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$Title{Our Country:  Volume 3
Chapter LVII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.}
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$Subject{congress
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$Volume{Vol. 3}
$Date{1905}
$Log{}
Book:        Our Country:  Volume 3
Author:      Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.
Volume:      Vol. 3
Date:        1905

Chapter LVII

     Meeting of the General Congress - The Opening Scenes - The Congress
Opened with Religious Services - Personal Sketches of the Members -
Hospitalities of Philadelphians - Differences of Opinion in the Congress - A
Traitor Therein - Belligerent Feelings - Repressed - Appeal from Boston - The
Most Important Resolutions - State-Papers Framed and Adopted - "American
Associations" Formed - Secession of South Carolinians - Other State-Papers
Agreed to - A Second Congress Recommended - Public Sentiment - Doings of the
Congress - A Foolish Order from the King.

     THE great crisis in the history of the colonies was now at hand, which
thoughtful and patriotic men in America had long expected; which the French
and other enemies of Great Britain on the continent of Europe had ardently
wished for, and which the stubborn king of England, his ministers, and their
aristocratic supporters in Church and State had hastened on by their
perverseness and folly.  That crisis was the planting of the seed of an
independent nation in America.  It was solemnly performed, when, on the 5th of
September, 1774, delegates from twelve British-American provinces met in the
hall of the Carpenters' Association, in Philadelphia, and were organized into
what they termed themselves, a Continental Congress, having for their object
the consideration of the political state of the colonies also the devising of
measures for obtaining relief from oppression, and to unite in efforts to
secure forever for themselves and their posterity the free enjoyment of
natural and chartered rights and liberties, in a perfect union with Great
Britain.  Very few of them had aspirations yet for political independence.

     On Monday, the 5th of September, there w re present in the Carpenter's
Hall (yet standing) forty-four delegates.  These were John Sullivan and
Nathaniel Folsom, from New Hampshire; Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams
and Robert Treat Paine, from Massachusetts, Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward,
from Rhode Island, Eliphalet Dyer, Roger Sherman and Silas Deane, from
Connecticut, Jaines Duane, John Jay, Philip Livingston, Isaac Low and William
Floyd, from New York; James Kinsey, William Livingston, John Hart, Stephen
Crane and Richard Smith, from New Jersey; Joseph Galloway, Samuel Rhoies,
Thomas Mifflin, Charles Humphreys, John Morton and Edward Biddle, from
Pennsylvania; Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean and George Read, from Delaware
Robert Goldsborough, William Paca and Samuel Chase, from Maryland, Peyton
Randolph, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison
and Edmund Pendleton, from Virginia, and Henry Middleton, John Rutledge,
Christopher Gadsden, Thomas Lynch and Edward Rutledge, from South Carolina.
Others came soon afterward - John Alsop and Henry Wisner, from New York;
George Ross and John Dickinson, from Pennsylvania; Thomas Johnson and Matthew
Tighlman, from Maryland, Richard Henry Lee, from Virginia, William Hooper,
Joseph Hewes and Richard Caswell, from North Carolina - making the whole
number fifty-four.  They chose Peyton Randolph to be their President.  He was
an eminent lawyer, who had been educated at William and Mary College; was the
king's Attorney-General for Virginia sixteen years before had taken a decided
stand against the ministry at the beginning of resistance; had recently been
Speaker of the Virginia Assembly, and was a popular citizen.  He was then
fifty-one years of age.  They chose for their Secretary, Charles Thomson, a
native of Ireland, who, in early life, had emigrated to Delaware, but was then
a citizen of Philadelphia, of character and fortune.  Dr. Franklin was his
friend, and he was a good classical scholar.  He had lived a bachelor until
that week, when he was about forty-five years of age.  Just as he was
alighting from his chaise, with his bride - an heiress of much property - a
messenger came to him from the Congress, saying: "They want you at Carpenters
Hall to keep the minutes of their proceedings, as you are very expert at that
business." Thomson complied with their request, and very soon took his seat as
Secretary of the Continental Congress and he remained sole Secretary of that
body during its entire existence of almost fifteen years.  John Adams wrote in
his diary, that Charles Thomson was "the Samuel Adams of Philadelphia; the
life of the cause of liberty."

