Louis XIV. In effect, the king would lend Beaumarchais money from one royal pocket to buy royal weaponry from the royal army, which would put the money back into the royal pocket. The transaction would cost the king nothing and rid French army warehouses of useless weaponry. Beaumarchais would then sell the weaponry to the Americans for boatloads of tobacco, grains, furs, and other precious American commodities for sale in French markets. After deducting his own commission from the proceeds of such sales, Beaumarchais would return the rest of those proceeds to the king. Both the playwright and the king stood to derive enormous profits from the American Revolution—without firing a single shot. It was a plot only the author of The Barber of Seville could have devised.

  “The respectful esteem that I bear towards that brave people who so well defend their liberty,” Beaumarchais wrote to Richard Henry Lee “has induced me to form a plan… to supply you with necessaries of every sort… clothes, linens, powder, ammunition, muskets, cannon, and even gold for the payment of your troops, and in general everything that can be useful for the honorable war in which you are engaged. Your deputies… will find in me a sure friend, and asylum in my house, money in my coffers.”39

  On May 21 “a gentleman just from New York” reported seeing seventy transports with 10,000 troops under sail off Sandy Hook, in northern New Jersey, across the bay from New York. “Contrary to our earnest, early, and repeated petitions for peace, liberty, and safety,” Richard Henry Lee responded angrily, “our enemies press us with war, threaten us with danger and slavery. And this, not with her single force, but with the aid of foreigners.”40

  With that—and the knowledge of the Beaumarchais scheme to provide French aid—Richard Henry Lee stood in Congress on June 7, 1776, and with John Adams ready to second him, he called on each of the colonies to formulate constitutions and establish independent state governments. Knowing he was now inviting death on the gallows for treason, Lee rose a second time, his crippled hand throbbing as it always did in stressful situations, and read from a paper he held in his good hand:

  Resolved:

  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.

  That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming Alliances.

  That a plan for confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration.41

  20. Richard Henry Lee’s original handwritten declaration of American independence, which Congress approved on July 2, 1776, making that date the true Independence Day.

  Lee looked up, expecting a standing ovation and a chorus of huzzahs. To his dismay, there was nothing but silence.

  * William’s newborn son.

  * A diminutive name for Sint Eustatius, northwest of St. Kitts.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Enemy of Everything Good

  THE SILENCE IN PHILADELPHIA’S CARPENTERS’ HALL STUNNED Richard Henry Lee. He had just sounded the most important words of his life, indeed, the most important words in American history—perhaps world history.

  In response delegates in the Continental Congress only muttered, shuffled papers, and shifted in their seats uneasily, looking to their neighbors in all directions to assess reactions.

  Washington was in the field with thousands of troops risking their lives to fight for independence, believing that their home colonies supported them. The North Carolina and Virginia legislatures had already opted for independence, as had Rhode Island. But now, with a call to all other colonies to follow suit… nothing.

  “Why then, Sir, do we longer delay?” Lee called out in stentorian tones. “Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American republic. Let her arise, not to devastate and to conquer, but to reestablish the reign of peace and of law.”1

  “All was silence,” John Adams noted in his diary afterward. “No one would speak.” All eyes had turned to Adams as the senior member and acknowledged sage. “The subject had been in contemplation for more than year,” Adams recalled, “and frequent discussions had been had concerning it. At one time and another, all the arguments for it and against it had been exhausted and [had] become familiar. I expected no more would be said in public but that the question would be put and decided.”2

  21. John Adams of Massachusetts was first to stand in support of Richard Henry Lee’s original resolution for independence in the Continental Congress. With Lee, Adams established a north-south coalition that helped unite the thirteen colonies during the Revolutionary War.

  Still, no one spoke, and South Carolina delegate Edward Rutledge approached Adams: “Nobody will speak but you on this subject. You have all the topics so ready that you must satisfy the gentlemen.”

  Adams laughed a laugh of embarrassment. “I was ashamed to repeat what I had said twenty times before. The gentlemen, however, insisted on hearing at least a recapitulation of the arguments and no other gentlemen being willing to speak, I summed up the reasons, objections, and answers… till at length… they were fully satisfied and ready for the question, which was then put and determined in the affirmative.”3

  History has left only two descriptions of the responses of Continental Congress members to Lee’s historic resolution. One is the diary of John Adams; the other the “Notes of the Proceedings in the Continental Congress” by the enthusiastic thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson, then a relative neophyte to politics. Aware that they and the other delegates were flirting with treason and summary execution, neither took notes while sitting in Congress nor did Congress keep any word-for-word transcripts. There is no way to know when Adams and Jefferson actually compiled their notes or how accurate they were. Although Philadelphia delegate Charles Thomson had won appointment as secretary of Congress, he made only these cursory notes:

  Friday, June 7, 1776: The Delegates from Virginia moved in obedience to instructions from their constituents that the Congress should declare that these United colonies are & of right ought to be free & 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 & ought to be totally dissolved; that measures should be immediately taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and a Confederation be formed to bind the colonies more closely together.

