Volume 4, Chapter 5, The Response of the Continental Congress
The most important business before the Congress, however, was not Ticonderoga, but the problem
of Boston and the army that Massachusetts and New England had hastily put up around
it. What Congress decided to do about that army would determine what it would do about
As soon as Congress opened, Dr. Warren of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress urged the Continental Congress to take responsibility for the Army around Boston by appointing a Commander-in-Chief, thus committing the other colonies irrevocably to the Revolution.
The Congress showed its temper by not even deigning to answer. Instead, as the Massachusetts
radicals watched with dismay, it frittered away its time in evading responsibility for
adopting the revolution, merely sending elaborate proofs to London that the British troops had
fired first at Lexington. It was clear that a considerable majority of the delegates,
led by the now arch-conservative John Dickinson of Philadelphia, looked forward to reconciliation
with Britain, rather than to waging the revolution with zest and vigor toward eventual independence.
Joseph Galloway and Isaac Lowe, heads of the ultra-right in the First Congress, had by
then, as outright Tories, moved outside the American dialogue as well as the Continental
of Congress, and we're soon to slip behind British lines.
Seething inwardly, John Adams wrote to Joseph Warren
from Philadelphia, we find a great many bundles
of weak nerves.
We are obliged to be as delicate and soft and modest
and humble as possible.
Not receiving any reply to its letter,
the Massachusetts Provincial Congress developed
a careful petition, shrewdly designed to prod
The Continental Congress into action by urging Congress to allow Massachusetts to set up
a permanent civil government. Such official authorization of the Provincial Congress and
the network of town committees would push the Continental Congress closer to endorsing
an open political break with England. Above all, Massachusetts petitioned Congress to
To Appoint a Commander-in-Chief of the Army at Cambridge, the Massachusetts petition was
sent down via the Informer Church as personal courier and was presented to the Congress
on June 2. Cautiously, Congress appointed a committee to maul over and report on this
vital and controversial petition. The first part of the Massachusetts petition was relatively
On June 7, Congress sanctioned Massachusetts' new civil government and approved the right of the people to set up their own government in the current circumstances, declaring, however, that this civil government would be only temporary until reconciliation with Britain could restore the operation of the old, disrupted Massachusetts Charter.
Meanwhile, the right wing had been winning point after point in the Congress. An attempt
to shift the side of the Congress northward to Connecticut, near the New England about-a-front,
had been quashed by the Dickinson Group. So underdeveloped was the revolutionary timber
of this Congress that when New York asked what it should do if British troops were to
Finally, while the hypocritical plan of British Prime Minister Lord North for conciliation
was summarily rejected by the Congress, Dickinson and James Duane of New York infuriated the
radicals by moving, at the end of May, to send an humble and dutiful petition to the
King, pleading for immediate negotiation and mutual accommodation. Infuriated, John Adams
blasted such futile and humble petitioning. He argued that Congress should be making haste
to defend the continent from the British, to take charge of the army at Cambridge and
and even to warn that it was ready to make European alliances to aid its resistance.
Adams was quickly backed by John Sullivan of New Hampshire, but Dickinson bitterly warned
them that if New England didn't agree to our Pacific system, I and a number of us will
break off from you in New England.
The radicals, however, were prepared to accept the Dickinson-Olive Branch petition, which
which they knew would be futile, provided that they won the crucial point, the second
point in the Massachusetts petition, Congressional Assumption of Responsibility for the Revolutionary
Army in New England. The Congress took measured steps toward this goal during early June by
voting to supply funds to furnish powder, first for the Continental Army and then, frankly,
or The American Army Before Boston. The final step, however, was whether the Congress would
actually take over direction of the Army at Cambridge, directing the troops and furnishing
them with both supplies and a commander-in-chief. Here, the Massachusetts radicals were in a
cruel dilemma. Any army under the Continental Congress would mean, in contrast to a guerrilla
of the guerrilla army, the inevitable build-up of a central state apparatus, and of a highly
expensive and burdensome state army, which would inevitably saddle all Americans with
heavy taxes, inflation and debt. The Massachusetts radicals can hardly be blamed for their decision
to press for a statist continental army. The theory of revolutionary guerrilla warfare
had yet to be fully developed, and Massachusetts was understandably desperate to weld the other
reluctant colonies firmly to the revolutionary cause.