          Each colony had appointed representatives without any rule as to
numbers. The grave question immediately presented itself, How shall we vote?
It was suggested that the larger provinces like Virginia should have more
votes than the smaller ones like Rhode Island, and that representation should
be regulated by population and wealth.  It was also suggested that a small
province, as well as a large one, had its all involved in the issue, and it
was proposed to vote by colonies.  The question was one of so much importance
that it was left over for discussion the following day, when the Congress
adjourned.

     When the members assembled the next morning, and the Secretary had called
the roll and read the minutes, there was a pause.  Members from various and
distant provinces were personal strangers.  Some had been instructed what to
do, and others had been left free to act according to their own judgments, and
the circumstances.  No one seemed willing to take the first step in business.
No one seemed to have determined what measure first to propose. The silence
was becoming painful, when a grave-looking man, apparently about forty years
of age, with unpowdered hair, a thin face, not very powerful in person, and
dressed in a plain dark suit of minister's gray, arose.  Then," said Mr.
(afterward Bishop) White, who was present, I felt a regret that a seeming
country parson should so far have mistaken his talents and the theatre for
their display." His voice was musical, and as he continued to speak, he became
more animated, and his words more eloquent.  With alternate vigor and pathos
he drew a picture of the wrongs which the colonies had suffered by acts of the
Parliament.  He said that all the governments in America were dissolved; that
the colonies were in a state of nature.  He believed that the Congress then in
session was the beginning of a long series of congresses; and speaking to the
undecided question about voting, he declared his great concern, for their
decision would form a precedent, He favored representation according to
population; and in reference to the objection that such representation would
confer an undue weight of influence upon some of the larger provinces, he
said, with words that prophesied of a nation British oppression has effaced
the boundaries of the several colonies; the distinctions between Virginians,
Pennsylvanians and New Englanders are no more.  I am not a Virginian, but an
American." His speech drew the earnest attention of the whole House; and when
he sat down the question went from lip to lip, "Who is he?" A few who knew the
speaker replied, It is Patrick Henry of Virginia."

     There was now no hesitation.  The bold-spirited man, who electrified the
continent with his burning words in Stamp-act times, was now there to lead in
a revolt.  He had uttered the sentiment of union and nationality that warmed
the hearts of all present, when he exclaimed: "I am not a Virginian, but an
American."  It was the text of every patriotic discourse thereafter; and from
that hour the Congress went forward with courage and vigor in the work
assigned them.  They determined that the voting should be done by colonies,
each colony having one vote, because they had no means for ascertaining the
importance of each in population, wealth, and trade.  It is estimated that the
aggregate population at that time, including five hundred thousand blacks and
excluding Indians, was about two million six hundred thousand.

     The Congress adopted various rules; and it was proposed that the sessions
should be opened every morning with prayer.  Objection was made by Jay and
Rutledge, the younger members, because there was such a adversity of
theological opinions in that body.  I am no bigot," said Samuel Adams.  I can
hear a prayer from a man of piety and virtue, who, at the same time, is a
friend to his country." Then he moved that the Rev. Jacob Duche, an eloquent
Episcopal minister, be desired to open the Congress with prayer to-morrow
morning." This nomination by a straight Puritan of the Congregational school -
a man past middle life - removed all objections.  The motion was agreed to.
The next morning Mr. Duche, after reading the Psalm for the day (the 35th),
made an extemporaneous prayer, so pertinent, affectionate, sublime, and
devout," wrote John Adams, that it filled every bosom present." That Psalm
seemed peculiarly appropriate for an express had just arrived from Israel
Putnam of Connecticut with the dreadful rumor of a bombardment of Boston, and
the murder of the inhabitants by the soldiery.  The bells of Philadelphia were
muffled and tolled in token of sorrow; but another messenger soon came with a
contradiction of the report.

