Volume 3, Chapter 61, Selecting Delegates to the First Continental Congress
From mid-June until the opening of the Congress, the major struggles were waged over the selection
of delegates in the various colonies and the lining up of Support 4 or Opposition 2, a
total boycott of trade with Great Britain. Massachusetts delegates were chosen by the
The Assembly on the Day of the Call, June 17, and in Defiance of General Gage, make-up
of the delegates, including Sam Adams and John Adams, as well as the conservative Thomas
Cushing, ensured Massachusetts leadership of the radical forces in the Congress.
In New York, the radicals, now centered in the Committee of Mechanics, prepared to do
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.
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.
The embittered radicals struck back and called a meeting of their own on July 6, at which
Boston was energetically supported and the forthcoming Congress urged to agree to non-importation.
The radical pressure forced a general mass meeting of July 7 to vote to poll all the
taxpayers, freeholders and freemen of New York City on the delegates.
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.
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.
But the public meeting called by the committee for July 19 bitterly overruled the committee of 51,
created a new committee of ten radicals and five conservatives,
and substituted two radicals on exceptional Friends of Liberty for Livingston and Dwayne.
But the Committee of 51 again scorned a public meeting, this time one called by itself,
and now pressed forward plans for a general election.
The Conservatives managed to defeat radical resolutions at a public meeting of July 25
and went ahead with a public election of delegates on July 28.
In exchange for the rather feeble statement by the five candidates that a faithfully observed
general non-importation agreement seemed to be the most effective measure for the Congress
to take, the radicals suddenly capitulated and the five conservative choices were unanimously
selected as delegates from the city and county of New York.
Of the thirteen other counties of New York Province, six took no action at all in securing
representation in the Congress, while four counties—Albany, Westchester, Dutchess, Ulster—gladly
authorized the conservative city delegates to act for them.
Only three counties proceeded to elect delegates of their own—Suffolk and Orange counties,
where the towns had supported a boycott, and King's County, where two liberal citizens
selected one of their number to be the delegate from the entire county.
Thus, New York's internecine struggle resulted in a largely conservative delegation.
Pennsylvania's problems, however, were rather different.
The Committee of 43, to be sure, was largely in conservative hands under the middle-of-the-road
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.
To Galloway, all popular resistance, going beyond humble petitioning of Parliament, was rank anarchy.
Galloway similarly insisted that the delegates to the Congress be chosen by the legally constituted
provincial assembly. Any other method would be popular and hence revolutionary and not
subject to the control of Joseph Galloway. To combat the Galloway threat and also to
push its own extra-legal case, the Committee of 43 decided on June 27 to call a Convention
Convention of County Committees to Advise the Assembly on a Choice of Delegates
Such a convention, not subject to the undemocratic weighting of representation in behalf of the
eastern counties, was bound to be more radical than the assembly.
An extra-legal and hence revolutionary provincial convention of county committees was called
by the Committee of 43 for July 15.
This controversy raged, meanwhile, over the Boston boycott proposal, and a radical artisan-and-trader
meeting in Philadelphia urging a boycott was ignored by the Committee of 43.
The Pennsylvania Convention, meeting on July 15-20, under the guidance of John Dickinson
and the Committee, labored mightily to bring forth a mouse.
was urged as only a last resort after petitioning, but any boycott agreed upon by the Congress
would receive full support. Pennsylvania delegates were instructed to ask for redress of the
various American grievances in return for which Americans would pay an annual revenue
to the King and pay all damages to the East India Company. In response to this highly
The Galloway faction denounced the illegal convention as setting up anarchy above order, the beginning of republicanism.
Galloway ignored the tortured pleas of the convention and selected delegates exclusively from the assembly itself.
But the liberals managed to add Dickinson to the list late in the proceedings of the assembly.
In New England, the radicals had little trouble in dominating the selection of delegates.
In Connecticut, delegates were chosen by the Assemblies Committee of Correspondence.
In Rhode Island, they were chosen by the General Assembly.
Looking forward to a firm and inviolable union of all the colonies,
Rhode Island chose Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward,
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
Back in the Middle Colonies, New Jersey's Assembly, as well as meetings of eleven of the province's thirteen counties,
sturdily endorsed non-importation and non-consumption and, perhaps, non-exportation.
Delegates to the Congress were chosen by Provincial Convention of County Committees of Correspondence,
which recommended non-importation and non-consumption.
and Non-Consumption. In Delaware, mass meetings in the three counties selected representatives
to a convention at Newcastle, which chose delegates to the Congress. In the South, the
first province to react to the crisis in Boston was Maryland. The inhabitants of Annapolis
met on May 25 and adopted an impeccably radical set of resolutions, pledging to join an association
for immediate non-importation and non-exportation with Great Britain.
