The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (72 page)

The radicals faced determined, though shrinking, opposition in Congress after
Common Sense
signaled that the drift of public opinion was away from reconciliation. Just how the radicals should deal with such men remained a perplexing question. These moderates were no less patriotic than the radicals; nor were they any less concerned to protect American liberties which -- they agreed -- had been savagely trampled on in the previous year. Still they preferred to see America free within the empire rather than outside it.
Several in fact seemed to doubt that

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the colonies could gain sufficient strength to survive as free states without the protection of the mother country.

Congress appointed five moderates -- James Wilson, Robert Alexander of Maryland, James Duane of New York, William Hooper of North Carolina, and John Dickinson -- to a committee commissioned to provide an answer to the king's charge that the colonies intended to separate themselves from Britain. The radicals probably agreed to this composition in order to force the moderates to make their position clear on independence. Wilson wrote the committee report, a much maligned statement then and since, which said that the colonists wished to remain British subjects but were determined to continue as free men. This by now time-worn formula would no longer serve, and when the committee reported, on February 13, the radicals succeeded in tabling it. The tabling of Wilson's statement does not seem to have aroused much opposition among the moderates, who were losing hope as news of British hostility continued to come in. Fresh evidence of the king's anger shook them, and then they learned that foreign mercenaries were on the way.
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Meanwhile, as the winter began to give way to spring, the radicals speeded up the pace of their action in Congress. In late March, Congress authorized "the inhabitants of these colonies. . . to fit out armed vessels to cruise on the enemies of these United Colonies."
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John Adams, who earlier had lamented that the colonies were fighting only half a war, told Horatio Gates that the colonies were now engaged at least in "three Quarters of a war."
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And early in April, after months of tortured discussion, Congress agreed to open colonial trade to all the world but Britain.

The Congress acted in part because the country seemed at last to have decided that there was nothing left to do but move toward independence. The colonial legislatures and their stand-ins, the provincial congresses, soon caught the popular mood and began removing restraints on their congressional delegations. On March 21, South Carolina gave its delegates permission to join with others in Congress to do what was necessary for the defense of America, oblique phrasing which everyone understood to mean that South Carolina was prepared to declare independence.
Shortly after, Georgia's delegation received murkier in-

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structions which in effect also freed them to vote for independence. On April 12, North Carolina's Provincial Congress gave its delegates authority to "concur with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring independency, and forming foreign alliances. . . ." Rhode Island was more forthright than any colony and in the first week of May declared its own independence. It also gave its delegates in Congress a rather loose charge to combine with others in attempts to annoy the common enemy.
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All of these actions were uncoordinated and all stopped short of proposing that Congress pull America together. As in Congress, there was in provincial legislatures agreement that the colonies must be tied together in a league of free states before they declared themselves free of Britain. And, as in Congress, many within the states believed that a French alliance would be necessary if America was to win its war for liberty. Even Patrick Henry, always an eager advocate of the American cause, feared a declaration that preceded an American confederation.
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By May 15 in Virginia, others, even "old man moderation," as Edmund Pendleton was called (behind his back), had shaken off these concerns. On that day resolutions composed by Pendleton instructed Virginia's delegation to propose that Congress declare the colonies "free and independent states" and that they agree "to whatever measures" Congress thought necessary "for forming foreign alliances and a confederation of the colonies, at such time, and in the manner, as to them shall seem best: Provided that the power of forming government for, and the regulations of the internal concerns of each colony, be left to the respective colonial legislatures."
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These resolutions reached the Virginia delegation some days later and were read in Congress on May 27.

It was a Congress now dominated by radicals strengthened by further evidence of British hostility. Rumors and reports had arrived from Europe of an English government determined to crush opposition in America by force. There seemed no other way to explain the news that the king's ministers were busy adding German mercenaries to an army bound for America. If the ministry had no intention of reconciliation by negotiation, delegates asked, how could America negotiate?

With hope of reconciliation virtually dead, the problem of how to proceed remained. The long-debated first step had been taken on May

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10, five days before Virginia acted, when Congress recommended to the colonies that they adopt governments "sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs," governments, it explained, which "best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general."
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This resolution incited no opposition, but three days later John Adams proposed a preamble to it which did. The preamble approved on May 15, argued that

Whereas his Britannic Majesty, in conjunction with the lords and commons of Great Britain, has, by a late act of Parliament, excluded the inhabitants of these United Colonies from the protection of his crown; And whereas, no answer, whatever, to the humble petitions of the colonies for redress of grievances and reconciliation with Great Britain, has been or is likely to be given; but, the whole force of that kingdom, aided by foreign mercenaries, is to be exerted for the destruction of the good people of these colonies; And whereas, it appears absolutely irreconcileable to reason and good Conscience, for the people of these colonies now to take the oaths and affirmations necessary for the support of any government under the crown of Great Britain,. . . it is [therefore] necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed, and all the powers of government exerted under the authority of the people of the colonies, for the preservation of internal peace, virtue, and good order, as well as for the defence of their lives, liberties, and properties, against the hostile invasions and cruel depredations of their enemies. . . .
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The preamble seemed to discard all pretensions to a step-by-step approach to independence, and it was at odds with the body of the resolution itself which proposed important but limited action. In contrast the preamble, as the moderates protested, almost declared the colonies independent, most clearly in the remarkable sentence requiring the suppression of all governments deriving their authority from the Crown, these governments to be replaced by new ones exerting powers under the authority of the people. The moderates' assessment surely captured the mood of their radical colleagues, a mood now extending throughout the colonies.
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The radicals, however, distrusting the evidence of their political senses,

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failed at this time to understand how much power had swung to them. For a few weeks they hesitated and then on June 7, Richard Henry Lee offered the motion "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."
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The next day, Friday, and on June 10, Monday, Lee's resolution was debated by Congress. The alignments were familiar and so were the debates. Both sides spoke intelligently, though it is likely that each erred in its estimate of popular attitudes. Both agreed that the middle colonies, especially Pennsylvania and Maryland, were "not yet ripe for bidding adieu to British connection but that they were fast ripening. . . ." The moderates attributed the unripeness of the middle colonies to the people and advised Congress to delay "until the voice of the people drove us into it, for they are our power." The radicals found the people ready -- "they are in favour of the measure, tho' the instructions given by some of their
representatives
are not." The people indeed only "wait for us to lead the way." There was another reason for delay according to the moderates: an alliance with foreign powers might be concluded on better terms after a favorable military campaign which they trusted the summer to bring. Back came the radical response: a declaration of independence was more likely to produce a helpful alliance.
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Congress listened to these exchanges and decided to postpone a final decision on Lee's motion until the first of July. While waiting, it appointed a committee to prepare a declaration of independence for possible use. This committee, John Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson, with Jefferson composing most of the document, finished its work on June 28.

Jefferson was thirty-three years old in 1776. He was born in Shadwell, Goochland (which became Albemarle County the year after his birth), the son of Peter Jefferson and Jane Randolph. Peter Jefferson had brought his young wife up the Rivanna River, a tributary to the James, only a short time before the birth of his son. He was an ambitious man, and before his death, fourteen years after the birth of his son, he had estab-