     There were many friends of the crown in Philadelphia, and it was resolved
to hold the sessions of the Congress with closed doors.  The members gave
their word of honor to keep the proceedings secret; but there was a royalist
spy in the midst playing the hypocrite - Joseph Galloway, a Pennsylvania
delegate - who gave the pledge and broke it that very night He and Duche
afterward became active loyalists - the only persons of all that assemblage on
the morning of the seventh of September who swerved from the cause.  The
people had sent the best men to the Great Council, and were not disappointed.
"There is in the Congress," John Adams wrote to his wife, a collection of the
greatest men upon this continent in point of abilities, virtues, and fortunes
and Charles Thomson gave it as his opinion that no subsequent Congress during
the war could compare with the first in point of talent and purity.  Mr.
Adams, in his diary, has left interesting personal notices of a few of the
members.  He writes that William Livingston, of New Jersey, was a plain man,
tall, black, wears his hair; nothing elegant or genteel about him.  They say
he is no public speaker, but sensible, learned, and a ready writer."  He wrote
of John Rutledge: His appearance is not very promising; no keenness in his
eyes, no depth in his countenance."  Edward Rutledge (the youngest man in the
assemblage), he wrote "is young, sprightly, but not deep.  He has the most
indistinct, inarticulate way of speaking; speaks through his nose a wretched
speaker in conversation.  He seems good-natured though conceited."  Randolph,"
he wrote, is a large, well-looking man.  Lee is a tall, spare man Bland is a
learned, bookish man." "Caesar Rodney," he wrote, "is the oddest-looking man
in the world - he is tall, thin, and slender as a reedpole; his face is not
bigger than a big apple yet there is sense and fire, spirit, wit, and humor in
his countenance."  He wrote of Johnson of Maryland, as one with "a clear, cool
head, an extensive knowledge of trade as well as of law . . . . not a shining
orator.  Galloway, Duane, and Johnson, he remarks, are sensible and learned,
but cold speakers.  Lee, Henry, and Hooper are the orators.  Paca is a
deliberator too Chase speaks warmly; Mifflin is a sprightly and spirited
speaker.  Dyer and Sherman speak often and long, but very heavily and
clumsily."  Jay (son-in-law of William Livingston) was young and slender, and
enthusiastic in his nature.  Stephen Hopkins, the oldest member, was
sixty-seven years of age; his hair was white, his form was somewhat bent, and
his limbs shook with palsy.  Duane is described as "a sly-looking man, a
little squint-eyed," and Hooper had a "broad face and open countenance."
Washington, then forty-two years of age, modest and retiring, was the most
conspicuous figure among them; tall, strongly-built, with a ruddy face, the
picture of high health and manly strength.

     Every possible facility was given to the members of the Congress for the
prosecution of their labors.  The Carpenters' Association, themselves warm
patriots, gave the free use of their hall and their library above and the
directors of the Library Company of Philadelphia requested their librarian to
furnish the members with any books which they might wish to use during their
sitting.  They were also the recipients of unbounded hospitality from the
leading citizens of Philadelphia, among whom they were continually entertained
at tables sumptuously provided.  John Adams related in his diary, that he
dined with Mr. Miers, a young Quaker lawyer, and remarks: "This plain Friend,
and his plain though pretty wife, with her Thees and Thous, had provided us
the most costly entertainment - ducks, hams, chickens, beef, pig, tarts,
creams, custards, jellies, fools, trifles, floating islands, beer, porter,
punch, wine, etc.  Again, after dining at Mr. Powell's: A most sinful feast
again!  Everything which could delight the eye, or allure the taste - curds
and creams, jellies, sweatmeats of various sorts, twenty sorts of tarts,
fools, trifles, floating islands, whipped syllabubs, etc., etc. Parmesan
cheese, punch, wine, porter, beer, etc."

