Volume 4, Chapter 31, The Struggle in Pennsylvania and Delaware
Congress's May resolutions spurred independence sentiment throughout the colonies, and John Adams soon exalted that
every post and every day rolls in upon us independence like a torrent.
Virginia had struck for independence and the Massachusetts House primed support in the grassroots by asking the towns their views on independence.
Through May and June the Massachusetts towns, as might be expected, answered that they would support the measure with their lives and fortunes.
Rhode Island, too, was stimulated to instruct its delegates to sign any necessary treaties with foreign states.
It had opted for independence as early as May 4, when the legislature had renounced all allegiance to King George and assailed his debasing and detestable tyranny.
Adams' jubilation was decidedly premature. America could not proclaim its independence
without the middle colonies, and the middle colonies still stood obdurately outside or
opposed to the independence movement. The powerful landed oligarchs of New York and
and the highly conservative Philadelphia financiers stood four square against independence.
Their brilliant leaders, the Morrises, the Jays, the Livingstons, the Dickensons, the Willings and others,
not only thoroughly dominated their provinces, they were shrewd enough not to turn outright Tory
and thus lose any hope of ruling their respective populaces.
Independence could not be assumed while these two great colonies remained adamant in opposition.
The Pennsylvania Assembly had, in November, specifically directed its delegates to oppose
any plan for independence, and the instructions of New York, Maryland and Delaware had clearly
emphasized American ties with Great Britain.
Even as late as the May 1776 assembly election, the conservatives carried Philadelphia.
On May 15, when Virginia and the Continental Congress were taking such rapid strides towards
independence, the Maryland Convention, in a burst of reaction, was resolving unanimously
that a reunion with Great Britain on constitutional principles would best secure the rights, liberty
and Happiness of the Whole Empire.
The radicals readily concluded that Pennsylvania was the key to their problem.
If that great ultra-conservative province should capitulate to the radicals and independents,
the other colonies would have to swing into line.
Maryland and Delaware, caught between Pennsylvania and the South, could not hold out, and neither
There could in New York, isolated from all of her sister colonies, but to accomplish
such a drastic change would require something on the order of a veritable internal revolution.
The key to Pennsylvania politics was its almost unique status as a proprietary colony, a status
it shared only with Maryland and Delaware, the latter being associated with it in the
and the proprietorship of the Penn family. Directly under a sympathetic proprietary rather than the crown, Pennsylvania did not have to confront the royal tyranny directly or have its assembly dissolved or humbled by Great Britain.
In contrast to the other colonies, therefore, Pennsylvania was not propelled into a state
of nature and, hence, to a rule by spontaneously formed local committees and provincial congresses.
Instead, throughout 1775, its colonial government continued complacently unaltered. Continuing
And in power were Pennsylvania's thoroughly undemocratic and malapportioned assembly,
as well as its executive and judiciary, appointed by the proprietary.
Controlling the assembly with an iron hand was Arch-Conservative John Bickenson, along
with the Quaker and financial oligarchy of Philadelphia and eastern Pennsylvania, all
strongly opposed to independence.
The Quakers and the proprietary party, formerly enemies, were now united in opposition to
independence and in favor of the existing political structure.
In Pennsylvania, there was no confusion between internal and external issues among the radical
and conservative camps.
The conservatives were opposed to independence and domestic reform, and the radicals were
were squarely on the side of both. Indeed, the issues were conjoined as neither aim could
be achieved without the other. One vital factor aiding the Pennsylvania left was the presence
of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Heavily committed to independence, the Congress,
especially since its resolution of May 15, 1776, exerted continual pressure on behalf
of the Pennsylvania Radicals. Over a month of agitation led by Joseph Reed, Washington's
former aide, brought the assembly to enlarge its membership in mid-March. But this was
a mild reform, and Dickinson, Robert Morris and their conservative allies were still in
comfortable control. While local committees had not assumed power in Pennsylvania, they
They were in existence and a growing force in the province. They were a vital part of
the protest movement against Great Britain, and a provincial convention of these committees
during January 1775, while effectively hobbled by Dickinson and the conservative leaders,
had marked the beginning of influence by the spontaneous organs of public sentiment. After
Here Lexington and Concord, county committees formed voluntary militia units called associations.
While the county associations were governed by the assembly, friction developed as the
radicals, eager to get on with the revolution, demanded either conscription of or special
taxation upon the numerous conscientious objectors in the province.
And in September 1775 the Philadelphia Committee declared outright that free speech had to
end when used for counteracting virtuous exertions against injury and oppression. In such cases
the human and divine laws justify the punishment of such licentiousness.
