Volume 3, Chapter 63, The First Continental Congress
On September 5, 1774, there met at Philadelphia the most fateful and momentous assemblage ever
gathered in the colonies, the Continental Congress. Brilliant and distinguished, the
colonial leaders had come to decide the course of the colonies. They were, besides being
It soon became evident that there were two polar groups at the congress, the radicals, determined on resistance to the British, and the conservatives, bent on more securely fastening the British yoke upon the colonies.
It was sensibly determined that, with the number of delegates varying greatly from each colony,
the colonies would vote as separate units.
Leading the radical forces were Massachusetts, headed by the brilliant father of the revolution Sam Adams,
and graced by his rising young distant cousin John Adams,
and Virginia, whose delegation included the eminent young leaders Patrick Henry,
George Washington and Richard Henry Lee. North Carolina and the rest of New England dependably
followed the radical lead, but Rhode Island's inherent split between Hopkins and Ward served
to cancel each other's votes, and the blunder of the South Carolina radicals in selecting their
delegates made matters difficult for the revolutionaries. Heading the Tory forces was
This is the wily shrewd Joseph Galloway of Philadelphia, seconded by the New York delegation, especially the young lawyer James Duane.
The Congress conducted its deliberations in secret. It began in committee by debating two vital questions,
the philosophical groundwork of the American stand and how far it would deny the authority of parliament.
The radicals on the committee, led by John Adams and Richard Henry Lee, insisted on grounding the American case on the ultimacy of natural law and natural rights.
The conservatives, on the other hand, were most anxious to ignore natural law and its
profoundly radical implications and to confine the American statement of grievances to legalistic
discussions of the British Constitution.
Joseph Galloway, James Dwayne, and Edward Rutledge led this attempt, but the radicals
prevailed in cleaving to natural law.
During this early, formative period of the Congress, Sam Adams engineered a masterstroke
that electrified the meeting. Adams had the radicals of Suffolk County, including Boston,
meet to draw up county resolves, such as Middlesex and other counties had done. Prevented by
the British authorities from meeting in Boston, the radicals met at a village outside the
of the Metropolis on September 9 and adopted a set of Resolves drawn up by Dr. Joseph Warren.
Known as the Suffolk Resolves, they were sped down to Philadelphia by Paul Revere, reaching
there on September 16.
The Resolves bitterly opposed the recent Acts of Parliament and called wringingly for mass
civil disobedience.
No obedience is due from this province to either or any part of the coercive acts they
asserted. Furthermore, no taxes would be paid to the constituted government until it became
truly valid. In short, the Resolves implicitly called upon the people of Massachusetts to
set up a dual government that would cease to obey, and indeed ignore, the British-appointed
Authorities. In addition, the resistance would use violence only defensively and only if the British
attempted to enforce the coercive acts upon the people. Besides the specific civil disobedience
in Massachusetts, the Suffolk Resolves urged the Continental Congress to organize a general
voluntary boycott of all trade relations with Britain. The Suffolk Resolves struck the Congress
Congress with Overwhelming Force. The day after they were received, the Congress voted
to endorse them enthusiastically. Adams' brilliant strategy had thus gotten the Congress
committed to civil disobedience in Massachusetts and to the principle of an absolute boycott
of Great Britain. John Adams, deeply moved, wrote in his diary that this was one of the
the happiest days of my life. Now he knew that America will support Massachusetts, or
perish with her. Sam Adams supported that judgment. Five days later, on September 22,
the Congress specifically endorsed the Suffolk Clause for a boycott of Great Britain. But
it soon became clear the radicals had not yet won the day. The Congress was not ready
to endorse dual courts or legislatures to be set up by the people in Massachusetts, much
less to think of absolute independence. Indeed, Joseph Galloway was now ready to play his
last Tory trump. The wily Galloway introduced to the Congress his plan of the proposed union
between Great Britain and the colonies. Galloway's plan pursued the old Tory dream proposed since
Since the late 17th century, of a centralized government for all the colonies, under the
tempting façade of colonial unity, Great Britain was finally to unite the colonies
under one imperial yoke.
Each colony was to retain its present form of rule over its local affairs.
The central government for the several colonies was to consist of a president general, appointed
by the King, subject to the King's veto, and holding office at the King's pleasure,
and of a Grand Council chosen by the assembly of each province. The Grand Council's actions
were to be subject to the President-General's veto. This central organ of President and
Council was, furthermore, to constitute an inferior branch of the British legislature,
and measures dealing with America could originate either with this body or with the rest of Parliament,
each of which would have to agree with the measure.
The similarities of Galloway's plan to Franklin's Albany Plan at the Albany Congress of 1754 are obvious.
Galloway, however, would have even more solidly cemented the ties between America and Britain.
The Central Authority was to act as a transmission belt of rule between Britain and the separate colonies, and with the new central body inducted, as it were, into the British Parliament, the plea of no taxation without representation would no longer hold.
Joseph Galloway's lethal but sugar-coated pill constituted the big conservative drive of the Congress.