     There were great differences of opinion among the members of the Congress
as to the real state of the case, and the proper duties to be performed.  This
was foreshadowed by remarks of Henry and Jay, at the beginning.  The former
declared that an entirely new government must be founded.  Jay said all
government had not come to an end, and that they had not assembled to frame an
American constitution, but to correct the faults of the old one.  But in one
important matter there was, from the first, much unity of feeling, namely,
that the whole continent ought to support the people of Massachusetts in
resistance to the unconstitutional change in their charter.  At the opening of
their business, they appointed a committee to state the rights of the
colonists in general, the several instances in which those rights had been
violated or infringed, and the means most proper to be pursued for obtaining a
restoration of them.  They also appointed a committee to examine and report
the several statutes which affected the trade and manufactures of the
colonies.  The reports of these committees furnished the materials for work,
and at about the middle of September, the Congress was a theatre of warm but
always friendly discussion.  The debates took a wide range, and were very
interesting and instructive.  The foundations of their rights were discussed -
the law of nature, the British constitution, and the force of prescribed
allegiance.  Then their work took a practical turn; and on the 22nd of
September, the Congress, by unanimous vote, requested "the merchants and
others in the several colonies not to send to Great Britain any order for
goods, and to direct the execution of all orders already sent to be delayed or
suspended, until the sense of the Congress on the means to be taken for the
preservation of the liberties of America was made public."

     How to avoid the appearance of revolution in their acts, was a perplexing
question.  There was a great diversity of opinion.  Some were very radical,
many were conservative, and some, true patriots at heart, were very timid.
Some proposed to recognize the full force of the navigation acts; also the
authority of Parliament to regulate the trade of the colonies, grounding that
power not on the consent of the Americans, but upon compact, acquiescence,
necessity, and protection."  Others were disposed to deny the authority of
Parliament altogether.  A compromise was offered that pleased nobody; and
Joseph Galloway, then in secret communication with royal governors, proposed,
in plausible terms, a scheme suggested many years before, for a Continental
Union, with a president-general appointed by the king, and a grand council
chosen every three years by the several assemblies, the British Parliament
having power to revise their acts, and they in turn having the privilege of
opposing a veto on British statutes relating to the colonies.  The mover made
an ostentatious display of patriotism, boasting of his readiness to spend
blood and fortune in defence of the liberties of his country.  At first some
timid ones were disposed to fall in with his insidious scheme for defeating
the great ends for which the Congress were assembled.  He was defeated; but
while all were determined to maintain their liberty, not one gave a decided
voice in favor of independence.

     Meanwhile news came from Boston from time to time of the petty tyranny of
Gage and his troops, endured by the patriotic citizens, and the marvelous
fortitude of the afflicted, who declared they would abandon their homes,
fortune, everything, before they or their children would submit to be slaves.
These tales of sorrow wrought hot anger in the bosoms of some of the members
and Christopher Gadsden, who had preached resistance and independence for ten
years, and who, when reminded that war with Great Britain would destroy the
seaport towns, exclaimed: Our towns are built of wood and brick; if they are
burned down, we can rebuild them; but liberty once lost is gone forever."
Gadsden proposed, in his righteous wrath, to make immediate war upon the
oppressor.  Nay, nay, said the Congress we must exhaust every means for
obtaining redress peacefully, before we appeal to the arbitrament of the
sword.

     There was much irritation of feeling that demanded self-restraint.
Washington, who had said in the Virginia Convention, "I will raise a thousand
men, subsist them at my own expense, and march with them at their head for the
relief of Boston," expressed his indignation freely, yet he was willing to
wait a little longer - to try peaceful measures for a short season more.  He
was resolved to fight, when war or submission should be the alternative
offered.  His mind was freely expressed in a letter to Captain Mackenzie of
the British army, which he wrote from his lodgings in Philadelphia in October,
in reply to one from that officer, who had been Washington's companion in
arms.  Permit me," he said, with the freedom of a friend (for you know I
always esteemed you), to express my sorrow that fortune should place you in a
service that must fix curses to the latest posterity upon the contrivers, and,
if success (which, by the way, is impossible) accompanies it, execrations upon
all those who have been instrumental in the execution."  After further
expressing his views of the situation, and the determination of the colonies
to defend their just rights, Washington remarked: "Give me leave to add as my
opinion, that more blood will be spilled on this occasion, if the ministry are
determined to push matters to extremity, than history has ever furnished
instances of in the annals of North America."

