WEBVTT NOTE 61. Selecting Delegates to the First Continental Congress 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.480 Volume 3, Chapter 61, Selecting Delegates to the First Continental Congress 2 00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:13.720 From mid-June until the opening of the Congress, the major struggles were waged over the selection 3 00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:20.880 of delegates in the various colonies and the lining up of Support 4 or Opposition 2, a 4 00:00:20.880 --> 00:00:26.760 total boycott of trade with Great Britain. Massachusetts delegates were chosen by the 5 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:34.640 The Assembly on the Day of the Call, June 17, and in Defiance of General Gage, make-up 6 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:40.680 of the delegates, including Sam Adams and John Adams, as well as the conservative Thomas 7 00:00:40.680 --> 00:00:47.640 Cushing, ensured Massachusetts leadership of the radical forces in the Congress. 8 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:52.840 In New York, the radicals, now centered in the Committee of Mechanics, prepared to do 9 00:00:52.840 --> 00:01:15.840 At a meeting of the latter committee on July 4, the radical's proposal for a concurrent choice of delegates by the two committees was beaten by a two-to-one majority, and the Committee of 51 thus gained the exclusive privilege of naming delegates. 10 00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:32.840 Nominated as delegates were four staunch conservatives, Isaac Lowe, James Dwayne, John Alsop and the very young lawyer John Jay, as well as the middle-of-the-road merchant Philip Livingston. 11 00:01:32.840 --> 00:01:40.000 The embittered radicals struck back and called a meeting of their own on July 6, at which 12 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:48.340 Boston was energetically supported and the forthcoming Congress urged to agree to non-importation. 13 00:01:48.340 --> 00:01:54.720 The radical pressure forced a general mass meeting of July 7 to vote to poll all the 14 00:01:54.720 --> 00:02:02.080 taxpayers, freeholders and freemen of New York City on the delegates. 15 00:02:02.080 --> 00:02:25.080 The Radicals were to run leaders Alexander McDougall and Leonard Lespenard against Alsop and Dwayne, but the Committee of 51 immediately reneged on the agreement to hold a general election, and eleven Radical members of the Committee heatedly resigned the next day. 16 00:02:25.080 --> 00:02:36.080 Ignoring the radicals, the committee resolved on July 13 to keep the original slate of five and instructed them not to call for a boycott. 17 00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:43.080 But the public meeting called by the committee for July 19 bitterly overruled the committee of 51, 18 00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:48.080 created a new committee of ten radicals and five conservatives, 19 00:02:48.080 --> 00:02:56.080 and substituted two radicals on exceptional Friends of Liberty for Livingston and Dwayne. 20 00:02:56.080 --> 00:03:02.080 But the Committee of 51 again scorned a public meeting, this time one called by itself, 21 00:03:02.080 --> 00:03:06.080 and now pressed forward plans for a general election. 22 00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:12.080 The Conservatives managed to defeat radical resolutions at a public meeting of July 25 23 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:17.080 and went ahead with a public election of delegates on July 28. 24 00:03:17.080 --> 00:03:23.660 In exchange for the rather feeble statement by the five candidates that a faithfully observed 25 00:03:23.660 --> 00:03:29.100 general non-importation agreement seemed to be the most effective measure for the Congress 26 00:03:29.100 --> 00:03:36.220 to take, the radicals suddenly capitulated and the five conservative choices were unanimously 27 00:03:36.220 --> 00:03:41.240 selected as delegates from the city and county of New York. 28 00:03:41.240 --> 00:03:47.880 Of the thirteen other counties of New York Province, six took no action at all in securing 29 00:03:47.880 --> 00:03:56.880 representation in the Congress, while four counties—Albany, Westchester, Dutchess, Ulster—gladly 30 00:03:56.880 --> 00:04:01.660 authorized the conservative city delegates to act for them. 31 00:04:01.660 --> 00:04:08.120 Only three counties proceeded to elect delegates of their own—Suffolk and Orange counties, 32 00:04:08.120 --> 00:04:14.120 where the towns had supported a boycott, and King's County, where two liberal citizens 33 00:04:14.120 --> 00:04:19.200 selected one of their number to be the delegate from the entire county. 