William Nelson rightly adds that the Committee thereupon adopted the tyrant's usual plea
of Necessity. No person has a right to the protection of a community or society he wishes
to destroy. Thus, Pennsylvania pacifists as well as Tories were subjected to invasions
of their liberty in the name of liberty. The restiveness of the associations was seen in
the bitter attack by the Association of Lancaster County upon the pacifism of the Mennonites
Demanding taxation of the Mennonites for military measures. Indeed, the living example of pacifism
proved a catching, and the Philadelphia Association refused to serve as Minutemen after contemplating
the total exemption of the Quakers from the war machine. The leaders of the Philadelphia
Association also demanded a tax on conscientious objectors and a transformation of the libertarian
The assembly partially bowed to the pressure by levying a heavy tax of over 2.5 pounds
upon all non-associators.
More important for the political structure of Pennsylvania was the radicalizing experience
of Belonging to the Military Associations, which were especially prominent in the West.
For the masses began to wonder why they should risk their lives for the revolutionary cause
and yet not, in the words of the Committee of Privates headed by Dr. James Cannon at
the end of February, be admitted to the enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of a citizen
of that county, which they have defended and protected.
The Assembly's brusque treatment of the Committee's petition, as well as its presuming to appoint
their military officers, led the Committee of Privates to the revolutionary repudiation
of the authority of the constituted Pennsylvania government.
Furthermore, the Committee was perceptive enough to apply the argument of taxation without
representation to affairs at home.
Since they were not represented proportionately in the assembly, the authority of the government
need not be recognized. Moreover, they moved to elect their officers and in many cases
to make their military decisions by majority will of the particular military company. It
is not surprising that the Associators were noted for their individualistic spirit and
and their failure to abide by orthodox military rules of hierarchy and submission.
That internal liberal democracy and independence were two sides of the same Pennsylvania coin
was fully recognized by the Pennsylvania right.
During the spring of 1776, John Dickinson declared retention of the British royal power
indispensable to protecting the colonies from civil war and democracy, and his views were
echoed more circumspectly by James Wilson. The looming threat of independence and internal
reform propelled many ultra-conservatives into a quasi-Tory position, and many of them
wrote pamphlets and articles denouncing independence. Thus the Anglican clergyman, William
Thomas Smith cited Montesquieu in praise of the English form of government as the best
guarantee of liberty, and Sivis railed against a republicanism that would lead to a government
by a set of men whom nobody knows, by apprentices and immigrants.
George Chalmers, the young author of the pamphlet Plain Truth, An Attack on Common Sense, also
Charles cited Montesquieu and attacked Paine for not resigning himself to the necessary
imperfections of mankind's state, especially man's laws.
A particularly interesting statement of the right-wing position in Pennsylvania was that
of the Tory Anglican priest Charles Inglis. His pamphlet, The True Interest of America
impartially stated, was specifically designed as a rebuttal to common sense. Since its entire
first printing was destroyed by radical mob, it did not have any influence on the struggle
over independence. Nonetheless, Inglis' arguments provide important insights into the thinking
of the conservatives. He began with a statement of fundamental opposition to Paine's allegedly
Utopian Individualism. Man was not born free in a state of nature, he maintained, but born
necessarily into society and therefore supposedly born under innate social obligations. Inglis
saw that Locke's and even Hobbes' ultimate individualism had to be repudiated in order
to Uphold the Tory Cause, he maintained that man could not exist without society, society
could not exist without law, and that law could not exist without government.
After employing this string of non-sequitors to imply that government was anterior to man,
He naturally concluded that government was not a necessary evil, but a necessary good.
He further adopted the classical Tory equation of government with human civilization.
Thus, the clash of pain in English posed critical questions of political philosophy, among which
were, is the individual logically anterior to society?
Is there any society or civilization to be equated with or clearly distinguished from the state apparatus?
Inglis, of course, deduced from his thesis that Americans were naturally and inherently part of English society and government,
and therefore must not assert their independence.
Moreover he turned to Monaskew to support the need for monarchy and aristocracy as well
as to eulogize British institutions.
One assiduous radical writer perceptively charged that when the conservatives talked
of their preference for the mild and wise laws of Great Britain, as contrasted to the
tyranny of the many, they were really protesting at the prospect of losing their own special
privileges, at being governed by any laws that will effectively secure the liberty and
property of the people from their ravenous clutches.
