Meeting of the General Congress: Association and Boston

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, non-consumption, 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."