34 00:04:19.200 --> 00:04:26.680 Thus, New York's internecine struggle resulted in a largely conservative delegation. 35 00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:30.460 Pennsylvania's problems, however, were rather different. 36 00:04:30.460 --> 00:04:36.700 The Committee of 43, to be sure, was largely in conservative hands under the middle-of-the-road 37 00:04:36.700 --> 00:04:52.700 and the World Chairmanship of John Dickinson, but in Pennsylvania, much farther right than these conservatives, was the arch-tory faction headed by the wily and powerful Speaker of the House, Joseph Galloway. 38 00:04:52.700 --> 00:05:01.700 To Galloway, all popular resistance, going beyond humble petitioning of Parliament, was rank anarchy. 39 00:05:01.700 --> 00:05:08.460 Galloway similarly insisted that the delegates to the Congress be chosen by the legally constituted 40 00:05:08.460 --> 00:05:15.460 provincial assembly. Any other method would be popular and hence revolutionary and not 41 00:05:15.620 --> 00:05:21.300 subject to the control of Joseph Galloway. To combat the Galloway threat and also to 42 00:05:21.300 --> 00:05:28.300 push its own extra-legal case, the Committee of 43 decided on June 27 to call a Convention 43 00:05:28.300 --> 00:05:34.620 Convention of County Committees to Advise the Assembly on a Choice of Delegates 44 00:05:34.620 --> 00:05:40.920 Such a convention, not subject to the undemocratic weighting of representation in behalf of the 45 00:05:40.920 --> 00:05:46.300 eastern counties, was bound to be more radical than the assembly. 46 00:05:46.300 --> 00:05:52.660 An extra-legal and hence revolutionary provincial convention of county committees was called 47 00:05:52.660 --> 00:05:56.780 by the Committee of 43 for July 15. 48 00:05:56.780 --> 00:06:04.780 This controversy raged, meanwhile, over the Boston boycott proposal, and a radical artisan-and-trader 49 00:06:04.780 --> 00:06:11.480 meeting in Philadelphia urging a boycott was ignored by the Committee of 43. 50 00:06:11.480 --> 00:06:18.480 The Pennsylvania Convention, meeting on July 15-20, under the guidance of John Dickinson 51 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:24.600 and the Committee, labored mightily to bring forth a mouse. 52 00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:31.600 was urged as only a last resort after petitioning, but any boycott agreed upon by the Congress 53 00:06:32.080 --> 00:06:38.120 would receive full support. Pennsylvania delegates were instructed to ask for redress of the 54 00:06:38.120 --> 00:06:44.640 various American grievances in return for which Americans would pay an annual revenue 55 00:06:44.640 --> 00:06:51.400 to the King and pay all damages to the East India Company. In response to this highly 56 00:06:51.400 --> 00:07:03.400 The Galloway faction denounced the illegal convention as setting up anarchy above order, the beginning of republicanism. 57 00:07:03.400 --> 00:07:11.400 Galloway ignored the tortured pleas of the convention and selected delegates exclusively from the assembly itself. 58 00:07:11.400 --> 00:07:17.400 But the liberals managed to add Dickinson to the list late in the proceedings of the assembly. 59 00:07:17.400 --> 00:07:23.400 In New England, the radicals had little trouble in dominating the selection of delegates. 60 00:07:23.400 --> 00:07:28.400 In Connecticut, delegates were chosen by the Assemblies Committee of Correspondence. 61 00:07:28.400 --> 00:07:32.400 In Rhode Island, they were chosen by the General Assembly. 62 00:07:32.400 --> 00:07:37.400 Looking forward to a firm and inviolable union of all the colonies, 63 00:07:37.400 --> 00:07:42.400 Rhode Island chose Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward, 64 00:07:42.400 --> 00:08:12.400 leaders of the two hostile political factions in the province as its two delegates but this gesture of unity was to be overshadowed by the apparent desire of Ward and Hopkins to disagree with each other on all vital matters as to New Hampshire when Governor Wentworth prevented the house from choosing delegates the representatives called an extra legal convention of the towns to choose the delegates from that 65 00:08:12.400 --> 00:08:20.400 Back in the Middle Colonies, New Jersey's Assembly, as well as meetings of eleven of the province's thirteen counties, 66 00:08:20.400 --> 00:08:29.400 sturdily endorsed non-importation and non-consumption and, perhaps, non-exportation. 