5. The Response of the Continental Congress

0:00Volume 4, Chapter 5, The Response of the Continental Congress The most important business before the Congress, however, was not Ticonderoga, but the problem of Boston and the army that Massachusetts and New England had hastily put up around it. What Congress decided to do about that army would determine what it would do about As soon as Congress opened, Dr. Warren of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress urged the Continental Congress to take responsibility for the Army around Boston by appointing a Commander-in-Chief, thus committing the other colonies irrevocably to the Revolution.

0:46The Congress showed its temper by not even deigning to answer. Instead, as the Massachusetts radicals watched with dismay, it frittered away its time in evading responsibility for adopting the revolution, merely sending elaborate proofs to London that the British troops had fired first at Lexington. It was clear that a considerable majority of the delegates, led by the now arch-conservative John Dickinson of Philadelphia, looked forward to reconciliation with Britain, rather than to waging the revolution with zest and vigor toward eventual independence. Joseph Galloway and Isaac Lowe, heads of the ultra-right in the First Congress, had by then, as outright Tories, moved outside the American dialogue as well as the Continental of Congress, and we're soon to slip behind British lines.

1:45Seething inwardly, John Adams wrote to Joseph Warren from Philadelphia, we find a great many bundles of weak nerves. We are obliged to be as delicate and soft and modest and humble as possible. Not receiving any reply to its letter, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress developed a careful petition, shrewdly designed to prod The Continental Congress into action by urging Congress to allow Massachusetts to set up a permanent civil government. Such official authorization of the Provincial Congress and the network of town committees would push the Continental Congress closer to endorsing an open political break with England. Above all, Massachusetts petitioned Congress to To Appoint a Commander-in-Chief of the Army at Cambridge, the Massachusetts petition was sent down via the Informer Church as personal courier and was presented to the Congress on June 2. Cautiously, Congress appointed a committee to maul over and report on this vital and controversial petition. The first part of the Massachusetts petition was relatively On June 7, Congress sanctioned Massachusetts' new civil government and approved the right of the people to set up their own government in the current circumstances, declaring, however, that this civil government would be only temporary until reconciliation with Britain could restore the operation of the old, disrupted Massachusetts Charter.

3:27Meanwhile, the right wing had been winning point after point in the Congress. An attempt to shift the side of the Congress northward to Connecticut, near the New England about-a-front, had been quashed by the Dickinson Group. So underdeveloped was the revolutionary timber of this Congress that when New York asked what it should do if British troops were to Finally, while the hypocritical plan of British Prime Minister Lord North for conciliation was summarily rejected by the Congress, Dickinson and James Duane of New York infuriated the radicals by moving, at the end of May, to send an humble and dutiful petition to the King, pleading for immediate negotiation and mutual accommodation. Infuriated, John Adams blasted such futile and humble petitioning. He argued that Congress should be making haste to defend the continent from the British, to take charge of the army at Cambridge and and even to warn that it was ready to make European alliances to aid its resistance.

4:46Adams was quickly backed by John Sullivan of New Hampshire, but Dickinson bitterly warned them that if New England didn't agree to our Pacific system, I and a number of us will break off from you in New England. The radicals, however, were prepared to accept the Dickinson-Olive Branch petition, which which they knew would be futile, provided that they won the crucial point, the second point in the Massachusetts petition, Congressional Assumption of Responsibility for the Revolutionary Army in New England. The Congress took measured steps toward this goal during early June by voting to supply funds to furnish powder, first for the Continental Army and then, frankly, or The American Army Before Boston. The final step, however, was whether the Congress would actually take over direction of the Army at Cambridge, directing the troops and furnishing them with both supplies and a commander-in-chief. Here, the Massachusetts radicals were in a cruel dilemma. Any army under the Continental Congress would mean, in contrast to a guerrilla of the guerrilla army, the inevitable build-up of a central state apparatus, and of a highly