Any province not agreeing was in turn to be boycotted.
The meeting further urged lawyers not to bring suits for recovery of debt due to Britain
until the Port Act was repealed.
Within a few weeks, eight of Maryland's sixteen counties followed the lead of Annapolis, the
The bulk of them favoring a total boycott, and half of them suspension of debt collections.
On June 22, a province-wide convention of county committees of correspondence, chosen
by the county meetings, met at Annapolis.
Every county in the province was represented, with each county being allocated one vote.
The convention urged the Congress to adopt boycott agreements and pledged to follow its
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.
On May 24, the House of Burgesses, adopting an idea of the brilliant young lawyer and
planter Thomas Jefferson, unanimously set aside the fateful first of June as a day of
fasting, humiliation and prayer.
Governor Dunmore retaliated by dissolving the House, but the Burgesses met, as supposedly
To guide this extralegal provincial convention, thirty-one counties of Virginia held public
meetings to frame instructions and resolutions. Of the thirty-one, twenty counties declared
for absolute boycott of Great Britain jointly with other provinces, while eight others advocated
non-importation only. Three Virginia counties—Acomac, Dinwiddie, Isle of Wight—were conservative
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.
The period of June and July was particularly appropriate for forming public opinion.
In it, two important contributions to the public debate advanced the American cause far beyond where even the radicals were officially prepared to go.
Particularly important was a Virginia contribution by Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America.
This widely circulated pamphlet proposed instructions for the Virginia delegates and rejected all
parliamentary authority, whatever, over the colonies, acknowledging that allegiance was
owed only to the King.
Since the British King could not impose legislation or taxation without Parliament, such allegiance
Jefferson grounded his case not only on legal and historical claims, but especially on the
lock-in natural rights of man. The libertarian rights of the colonist included freedom of
of Trade with All Parts of the World, and this right invalidated even parliamentary attempts
to regulate American trade. Even the King himself was warned to desist from tyranny.
Kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people. Open your breast, sire, to
liberal and expanded thought. Let not the name of George III be a blot on the page of
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.
must themselves be regulated by natural law, all men are, by nature, equal and free. No
one has a right to any authority over another without his consent.
Citing the Swiss political theorist Jean-Jacques Berlimacchi, Wilson proclaimed that all power
is derived from the people, that their happiness is the end of government, and that any invasions
of this principle were illegitimate acts of government. From what source, then, does
the alleged sovereignty of parliament flow? Have they a natural right to make laws by
which we may be deprived of our properties, of our liberties, of our lives? What act of
Another important and trenchantly radical essay in Virginia was a series of pseudonymous
articles in the Virginia Gazette by the eminent lawyer and planter Thompson Mason. Mason did
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.
to Resistance and Outright Secession if Necessary.
For Mason realized that more was at stake than non-intercourse with Britain, far more
important would be civil disobedience at least to the anti-Massachusetts laws and perhaps
to all the others as well.
The Virginia Convention met on August 1-6, spurred by Jefferson, Patrick Henry and the
With radical planters George Mason, George Washington, and Richard Henry Lee, the Convention
proceeded to top all previous colonial gatherings, save that of Massachusetts and its solemn
league and covenant, by refusing to wait for the Congress to impose a boycott.
The Convention boldly adopted the Virginia Association, which pledged, one, immediate
Non-Importation and Non-Use of Any Kind of Tea, 2. An Absolute Boycott of All Direct
or Indirect Imports from Great Britain, Including Slaves from Africa or the West Indies, Except
Medicines, beginning on November 1, and 3. Absolute Non-Exportation, Direct or Indirect
to Great Britain, beginning on August 10, 1775. The total boycott would remain in effect
until all the grievances named by the Congress were redressed. To supervise enforcement of
the association, a committee was chosen in each county and non-signing or violating merchants
and traders were publicly boycotted and severed from all dealings with the public. North Carolina
Governor followed after Virginia and thus came under radical control. A six-county meeting
was held at Wilmington on July 21 under the chairmanship of a young ex-Bostonian lawyer,
William Hooper. A provincial convention representing the counties was then called for August 25.
Governor Josiah Martin proclaimed his prohibition of this scheduled illegal meeting, but the
The North Carolinians simply ignored the decree.
The Provincial Convention met on schedule at New Bern with 32 of the 38 counties and
two of the six towns represented.
The Convention adopted a slightly modified variant of the Virginia Association.
East India Tea was not to be used after September 10.