67 00:08:29.400 --> 00:08:36.400 Delegates to the Congress were chosen by Provincial Convention of County Committees of Correspondence, 68 00:08:36.400 --> 00:08:40.400 which recommended non-importation and non-consumption. 69 00:08:40.400 --> 00:08:47.040 and Non-Consumption. In Delaware, mass meetings in the three counties selected representatives 70 00:08:47.040 --> 00:08:53.880 to a convention at Newcastle, which chose delegates to the Congress. In the South, the 71 00:08:53.880 --> 00:09:00.320 first province to react to the crisis in Boston was Maryland. The inhabitants of Annapolis 72 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:08.840 met on May 25 and adopted an impeccably radical set of resolutions, pledging to join an association 73 00:09:08.840 --> 00:09:15.360 for immediate non-importation and non-exportation with Great Britain. 74 00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:19.480 Any province not agreeing was in turn to be boycotted. 75 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:25.560 The meeting further urged lawyers not to bring suits for recovery of debt due to Britain 76 00:09:25.560 --> 00:09:29.120 until the Port Act was repealed. 77 00:09:29.120 --> 00:09:34.960 Within a few weeks, eight of Maryland's sixteen counties followed the lead of Annapolis, the 78 00:09:34.960 --> 00:09:42.000 The bulk of them favoring a total boycott, and half of them suspension of debt collections. 79 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:48.340 On June 22, a province-wide convention of county committees of correspondence, chosen 80 00:09:48.340 --> 00:09:52.560 by the county meetings, met at Annapolis. 81 00:09:52.560 --> 00:09:58.160 Every county in the province was represented, with each county being allocated one vote. 82 00:09:58.160 --> 00:10:04.520 The convention urged the Congress to adopt boycott agreements and pledged to follow its 83 00:10:04.520 --> 00:10:22.520 Virginia was particularly exercised at the brutal treatment meted out to Boston. On hearing news of the Port Act, Richard Henry Lee was dissuaded only with difficulty from pressing for an immediate declaration in behalf of Boston. 84 00:10:22.520 --> 00:10:29.120 On May 24, the House of Burgesses, adopting an idea of the brilliant young lawyer and 85 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:36.680 planter Thomas Jefferson, unanimously set aside the fateful first of June as a day of 86 00:10:36.680 --> 00:10:40.760 fasting, humiliation and prayer. 87 00:10:40.760 --> 00:10:46.320 Governor Dunmore retaliated by dissolving the House, but the Burgesses met, as supposedly 88 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:23.320 To guide this extralegal provincial convention, thirty-one counties of Virginia held public 89 00:11:23.960 --> 00:11:30.960 meetings to frame instructions and resolutions. Of the thirty-one, twenty counties declared 90 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:37.700 for absolute boycott of Great Britain jointly with other provinces, while eight others advocated 91 00:11:37.700 --> 00:11:44.700 non-importation only. Three Virginia counties—Acomac, Dinwiddie, Isle of Wight—were conservative 92 00:11:46.320 --> 00:12:09.320 8 counties wished to couple suspension of debt collection with non-exportation, 6 of the counties took the occasion to denounce the importation of slaves from Africa, and 2, Fairfax and Hanover, actually condemned slavery itself as immoral. 93 00:12:09.320 --> 00:12:15.820 The period of June and July was particularly appropriate for forming public opinion. 94 00:12:15.820 --> 00:12:26.820 In it, two important contributions to the public debate advanced the American cause far beyond where even the radicals were officially prepared to go. 95 00:12:26.820 --> 00:12:36.820 Particularly important was a Virginia contribution by Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America. 96 00:12:36.820 --> 00:12:43.420 This widely circulated pamphlet proposed instructions for the Virginia delegates and rejected all 97 00:12:43.420 --> 00:12:50.060 parliamentary authority, whatever, over the colonies, acknowledging that allegiance was 98 00:12:50.060 --> 00:12:53.360 owed only to the King. 99 00:12:53.360 --> 00:13:00.200 Since the British King could not impose legislation or taxation without Parliament, such allegiance 100 00:13:00.200 --> 00:13:19.200 Jefferson grounded his case not only on legal and historical claims, but especially on the 101 00:13:19.200 --> 00:13:26.440 lock-in natural rights of man. The libertarian rights of the colonist included freedom of 102 00:13:26.440 --> 00:13:33.440 of Trade with All Parts of the World, and this right invalidated even parliamentary attempts 103 00:13:33.760 --> 00:13:40.640 to regulate American trade. Even the King himself was warned to desist from tyranny. 