     On the 8th of October - the day before Washington's letter was written -
the Great Council at Philadelphia, after a very short but spicy debate,
resolved:

     That this Congress approve the opposition of the inhabitants of
Massachusetts Bay to the execution of the late acts of Parliament, and if the
same shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, in such case
all America ought to support them in their opposition."

     This was the whole business performed by the Congress on that remarkable
day, according to the minutes of Secretary Thomson.  It was enough It was the
most momentous act of that body during the whole session.  From that hour the
crystallization of the British-American colonies into an independent nation,
went rapidly on.  That resolution was like the luminous writing on the wall,
warning Belshazzar of impending danger.  Wise seers interpreted it as a
prophecy of the dismemberment of the British empire.  But the British monarch,
too blind to perceive the ominous light, and too deaf to hear the prophecy, in
his anger because of that resolve, proclaimed his subjects in America to be
rebels.

     That resolution was elicited by a letter from the Boston Committee of
Correspondence, written on the 29th of September, in which was a recital of
the wrongs endured by the citizens of that town, and asking the advice of the
Congress whether they should abandon their homes and leave Boston, or suffer a
little longer, for it was believed that when the place should be inclosed with
the fortifications then a-building, the inhabitants would be held as hostages
for the whole country.  The resolution was the quick and glorious answer.  It
startled the timid in the Congress.  Galloway the spy and Duane the
arch-conservative, asked leave to enter upon the minutes their protest against
the measure.  Their request was denied, when they exchanged certificates
privately, that they had opposed it as treasonable.  Two days afterward the
resolution was strengthened by another, which declared that any person who
should accept or act under any commission or authority derived from the act of
Parliament for changing the form of the government and violating the charter
of Massachusetts "ought to be held in detestation and abhorrence by all good
men, and considered as the wicked tool of that despotism which is preparing to
destroy those rights which God, nature, and compact have given to America." On
the same day, the Congress sent a letter to General Gage, telling him of the
just complaints of the citizens of Boston made to them, and their suspicions
that a plan was formed for the overthrow of the liberties of America; warning
him that the oppression to which they were subjected might involve the
colonies in the horrors of a civil war, and asking him, in order to quiet the
public mind, to discontinue the erection of fortifications in and around
Boston.  On the 14th of October (1774), the Congress adopted a Declaration of
Colonial Rights, reported by a committee composed of two deputies from each
colony, in which the several obnoxious acts of Parliament, including the
Quebec Act, were declared to be infringements and violations of their rights,
and that the repeal of them was necessary in order to restore harmony between
America and Great Britain. This was followed on the 20th by the adoption of
The American Association - a non-importation, nonconsumption, and
non-exportation agreement" applied to Great Britain, Ireland, the West Indies,
and Madeira, by which the inhabitants of all the colonies were bound to act in
concert and good faith, or incur the displeasure of the faithful ones.  The
agreement, which was embodied in fourteen articles, and was to go into effect
on the first of December next ensuing, covered broad ground.  In the second
article the Congress, in the name of their constituents, struck a blow at the
slave-trade, saying: "We will neither import, nor purchase any slave imported,
after the first day of December next after which time we will wholly
discontinue the slave-trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves,
nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to
those who are concerned in it." By the fourth article, it was agreed that
after the first of September the next year, in case their grievances were not
redressed, not to export any merchandise or commodity" to the countries
above-named. Committees were to be appointed in every county, city, and town
to enforce compliance with the terms of the Association and it was resolved
that they would have no trade, commerce, dealings or intercourse, whatsoever,
with any colony or province, in North America, which shall not accede
thereto," or which should thereafter violate the Association, but would hold
them as unworthy of the rights of freemen, and as inimical to the liberties of
their country."