To this end, one radical, Elector, who may have been the radical theoretician Dr. Thomas
Young, went beyond his fellows to advocate suffrage for all adult members of military
associations in Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania radicals were handicapped by a lack of eminent leadership. The well-known
and well-born were almost completely on the right. Even Joseph Reed was not a radical
and was not really ardent about independence. But this lack of status was one of the main
reasons for the unique intensity of Pennsylvania radicalism. Its leaders came from outside
of the Pennsylvania Power Structure. These were new, independent men, free from vested
interest in the status quo. The leadership of the revolutionary left included two mathematicians,
the eminent astronomer David Rittenhouse and Professor James Cannon of Philadelphia College,
the roistering Philadelphia mechanic and retailer Timothy Matlack, Colonel Daniel Robredo and
And two great theoreticians of the radical libertarian movement, Dr. Thomas Young, the
former Massachusetts mentor of Ethan Allen in liberalism and deism, and, of course, Thomas
Payne. Virtually the only radical leader who had been prominent in the movement against
Britain before the war was the Philadelphia merchant George Bryan. Cannon, writing as Cassandra,
came to the defense of common sense against its enemies, and other radical pamphleteers
called for extensive widening of the suffrage.
Paine was a host unto himself, and in The Forester's Letters, published in April 1776,
he counterattacked his critics and elaborated his libertarian doctrine. In his third letter,
he answered the common conservative contention that the evil inherent in human nature requires
a strong state to repress it. If all human nature be corrupt, it is needless to strengthen
the corruption by establishing a succession of kings who, be they ever so base, are still
to be obeyed. Furthermore, he argued, it is far more consistent for free men to choose
their governors than to be ruled by mere birth. Certainly it is both folly and tyranny to
To give any one man power over all. No man since the fall hath ever been equal to the trust.
As to whether America could be happy under its own government,
Payne sensibly replied, As happy as she pleases, she hath a blank sheet to write upon.
Let America make what it will out of this tabula rasa.
Payne also stressed in this letter the libertarian importance of trial by jury as the people's way to completely circumvent the government in making judgments.
Here the power of kings is short cut. No royal negative can enter the court. The jury is a republic, a body of judges chosen from among the people.
He pointed out that typically the Magna Carta that secured this liberty had not been granted by the largesse of the crown, but had been forced out of the king by irresistible pressure from below.
Payne also emphasized the goal of an isolationist foreign policy for the new republic that he envisioned on the horizon.
Listen. America, he urged, will make peace with Britain as with an enemy. Then, independent,
it will live in peace, remote from all the wrangling world, bounded by the ocean and
backed by the wilderness. Who has she to fear but her God?
During May, the Pennsylvania left was reinforced by the news of the hiring of Hessian mercenaries,
by Virginia's Electrifying Decision for Independence and it stepped up its demand for a democratic
provincial convention elected by all the free men of Pennsylvania.
But the major impetus to the radicals was the Continental Congress's resolutions of
May 10 and 15 denouncing all allegiance to the enemy George III and calling on all colonies
is to form their own governments independent of Great Britain.
The main resolutions were implicitly directed against Pennsylvania.
The only province, along with its associated Delaware, that was still dominated by its
old British-directed government.
The congressional resolutions acted as a mighty signal, perhaps prearranged, to the Pennsylvania
left.
The radical leaders urged on by John and Sam Adams now saw that they could put together
the long sought radical alliance of Philadelphia mechanics and artisans and Western frontiersmen.
Swiftly on the night of May 15, the radical Philadelphia committee, of which James Cannon
was secretary, met to consider the formation of a new government.
The opportunistic Delaware lawyer Thomas McKean was in the chair at the meeting, but the power
resided in a steering committee that included Cannon, Young and Payne.
In presumed obedience to congressional advice, the committee called for provincial conference
of county committees to demand a vote for independence and a constitutional convention
outside the stultifying structure of the assembly to form a new and democratic revolutionary
government for Pennsylvania. A mass meeting of nearly 5,000 people, whipped up by pain
and others, gathered on May 20 at the behest of the Philadelphia Committee with Colonel
Robredo in the chair. The meeting denounced the assembly as holding its authority from
from the King and for being based on a narrow electorate. It also called for a constitutional
convention for Pennsylvania. A provincial conference of committees was set for June
18 to organize a constitutional convention, and associations throughout the province enthusiastically
endorsed the lead of the Philadelphia committee. The conservatives of Philadelphia were able
were able to organize a mass meeting of their own on May 21, as well as a remonstrance of 6,000 people to preserve the old government.
This meeting was led by John Dickinson, Charles Thompson and even Joseph Reed.