Galloway opined that every society must have one Supreme Legislature and Executive as its authority,
that every individual of a society must be subordinate to the supreme will of this authority,
and that in the present case this authority was the British Parliament.
Supporting the Galloway Plan were Duane and the two youngest delegates to the Congress,
Edward Rutledge, 25, and New York's John Jay, 29. Leading the opposition were Patrick
Henry and Richard Henry Lee. Galloway's plan was just barely defeated by a vote of six
to five, Rhode Island producing a tie between its two delegates. Although the vote was secret,
it is safe to guess that Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Virginia and North
South Carolina voted Nay, while Pennsylvania, New York, dominated by the conservative New
York City delegates, and South Carolina voted in favor. This means that one of the middle
colonies, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, voted against the plan. This vote was the
high water mark for conservatism at the Congress. The victorious radicals tried to eliminate
all traces of the close balloting. On October 8, the Congress became still more explicit
in support of the Massachusetts resistance, specifically applauding that province's moves
and urging all America to come to the aid of Massachusetts should Britain try to impose
upon it an enforcement of the coercive acts. Galloway and Duane tried unsuccessfully to
to have their opposition to this resolution recorded in the minutes of the Congress.
That the Congress should issue a declaration of grievances and petition Britain for redress
was agreed upon by all, liberal and conservative alike.
The philosophical groundwork of rights and the admitted scope of parliamentary authority
had now to be determined.
With Duane largely responsible for its writing, the Declaration of Rights adopted on October
14 played down the inalienable natural rights of life, liberty and property, and stressed
instead the far more restricted rights of petition, assembly and jury trial, as well
as freedom from a standing army without consent of an assembly.
The position taken on parliament was also rather backward for the dynamic situation of the time.
The old orthodox and weak American position was simply reiterated.
Parliament had the right to regulate American trade, but not to tax the colonies internally
or externally, or to govern their domestic affairs.
The coercive acts in the Quebec Act were condemned and repeal was urged of thirteen invasive
parliamentary acts that had been in effect since 1763.
The Congress also requested the termination of British standing armies occupying American
towns, of the dissolutions of colonial assemblies and of the aggrandizement of the vice admiralty
courts.
The Congress's address to the King, drawn up by the moderate John Dickinson, carefully
followed the customs of rendering obeisance to the King and pinning the blame on his advisors
and underlings alone. Having endorsed Massachusetts' resistance, urged redress of grievances and
rejected Galloway's plan for a central government, the Congress took up its final and vital matter
of Business, Deciding the General American Means of Waging the Struggle Against Britain,
specifically the Question of a Continental Boycott.
On October 18, the Congress agreed to the Continental Association, closely patterned
after the Virginia Association, of early August.
The Colonies jointly pledged an absolute boycott of trade with Great Britain, non-importation
after December 1, including no slave trade after that date, non-consumption of British
products after March 1, 1775, and no exports to Britain after September 1, 1775. Because
of the threat of the South Carolina delegation, with the exception of the redoubtable Gadsden,
The Congress reluctantly agreed to exempt South Carolina's staple rice from the ban on exports to Britain.
Most ardent for total boycott were Thomas Cushing of Massachusetts, young Samuel Chase of Maryland,
and Eliphalet Dyer of Connecticut, who urged immediate non-importation, non-consumption and non-exportation,
Association, but they were overruled by the necessity of gaining the support of Virginia's
tobacco planters. The Continental Association was to remain in effect until all the listed
grievances had been redressed. It was to be enforced by rigorous but nonviolent methods
of persuasion and expression. Any traitor violating the boycott would be ostracized
and boycotted by every colony. As to enforcement, every town, city and county would select committee
to oversee the boycott, publicize the names of violators and then denounce them as enemies
of American liberty. Furthermore, any colony violating or failing to agree to the association
would be denounced and itself be boycotted. The Continental Congress had on the whole
The Federal Reserve has done its work well, despite a lack of enthusiasm, again accepting Christopher Gadson, for taking the offensive against British troops, for American independence, and even for denying the authority of Parliament to regulate trade, and despite the strong conservative bloc and its machinations, the Congress stood squarely behind Massachusetts and took steps to come to its aid.
The intensive resistance by the people of Massachusetts were endorsed, and the Continental Association was pledged to boycott British trade until the grievances of Massachusetts and other Americans should be allayed.
Charles Thompson, the Philadelphia radical leader who had been chosen Secretary of the Congress, expressed a common sentiment upon adjournment.
I hope the administration will be convinced that it is not a little faction, but the whole
body of American freeholders that now complain and apply for redress, and who I am sure will
resist rather than submit, even yet the wound may be healed and peace and law restored.
But we are at the brink of a precipice.
Finally, before adjourning on October 26, the Continental Congress resolved to meet
again the following May 10 if its grievances had not yet been relieved.
Thus, a permanent revolutionary assembly was here created.
It should be noted, however, that since the measures of enforcement of the boycott were
to be purely local and voluntary among the people, the first Continental Congress could
would in no proper sense be regarded as a dual governmental institution.