  The house being obliged to attend at that time to some other business, the proposition was referred to the next day when the members were ordered to attend punctually at ten o’clock.

  Saturday, June 8. They proceeded to take it into consideration and referred it to a committee of the whole, into which they immediately resolved themselves, and passed that day & Monday the 10th in debating on the subject.4

  The outlook for colonial unity in the struggle for independence looked glum following Lee’s resolve, however. Although all the delegates in Philadelphia shared a degree of antagonism toward Britain’s Parliament for taxing and otherwise expanding its authority over the colonies, the colonies disagreed over whether to declare independence. The larger, wealthier colonies such as Virginia insisted independence was the only solution, while the smaller, poorer, and largely defenseless colonies such as Delaware were reluctant to cede membership in and the collective protection of the British Empire—regardless of the outcome of the tax disputes. And then there were the devout Anglicans, who opened their Sunday church services singing God Save the King and often repeated that exhortation before the recessional. All were wealthy landowners angered
by arbitrary taxation of their properties by Parliament, where they had no direct representation.

  But when they had stated all their grievances, the fact remained that they were all Englishmen! Englishmen in their minds, Englishmen in their hearts, Englishmen in their souls. Even those who had never set foot in Britain called it “home,” and even as some took up arms against parliamentary taxation, most were determined to remain Englishmen—and wealthy enough to pay taxes if forced to do so.

  In the debate that followed, Pennsylvania, New York, and South Carolina delegates agreed that reconciliation with Parliament seemed all but impossible for the moment, but they opposed a break with the homeland until they returned to their legislatures, which they said represented “the voice of the people” and “were our power.… Without them our declarations cannot be carried into effect.”5

  South Carolina’s Edward Rutledge stated his continuing hope for “an accommodation with Great Britain,” and Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey delegates echoed his sentiments.6 Tiny Delaware was too terrified by the presence of British warships along its undulating coastline to consider independence, while Maryland’s Roman Catholics feared separation from the Motherland might set off a religious war in that colony. Georgia delegates sat silently, remaining inscrutably noncommittal.

  In a shock to Lee and the rest of the assemblage, Massachusetts, whose leaders had sparked the entire revolution during the Stamp Act controversy a decade earlier, abstained. The Adamses, of course, stood solidly behind Richard Henry Lee and independence, but other Massachusetts delegates insisted that too many towns outside Boston’s influence were not in favor of separation from the mother country.

  Connecticut and New Hampshire were enthusiastically in favor of Lee’s motion for independence, while delegates from other states argued that their legislatures had expressly forbidden them to consent to independence. Still others said they lacked instructions of any kind, and without authority to vote, they refused to risk mounting the gibbet without orders to do so.

  There were many other issues, with some states banding together in agreement on some, only to step away from each other in disagreement and bond with delegates with whom they had just argued bitterly. Though heartfelt—often deeply so—their arguments remained free of personal animosity, with none of the clever barbed sarcasm nor angry retorts associated with fictional depictions of the Congress on stage and screen. Dueling was too frequent a consequence of thoughtless remarks for the dandies in Congress to risk a careless remark. In any case, many had fraternal bonds formed at Eton, Oxford, or the University of Edinburgh, and they remained “Gentlemen.” Indeed, they were more than that—they were English gentlemen.

  Lee’s supporters tried bolstering enthusiasm for independence with assurances of forthcoming French military aide. Others, however, questioned whether France and her ally Spain would not fear an independent America that might threaten their North American colonies. Several delegates warned that if some states voted for independence and others did not, foreign powers might take advantage of the division by agreeing “to partition our territories.… France and Spain have reason to be jealous of that rising power which would one day certainly strip them of all their American possessions.”7

  As the debate dragged on, Richard Henry Lee and John Adams stepped in to demand that delegates return to the original proposal before the Congress: whether to separate from Britain. “No gentleman has argued against the policy or the right of separation from Britain,” Richard Henry Lee pointed out, “nor supposed it possible we should ever renew our connection. They have only opposed its being now declared. The question is not whether, by a declaration of independence, we should make ourselves what we are not, but whether we should declare a fact that already exists: The ties to the king [were] dissolved by his assent to the late act of Parliament by which he declares us out of his protection and by his levying war on us.”8

  “Mr. Lee was by far the most elegant scholar in the house,” Maryland’s William Wirt remarked. “He possessed a rich store of historical and political knowledge, with an activity of observation and a certainty of judgment that turned that knowledge to the very best account. Such was his promptitude that he required no preparation for debate. He was ready for any subject as soon as it was announced.”9

  “The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us,” Lee proclaimed as he continued his call for independence.