     The several articles of the Association were adopted unanimously,
excepting the one concerning exportations.  Three of the five delegates from
South Carolina refused to vote for that resolution or sign the Association,
because, they said, the agreement to stop exports to Great Britain was an
unequal arrangement.  New England, they said, exported a large portion of
their staple, fish, to Portugal and Spain, and would be very little affect;
while South Carolina sent rice to Great Britain to the amount of a million and
a half dollars annually, and would be ruined.  When that resolution was
carried, the three South Carolinians seceded from the Congress.  Gadsden and
another, in the spirit of Henry, declared by their act that they were not
South Carolinians but Americans, and did not count the cost of patriotism.
They stood by the other colonies, voted for the general good, and trusted to
the virtue and generosity of their constituents.  This secession caused a
delay of several days in the business of the Congress.  It was important to
have the vote on the Association unanimous.  The seceders were finally brought
back, and induced to sign the Association, by allowing the unconditional
export of rice, so that no burden of sacrifice might fall upon their province.

     An eloquent Address to the People of Great Britain, written by John Jay,
and a memorial to The Inhabitants of the several British-American colonies,
from the pen of William Livingston, were adopted on the 21st of October; and
on the 26th - the last day of the session - a Petition to the King, drawn by
John Dickinson, in which the final decision of the colonies was given in
conciliatory terms, and an elaborate Address to the Inhabitants of the
Province of Quebec, also written by Mr. Dickinson, were agreed to.  A few days
before, the Congress had recommended the holding of another at Philadelphia on
the 10th of May following, if the grievances were not redressed in the
meantime and all the American colonies were invited to participate, by
delegation, in its deliberations.  Letters addressed to other colonies not
represented in the Congress were approved, and on the afternoon of the 26th of
October, 1774, the First Continental Congress ended.  All of the members and a
few other gentlemen spent that evening together socially at the City Tavern,
in Philadelphia.  The next day they began to disperse to their homes.  Almost
every man was impressed with a belief that war was inevitable.  Most of them
were bold, but few of them were so lionhearted as Samuel Adams, who publicly
said: I would advise persisting in our struggle for liberty, though it were
revealed from Heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine men were to perish, and
only one of a thousand to survive and retain his liberty.  One such freeman
must possess more virtue, and enjoy more happiness, than a thousand slaves;
and let him propagate his like, and transmit to them what he hath so nobly
preserved."

     The first Continental Congress was in actual session only thirty-one days
of the eight weeks of the term.  The remainder of the time was occupied in
preparatory business.  There was much talking (as in all deliberative bodies),
for there were diversities of opinion, and every one was free to express his
own.  Of what they said we know very little, for the sessions were held in
secret, and there were no professional newspaper reporters in those days.
What they did we all know.  The records of their acts were soon published to
the world, and produced a profound impression upon the minds of thoughtful
men.  The state-papers put forth by them were models of their kind, and
commanded the admiration of the leading statesmen of Europe.  The British
monarch and counsellors were highly offended, and early in January, 1775, Lord
Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the colonies issued the following Circular
to all the royal governors in America - a bull without horns," which did not
frighten the patriots.  Here is the letter:


"Certain persons, styling themselves delegates of his Majesty's colonies in
America, having presumed, without his Majesty's authority or consent, to
assemble together at Philadelphia, in the months of September and October
last; and having thought fit, among other unwarrantable proceedings, to
resolve that it will be necessary that another Congress should be held in this
place, on the 10th of May next, unless redress for certain pretended
grievances be obtained before that time, and to recommend that all the
colonies in North America should choose delegates to attend such Congress, I
am commanded by the King to signify to you his Majesty's pleasure, that you do
use your utmost endeavors to prevent such appointment of deputies within the
colony under your government; and that you do exhort all persons to desist
from such unwarrantable proceedings, which cannot but be highly displeasing to
the King."


     No doubt the amiable Dartmouth signed that foolish letter with reluctance
and regret, for he well knew that its only effect would be to produce fresh
irritations in the colonies, and make reconciliation and peace less possible.