104 00:13:40.640 --> 00:13:46.940 Kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people. Open your breast, sire, to 105 00:13:46.940 --> 00:13:53.440 liberal and expanded thought. Let not the name of George III be a blot on the page of 106 00:13:53.440 --> 00:14:23.440 It might be noted that shortly after publication of Jefferson's pamphlet, a rising young Pennsylvania lawyer, James Wilson, issued an updated version of an unpublished paper of six years before, Wilson's Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, also espoused in dependence of parliamentary authority. 107 00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:35.400 must themselves be regulated by natural law, all men are, by nature, equal and free. No 108 00:14:35.400 --> 00:14:41.200 one has a right to any authority over another without his consent. 109 00:14:41.200 --> 00:14:49.240 Citing the Swiss political theorist Jean-Jacques Berlimacchi, Wilson proclaimed that all power 110 00:14:49.240 --> 00:14:56.520 is derived from the people, that their happiness is the end of government, and that any invasions 111 00:14:56.520 --> 00:15:02.640 of this principle were illegitimate acts of government. From what source, then, does 112 00:15:02.640 --> 00:15:09.640 the alleged sovereignty of parliament flow? Have they a natural right to make laws by 113 00:15:09.640 --> 00:15:18.360 which we may be deprived of our properties, of our liberties, of our lives? What act of 114 00:15:18.360 --> 00:15:40.960 Another important and trenchantly radical essay in Virginia was a series of pseudonymous 115 00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:48.320 articles in the Virginia Gazette by the eminent lawyer and planter Thompson Mason. Mason did 116 00:15:48.320 --> 00:16:01.320 Thomas Mason denied Parliament's power to legislate for the colonies, but his major stress was on the methods for Americans to pursue, on tactics rather than basic philosophic principles. 117 00:16:31.320 --> 00:16:36.480 to Resistance and Outright Secession if Necessary. 118 00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:42.160 For Mason realized that more was at stake than non-intercourse with Britain, far more 119 00:16:42.160 --> 00:16:48.780 important would be civil disobedience at least to the anti-Massachusetts laws and perhaps 120 00:16:48.780 --> 00:16:51.220 to all the others as well. 121 00:16:51.220 --> 00:16:58.880 The Virginia Convention met on August 1-6, spurred by Jefferson, Patrick Henry and the 122 00:16:58.880 --> 00:17:05.780 With radical planters George Mason, George Washington, and Richard Henry Lee, the Convention 123 00:17:05.780 --> 00:17:12.820 proceeded to top all previous colonial gatherings, save that of Massachusetts and its solemn 124 00:17:12.820 --> 00:17:19.080 league and covenant, by refusing to wait for the Congress to impose a boycott. 125 00:17:19.080 --> 00:17:25.960 The Convention boldly adopted the Virginia Association, which pledged, one, immediate 126 00:17:25.960 --> 00:17:34.120 Non-Importation and Non-Use of Any Kind of Tea, 2. An Absolute Boycott of All Direct 127 00:17:34.120 --> 00:17:41.960 or Indirect Imports from Great Britain, Including Slaves from Africa or the West Indies, Except 128 00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:51.360 Medicines, beginning on November 1, and 3. Absolute Non-Exportation, Direct or Indirect 129 00:17:51.360 --> 00:17:59.200 to Great Britain, beginning on August 10, 1775. The total boycott would remain in effect 130 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:06.360 until all the grievances named by the Congress were redressed. To supervise enforcement of 131 00:18:06.360 --> 00:18:12.520 the association, a committee was chosen in each county and non-signing or violating merchants 132 00:18:12.520 --> 00:18:19.200 and traders were publicly boycotted and severed from all dealings with the public. North Carolina 133 00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:24.400 Governor followed after Virginia and thus came under radical control. A six-county meeting 134 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:31.140 was held at Wilmington on July 21 under the chairmanship of a young ex-Bostonian lawyer, 135 00:18:31.140 --> 00:18:39.640 William Hooper. A provincial convention representing the counties was then called for August 25. 