All British imports except medicine were to stop after January 1.
No slaves imported after November 1, 1774, and no exports to Great Britain after October
1, 1775.
In one respect, North Carolina went slightly beyond its sister colony, for it pledged a
boycott of any province, town or individual that failed to abide by any plan adopted by
the Continental Congress.
In South Carolina, the radical leaders, notable as they were, had a far more difficult time.
On hearing of the Boston Port Act, Peter Timothy and his South Carolina Gazette called for
a general non-importation and perhaps non-exportation with Britain.
Christopher Gadsden, the Sam Adams of South Carolina, was of course ready to plunge wholeheartedly
in the Fray, even at the risk of his entire considerable mercantile fortune. However,
the merchants and factors were generally recalcitrant, and the rice planters, heavily dependent on
export of their stable, were strongly opposed to any non-export agreement. A plea to wait
for Congress to act therefore exerted great effect in South Carolina.
On June 13, the General Committee of Charleston called a general meeting, representing the
people of South Carolina, for July 6.
Articles and Timothy's Gazette called insistently for boycott instructions to the delegates
at the Congress.
But the newly formed Chamber of Commerce bitterly opposed any boycott measure and drew up a
The extra-legal General Provincial Meeting took place at Charleston July 6-8.
Appointment of representatives was haphazard and chaotic, but the meeting soon clearly
divided into two factions.
The Radicals favored adopting the Boston boycott idea immediately and allowing South Carolina's
Congress delegates to the Congress full power to vote. The conservatives wanted restricted
powers for the delegates and a postponement of all action until Congress made its decision.
The first step of the convention was to reject any immediate boycott. Following this, the
convention vested the delegation with full power to vote for any measures at the Congress.
The struggle now shifted to the personnel of the South Carolina delegation. Here, every
free man of the entire province was declared to be entitled to vote. However, the radicals
proved themselves even more tactically inept than in New York, for although the radical
slate won the election by over 400 votes, the radicals had oddly chosen on their slate
of Five, no less than three conservatives. Thus, a conservative majority was assured
for South Carolina's delegation to the Congress. Only conservative Edward Rutledge's status
as son-in-law to Gadsden seems to account for his place, and that of his brother John,
on the radical slate. On August 2, the Commons House of Assembly officially ratified the
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
with Great Britain. Only one colony sent no delegates, the newest, smallest, and southernmost
province of Georgia. The task of the radicals in Georgia proved insurmountable. In the first
place, Georgia received a generous annual subsidy from Parliament, and as a result was
hagridden by as many placemen and government bureaucrats as the most populous of the colonies.
It received one million dollars a year in general subsidy as well as lavish bounties
for growing silk and indigo. The vested economic interest created in the tiny colony by this
lavish spending by the British government proved too much to overcome. Furthermore,
backcountry Georgians hankered after British troops to aid them in fighting the numerous
The small group of radicals in Georgia were concentrated in Christ Church Parish, including
in the Seaport of Savannah and St. John's Parish, directly to the south, which contained
former citizens of Dorchester, Massachusetts, who had founded the settlements of Midway
and Sunbury. The latter was later to be renamed appropriately Liberty County. Toward the end
of July, the Georgia radicals, under the plotting of their South Carolina confraers, peppered
The Georgia Gazette reported the Georgia Gazette with propaganda defending the Boston cause.
Hastily on July 20, the Gazette called for a provincial meeting at Savannah on July 27.
This meeting first rejected, then fraudulently drove through the appointment of a committee
to draw up resolutions.
The meeting, seeing itself beleaguered and outnumbered, called a systematically selected,
So, extra-legal, provincial convention at Savannah for August 10.
Sir James Wright followed the usual precedent of provincial governors by interdicting the
forthcoming meeting, while forty-six inhabitants of St. Paul Parish, Augusta, attacked any
solidarity with Boston and called for British troops to aid in fighting Indians.
The convention of August 10 condemned the coercive acts and pledged Georgia's support
to measures of redress adopted by the other colonies. For the first time in an American
province a motion to select delegates to the Continental Congress was rejected, this despite
numerous irregular practices committed by the desperate radicals.
From Savannah to the backcountry, numerous protests poured in against the secrecy, fraud
and misrepresentation practiced by the radicals, but all these practices were to no avail.
The intrepid radicals of St. John's Parish, in a last desperate try, held a convention
of St. John's, St. George's, Waynesboro and St. David's parishes and chose Dr. Lyman
and Hall as Delegate, provided that the other parishes would agree. But nothing ever came
of this plea. Georgia alone remained unrepresented at the Continental Congress of 1774.