  She demands of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace and the persecuted repose. She entreats us to cultivate a propitious soil, where that generous plant, which first sprang and grew in England but is now withered by the poisonous blasts of tyranny, may revive and flourish, sheltering… all the human race. If we are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, the names of the American legislators of ’76 will be placed at the side of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romulus, of the three Williamses of Nassau, and of all those whose memory has been and forever will be dear to virtuous men and good citizens.10

  The effects of his rhetoric were almost magical. “His eloquence was free from those stiff and technical restraints which habits of forensic speaking are apt to generate,” Wirt commented. “His gesture was so graceful and highly finished… his speech was so copious, so rich, so mellifluous, set off with such bewitching cadence of voice and such captivating grace of action that, while you listened to him, you desired to hear nothing superior, and indeed thought him perfect.”11

  John Adams seconded Richard Henry Lee, all but repeating Lee’s argument word for word. “We have always been independent of Parliament, their restraints on our trade deriving efficacy from our acquiescence only and not from any rights they possessed of imposing them.… Our connection… was now dissolved by the commencement of hostilities. As to the king… his assent to the late act of parliament… declares us out of his protection.… Allegiance and protection are reciprocal, the one ceasing when the other is withdrawn.”12

  Despite the emotional effects of his rhetoric and that of John Adams, Lee recognized that if he forced a vote on his resolution, he might lose. Only five states—Virginia, North Carolina, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire—had expressed unconditional support for independence; five—South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware—were opposed, with the remaining three undecided and ready to abstain if Richard Henry pressed for a vote. Although he rallied nine states to his side—enough to pass his resolution under the rules then in place—he believed unanimity essential to ultimate victory and opted to postpone the debate for two weeks until July 2. He would use the interim to launch a campaign of personal diplomacy to win reluctant delegates. He had one advantage—his sister Alice’s lavishly stocked table and wine cellar. Alice Lee had married Dr. William Shippen, one of Philadelphia’s most renowned physicians and famed anatomist, whom Washington had just named Director of Hospitals—the equivalent of today’s surgeon general.

  While cajoling delegates to embrace unity while dining on savory game and fine wines at the Shippen dinner table, Lee also fed intelligence to Washington and rounded up money and supplies for Washington’s army, including 5,000 shoes and blankets and $300,000 to pay the troops. He also worked out a plan for Cotton Tufts, a Boston-area physician and dedicated Patriot, to oversee construction of a foundry to supply Patriot forces with cannons.

  By July 2 Richard Henry Lee had finished winning over most of the delegates at the Shippen dinner table—and the Continental Congress. Meanwhile pro-independence members of the Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania assemblies staged revolutions of their own, walking out of the established assemblies and creating new rump assemblies. The extralegal bodies then instructed their representatives to the Continental Congress to vote for Richard Henry Lee’s resolution.

  When Congress finally voted, twelve states voted for American independence, with one s
tate—New York—abstaining until its delegates received instructions from their state legislature.

  Banner newspaper headlines confirmed the vote, heralding Richard Henry Lee as Father of American Independence. John Adams, who had seconded Lee’s resolution, wrote to his wife, Abigail, that July 2, 1776, would become “the most memorable epoch in the history of America… solemnized with Pomp and Parade… from one end of this Continent… forever more.” History and the American people, he predicted, would remember and eternally embrace Richard Henry Lee as Father of American Independence.

  Lee had unquestionably engineered one of the most significant events in American—indeed, world—history, giving an entire people the right and power of self-determination for the first time since man had shed his gills and, at the same time, putting the lie to and signaling the end of any man’s divine right to rule over others. To add luster to Lee’s concise declaration, however, Congress appointed a committee of five members with literary gifts to embellish it with the reasoning that spawned it. Because Lee had planned to return to Virginia immediately after the vote, Congress named John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut to the committee, but the older members were so exhausted that they assigned the chore to Jefferson.