136 00:18:39.640 --> 00:18:44.920 Governor Josiah Martin proclaimed his prohibition of this scheduled illegal meeting, but the 137 00:18:44.920 --> 00:18:48.680 The North Carolinians simply ignored the decree. 138 00:18:48.680 --> 00:18:54.440 The Provincial Convention met on schedule at New Bern with 32 of the 38 counties and 139 00:18:54.440 --> 00:18:57.200 two of the six towns represented. 140 00:18:57.200 --> 00:19:03.520 The Convention adopted a slightly modified variant of the Virginia Association. 141 00:19:03.520 --> 00:19:07.760 East India Tea was not to be used after September 10. 142 00:19:07.760 --> 00:19:13.200 All British imports except medicine were to stop after January 1. 143 00:19:13.200 --> 00:19:21.920 No slaves imported after November 1, 1774, and no exports to Great Britain after October 144 00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:24.840 1, 1775. 145 00:19:24.840 --> 00:19:30.360 In one respect, North Carolina went slightly beyond its sister colony, for it pledged a 146 00:19:30.360 --> 00:19:38.440 boycott of any province, town or individual that failed to abide by any plan adopted by 147 00:19:38.440 --> 00:19:41.120 the Continental Congress. 148 00:19:41.120 --> 00:19:49.240 In South Carolina, the radical leaders, notable as they were, had a far more difficult time. 149 00:19:49.240 --> 00:19:55.240 On hearing of the Boston Port Act, Peter Timothy and his South Carolina Gazette called for 150 00:19:55.240 --> 00:20:01.400 a general non-importation and perhaps non-exportation with Britain. 151 00:20:01.400 --> 00:20:07.380 Christopher Gadsden, the Sam Adams of South Carolina, was of course ready to plunge wholeheartedly 152 00:20:07.380 --> 00:20:14.700 in the Fray, even at the risk of his entire considerable mercantile fortune. However, 153 00:20:14.700 --> 00:20:21.960 the merchants and factors were generally recalcitrant, and the rice planters, heavily dependent on 154 00:20:21.960 --> 00:20:29.040 export of their stable, were strongly opposed to any non-export agreement. A plea to wait 155 00:20:29.040 --> 00:20:34.440 for Congress to act therefore exerted great effect in South Carolina. 156 00:20:34.440 --> 00:20:40.000 On June 13, the General Committee of Charleston called a general meeting, representing the 157 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:43.960 people of South Carolina, for July 6. 158 00:20:43.960 --> 00:20:50.840 Articles and Timothy's Gazette called insistently for boycott instructions to the delegates 159 00:20:50.840 --> 00:20:52.560 at the Congress. 160 00:20:52.560 --> 00:20:58.480 But the newly formed Chamber of Commerce bitterly opposed any boycott measure and drew up a 161 00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:11.820 The extra-legal General Provincial Meeting took place at Charleston July 6-8. 162 00:21:11.820 --> 00:21:17.060 Appointment of representatives was haphazard and chaotic, but the meeting soon clearly 163 00:21:17.060 --> 00:21:20.760 divided into two factions. 164 00:21:20.760 --> 00:21:27.800 The Radicals favored adopting the Boston boycott idea immediately and allowing South Carolina's 165 00:21:27.800 --> 00:21:34.020 Congress delegates to the Congress full power to vote. The conservatives wanted restricted 166 00:21:34.020 --> 00:21:41.020 powers for the delegates and a postponement of all action until Congress made its decision. 167 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:48.400 The first step of the convention was to reject any immediate boycott. Following this, the 168 00:21:48.400 --> 00:21:54.400 convention vested the delegation with full power to vote for any measures at the Congress. 169 00:21:54.400 --> 00:22:00.440 The struggle now shifted to the personnel of the South Carolina delegation. Here, every 170 00:22:00.440 --> 00:22:07.740 free man of the entire province was declared to be entitled to vote. However, the radicals 171 00:22:07.740 --> 00:22:14.280 proved themselves even more tactically inept than in New York, for although the radical 172 00:22:14.280 --> 00:22:21.280 slate won the election by over 400 votes, the radicals had oddly chosen on their slate 173 00:22:21.280 --> 00:22:28.380 of Five, no less than three conservatives. Thus, a conservative majority was assured 174 00:22:28.380 --> 00:22:35.460 for South Carolina's delegation to the Congress. Only conservative Edward Rutledge's status 175 00:22:35.460 --> 00:22:41.880 as son-in-law to Gadsden seems to account for his place, and that of his brother John, 