6:05expensive and burdensome state army, which would inevitably saddle all Americans with heavy taxes, inflation and debt. The Massachusetts radicals can hardly be blamed for their decision to press for a statist continental army. The theory of revolutionary guerrilla warfare had yet to be fully developed, and Massachusetts was understandably desperate to weld the other reluctant colonies firmly to the revolutionary cause. On June 14, Congress took the fateful step of voting to organize an army of 15,000 men, and specifically to raise six, a little later ten, companies of expert backwoods riflemen It was not lost upon the delegates that the crack-shooting frontier riflemen had been particularly effective in the victory at Concord. The crucial question now remaining was the identity of the commander-in-chief to be appointed by Congress. On this vital issue, the Massachusetts Sam Adams' radical leadership, traditionally united as one man, was grievously divided. Sam Adams, almost always instinctively libertarian, began with the most individualistic and democratic plan of all, appoint no Commander-in-Chief at all, and permit the local militia soldiers themselves to elect all of their own officers up to the rank of Commander-in-Chief.

7:50Thomas Cushing, Robert Treat Payne, and other New Englanders wanted a New England general, the obvious choice being Artemis Ward, already in command before Boston. Ward, however, was a bit old for the job. The issue, of course, was that he was a young man.

8:20is not simply local pride but the crucial one of keeping control of the army in the hands of individualistic and democratic New Englanders rather than subject to the aristocratic colonies. At this crossroads, John Adams, Elbridge Gerry and Joseph Warren bent so far backward to achieve continental unity that they gravely compromised and sacrificed libertarian principle, Storing Up Untold Trouble for Individualism in the Future In short, they decided to support for Commander-in-Chief that conservative scion of the Virginia landed oligarchy, George Washington. In doing so, incidentally, John Adams, though not Warren or Gary, began a slow but steady political drift rightward out of the libertarian radical camp.

9:15Sam Adams, too, began to display an unsureness, a lack of confidence, that would periodically display itself on national issues, and would also lead him, at least temporarily, rightward. Something seemed to be going forever from that once uncannily sure and self-confident planner and organizer of the revolution, and he allowed himself to be persuaded by his From a short-range, opportunistic point of view, the nomination of Washington appeared

9:52to the radicals to have merit, not militarily, to be sure, for he had had little military experience and that was a series of decisive losses in the French and Indian War. The attraction Washington was virtually the only man who could gain the votes of most radicals and conservatives alike. On the one hand, socially and politically, Washington was a deep-dyed conservative and could be depended upon to support the oligarchy and classical military tactics. On the other hand, in the fight with Britain, he, along with most of the Virginians, was close to the radical camp and could be depended upon to be militant in warring against Great Britain.

10:44Even such an admirer of Washington as Marcus Cunliffe admits that Washington's best role during the war was political and consultative rather than military. Like General Eisenhower, he was a coalition general for a large part of the war. Major strategic plans usually lay outside his scope. If his charismatic symbols were those of the flag, the sword, the beautifully comparisoned horse, his day-to-day responsibilities were more appropriately symbolized by the chairman's gavel and the secretary's quill. It was his Consequently, John Adams rose in Congress on June 14 to nominate Washington, and he was seconded by Sam Adams.

11:45In so doing, they permanently alienated the vain and flighty John Hancock, who fancied himself in the panoplyed robes of Commander-in-Chief, and expected his fellow Massachusetts delegates to nominate him. Already ensconced in the high-sounding but largely honorific post of President of the Continental Congress, his unfounded ambition was gravely wounded by by their decision not to notify him in advance of what was being planned. The consequences of the Hancock-Adams split for future Massachusetts politics were enormous. For a start, from this point on, Hancock hobnobbed with and was fettered by the ultraconservatives of the Congress, men who were better able to satisfy his taste for finery than were for the Plain Men of Massachusetts.

12:45John Adams' plan met considerable resistance on June 14, especially from those backing Ward and the other candidates. But by the next day, resistance had melted away, and Washington was approved unanimously. With their main points carried, the Radicals supported the Dickinson-Olive Branch petition to England, which was passed by the Congress on July 5.