Other conservative protest against the May 20 meeting came from the Committee of Inspection of Philadelphia County and from Chester County in eastern Pennsylvania.
On the other hand, the York County Committee soon demonstrated its power by forcing the York Assemblyman James Rankin into a public recantation of the bad tendency of my past conduct in advocating the old Pennsylvania government.
Citizens of Redding in Berks County burnt the conservative remonstrance as treasonable and hundreds of Philadelphia signers shifted and withdrew their signatures.
The numerous and powerful associations throughout Pennsylvania, superbly organized by Professor Cannon, joined the call for a new government and a constitutional convention.
The tide of radical opinion was indeed swift. Not even repeated concessions by the Assembly could stem its flow.
The Pennsylvania Assembly, bewildered at seeing its public support rapidly dwindling, decided to wither away and allow Pennsylvania's great internal revolution to be bloodless.
In this resolve, it was aided by Assemblyman Joseph Reed. On June 8, the Assembly withdrew its November instructions to the delegates to the Continental Congress to oppose independence.
The delegates were now authorized to adopt any measures they deemed necessary.
To block any attempt by moderates to preserve the moribund assembly by taking charge of the forthcoming convention, radical members boycotted assembly meetings after June 13, thus preventing the gathering of a quorum.
The Pennsylvania assembly drifted into hopeless adjournment on June 14.
On June 18, the government of Pennsylvania changed hands in a peaceful but impressive revolution.
The provincial conference met on that date with delegates selected by the radical county committees.
The conference itself dramatized the thorough transformation of political power.
None of the old conservative or moderate Whig leaders were present.
No Dickinson, no Thompson, no Mifflin, no Wilson, no Reed, no Morris.
Fully half the delegates were leaders in their local military associations.
The conference looked to the Vanguard Philadelphia Committee for Leadership, and here the only
old line wig in prominence was Thomas McKean, who was chosen president of the conference.
That venerable opportunist, Benjamin Franklin, never one to be in any minority, had seen
the way the wind was blowing and allowed himself to be included temporarily among the left.
He nominally headed the Philadelphia delegation to the conference, but never attended meetings.
Apart from McKean, the leading delegates from the Philadelphia Committee were Committee
President Christopher Marshall, Dr. Benjamin Rush and Colonel Timothy Matlack, with Cannon,
Payne and Rittenhouse active in the background.
The provincial conference began its work quickly.
The assembly was declared abolished in a constitutional convention summoned for a new government based
on the people of Pennsylvania.
The suffrage for the convention was to be widened to all adult tax-paying associators.
Unreconstructed Tories were denied the privilege.
A more serious blow to liberty was the conference's decision to require an oath of Christian belief
for all those elected as deputies to the Constitutional Convention.
This oath, an effort to disenfranchise the Quakers, opened a bitter debate between the
elderly Christopher Marshall and the other far younger leaders of the radical camp. Marshall
strongly supported the religious test oath against the vigorous opposition of Roche and
especially Cannon, who privately denounced the supporters of the oath as fools, blockheads,
of Righteous and Zealous Bigots. Representation at the Convention was not allocated proportionately
and democratically. Understandably, exhilarating vengeance against the old, overweighting of
the East led to an even greater overweighting on behalf of the West. Each county was given
eight delegates to the Constitutional Convention, so that sparsely settled Western counties
enjoyed almost the same representation as Philadelphia.
On June 24, the provincial conference surprised no one by declaring that George III had forfeited
American allegiance and voting to concur in any declaration of independence.
By late June, Pennsylvania was firmly in the camp of the pro-independence radicals.
Indeed, the outcome had been clear since the beginning of June.
As for Governor John Penn of the proprietary family, he was generally sympathetic to the
American cause and gave little trouble about his disappearance from the political scene.
Indeed, he was content to remain a private citizen of the new Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Where Pennsylvania went, little Delaware could not be far behind. The two were almost one
By the end of 1775, Rodney had shifted leftward, winning the delegation for the American cause.
Pennsylvania's opting for independence quickly convinced Delaware.
On June 14, McKean presented to the Delaware Assembly the May 15 resolution of Congress
along with the recent resolutions of Pennsylvania.
On June 15, Delaware removed the restrictions that prohibited its delegates from voting
for independence, which had been in force since March 1775, when the delegates were
were instructed to aim for reconciliation with the mother country.
Now in imitation of the Pennsylvania Assembly's resolve of June 8, the Delaware Assembly ordered
its delegates to concur with other delegates in favoring whatever measures may be necessary
for the interest of America.
The way was clear for the Delaware delegation to vote for independence.