176 00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:48.560 on the radical slate. On August 2, the Commons House of Assembly officially ratified the 177 00:22:48.560 --> 00:23:07.860 by the end of August, twelve American colonies had selected delegates to the Continental Congress, with Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina leading the radical cause. Having already pledged a comprehensive boycott of trade with Great Britain, only one colony sent no delegates, the newest, smallest, and southernmost province of Georgia. The task of the radicals was to 178 00:23:07.860 --> 00:23:14.860 with Great Britain. Only one colony sent no delegates, the newest, smallest, and southernmost 179 00:23:15.360 --> 00:23:22.360 province of Georgia. The task of the radicals in Georgia proved insurmountable. In the first 180 00:23:22.360 --> 00:23:28.100 place, Georgia received a generous annual subsidy from Parliament, and as a result was 181 00:23:28.100 --> 00:23:35.100 hagridden by as many placemen and government bureaucrats as the most populous of the colonies. 182 00:23:35.100 --> 00:23:41.200 It received one million dollars a year in general subsidy as well as lavish bounties 183 00:23:41.200 --> 00:23:48.040 for growing silk and indigo. The vested economic interest created in the tiny colony by this 184 00:23:48.040 --> 00:23:54.800 lavish spending by the British government proved too much to overcome. Furthermore, 185 00:23:54.800 --> 00:24:00.560 backcountry Georgians hankered after British troops to aid them in fighting the numerous 186 00:24:00.560 --> 00:24:28.200 The small group of radicals in Georgia were concentrated in Christ Church Parish, including 187 00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:33.900 in the Seaport of Savannah and St. John's Parish, directly to the south, which contained 188 00:24:33.900 --> 00:24:39.400 former citizens of Dorchester, Massachusetts, who had founded the settlements of Midway 189 00:24:39.400 --> 00:24:47.200 and Sunbury. The latter was later to be renamed appropriately Liberty County. Toward the end 190 00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:53.580 of July, the Georgia radicals, under the plotting of their South Carolina confraers, peppered 191 00:24:53.580 --> 00:24:58.640 The Georgia Gazette reported the Georgia Gazette with propaganda defending the Boston cause. 192 00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:06.060 Hastily on July 20, the Gazette called for a provincial meeting at Savannah on July 27. 193 00:25:06.060 --> 00:25:12.300 This meeting first rejected, then fraudulently drove through the appointment of a committee 194 00:25:12.300 --> 00:25:15.180 to draw up resolutions. 195 00:25:15.180 --> 00:25:21.820 The meeting, seeing itself beleaguered and outnumbered, called a systematically selected, 196 00:25:21.820 --> 00:25:27.900 So, extra-legal, provincial convention at Savannah for August 10. 197 00:25:27.900 --> 00:25:33.680 Sir James Wright followed the usual precedent of provincial governors by interdicting the 198 00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:40.420 forthcoming meeting, while forty-six inhabitants of St. Paul Parish, Augusta, attacked any 199 00:25:40.420 --> 00:25:46.740 solidarity with Boston and called for British troops to aid in fighting Indians. 200 00:25:46.740 --> 00:25:52.360 The convention of August 10 condemned the coercive acts and pledged Georgia's support 201 00:25:52.360 --> 00:25:58.140 to measures of redress adopted by the other colonies. For the first time in an American 202 00:25:58.140 --> 00:26:05.140 province a motion to select delegates to the Continental Congress was rejected, this despite 203 00:26:05.220 --> 00:26:10.780 numerous irregular practices committed by the desperate radicals. 204 00:26:10.780 --> 00:26:17.020 From Savannah to the backcountry, numerous protests poured in against the secrecy, fraud 205 00:26:17.020 --> 00:26:24.480 and misrepresentation practiced by the radicals, but all these practices were to no avail. 206 00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:30.880 The intrepid radicals of St. John's Parish, in a last desperate try, held a convention 207 00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:38.500 of St. John's, St. George's, Waynesboro and St. David's parishes and chose Dr. Lyman 208 00:26:38.500 --> 00:26:44.300 and Hall as Delegate, provided that the other parishes would agree. But nothing ever came 209 00:26:44.300 --> 00:26:51.300 of this plea. Georgia alone remained unrepresented at the Continental Congress of 1774.