The Opening Scenes

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 22d 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 American 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 marvellous 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."