On June 14, Congress took the fateful step of voting to organize an army of 15,000 men,
and specifically to raise six, a little later ten, companies of expert backwoods riflemen
It was not lost upon the delegates that the crack-shooting frontier riflemen had been
particularly effective in the victory at Concord. The crucial question now remaining was the
identity of the commander-in-chief to be appointed by Congress. On this vital issue, the Massachusetts
Sam Adams' radical leadership, traditionally united as one man, was grievously divided. Sam Adams, almost always instinctively libertarian, began with the most individualistic and democratic plan of all, appoint no Commander-in-Chief at all, and permit the local militia soldiers themselves to elect all of their own officers up to the rank of Commander-in-Chief.
Thomas Cushing, Robert Treat Payne, and other New Englanders wanted a New England general, the obvious choice being Artemis Ward, already in command before Boston. Ward, however, was a bit old for the job. The issue, of course, was that he was a young man.
is not simply local pride but the crucial one of keeping control of the army in the hands
of individualistic and democratic New Englanders rather than subject to the aristocratic colonies.
At this crossroads, John Adams, Elbridge Gerry and Joseph Warren bent so far backward to
achieve continental unity that they gravely compromised and sacrificed libertarian principle,
Storing Up Untold Trouble for Individualism in the Future
In short, they decided to support for Commander-in-Chief that conservative scion of the Virginia landed oligarchy, George Washington.
In doing so, incidentally, John Adams, though not Warren or Gary, began a slow but steady political drift rightward out of the libertarian radical camp.
Sam Adams, too, began to display an unsureness, a lack of confidence, that would periodically
display itself on national issues, and would also lead him, at least temporarily, rightward.
Something seemed to be going forever from that once uncannily sure and self-confident
planner and organizer of the revolution, and he allowed himself to be persuaded by his
From a short-range, opportunistic point of view, the nomination of Washington appeared
to the radicals to have merit, not militarily, to be sure, for he had had little military
experience and that was a series of decisive losses in the French and Indian War. The attraction
Washington was virtually the only man who could gain the votes of most radicals and conservatives alike.
On the one hand, socially and politically, Washington was a deep-dyed conservative and could be depended upon to support the oligarchy and classical military tactics.
On the other hand, in the fight with Britain, he, along with most of the Virginians, was
close to the radical camp and could be depended upon to be militant in warring against Great
Britain.
Even such an admirer of Washington as Marcus Cunliffe admits that Washington's best role
during the war was political and consultative rather than military.
Like General Eisenhower, he was a coalition general for a large part of the war. Major
strategic plans usually lay outside his scope. If his charismatic symbols were those of the
flag, the sword, the beautifully comparisoned horse, his day-to-day responsibilities were
more appropriately symbolized by the chairman's gavel and the secretary's quill. It was his
Consequently, John Adams rose in Congress on June 14 to nominate Washington, and he was
seconded by Sam Adams.
In so doing, they permanently alienated the vain and flighty John Hancock, who fancied
himself in the panoplyed robes of Commander-in-Chief, and expected his fellow Massachusetts delegates
to nominate him. Already ensconced in the high-sounding but largely honorific post of
President of the Continental Congress, his unfounded ambition was gravely wounded by
by their decision not to notify him in advance of what was being planned.
The consequences of the Hancock-Adams split for future Massachusetts politics were enormous.
For a start, from this point on, Hancock hobnobbed with and was fettered by the ultraconservatives
of the Congress, men who were better able to satisfy his taste for finery than were
for the Plain Men of Massachusetts.
John Adams' plan met considerable resistance on June 14, especially from those backing
Ward and the other candidates.
But by the next day, resistance had melted away, and Washington was approved unanimously.
With their main points carried, the Radicals supported the Dickinson-Olive Branch petition
to England, which was passed by the Congress on July 5.