When I’m asked why the American Revolution was successful and the French Revolution, though larger and more complete, ended in the tyranny of Napoleon Bonaparte, my answer is that prior to independence ours had Committees of Correspondence, uniting men of like minds (and often, of modest means) in many cities in discussion of the issues, while France’s revolution was a top-down affair controlled by a Paris-based elite. Democracy is not only at the core of our governance; it is what allowed us to become a nation in the first place.
Exactly two hundred and fifty years ago, in May, June, and July of 1774, our Committees of Correspondence, most formed only a year or two earlier, began to coalesce into what in September would become the First Continental Congress. The call for such a Congress had gone out a year earlier, from Boston firebrand Samuel Adams, but most colonists were not then ready for it. In the late colonial era, only a few such firebrands consistently called for resistance, among them Adams, Christopher Gadsden in Charleston, and Patrick Henry in Williamsburg.
Then, in late 1773 came the British attempt to force Americans to pay excessive duties on imported tea, and the Boston Tea Party to resist that, and, in reaction to the Tea Party, the British “Intolerable Acts,” described in my earlier column. However, in the wake of those Intolerable Acts, when colonial groups tried to organize a boycott of British goods and votes were taken on the matter in various cities, the result was still not uniformly pro-rebellion. Of New York’s public vote, upper-class resident Gouverneur Morris sniffed, “On my right hand were ranged all the people of property, with some poor few dependents” who were against the boycott, “and on the other all the tradesmen,” whom Morris thought of as “reptiles” come out for their moment in the sun. The boycott lost the vote in New York but it won elsewhere.
Because it had not won everywhere, Philadelphia’s Committee of Correspondence issued a call for all colonies to send representatives there for a congress whose delegates would “clearly state what we conceive as our rights and to make claim or petition of them to his Majesty, in firm, but decent and dutiful terms.”
That seemed such a good idea that every colony except Georgia began to prepare. This was not simple, as there were whole phalanxes of potential delegates for whom the date was inconvenient — the operators of small farms, for instance, would be in the midst of their annual harvest — and others who could not afford the time off from their businesses to attend. It was generally understood that the congress would be largely a rich men’s affair.
Boston’s Sam Adams was chosen to go, as was his cousin John. The Sons of Liberty, knowing how poor Sam was, decided that his appearance ought not to count against him or subject his ideas to ridicule, so they had a bespoke suit made for him, with gold knee buckles. British General Thomas Gage thought about arresting Sam in advance of the congress but decided against it, believing that to do so would spur a riot. Gage’s attempts to then bribe Adams were repulsed, and Sam requested that the general “no longer … insult the feelings of an exasperated people.”
Several colonists who would have liked to be at the congress could not go, among them Thomas Jefferson, who was ill, Bostonian Joseph Warren, who couldn’t afford it and was perhaps redundant with Sam Adams, and Pennsylvania lawyer John Dickinson. All three wrote documents that many others read and took to heart: Warren’s “Suffolk Resolves,” a rousing call to arms; Dickinson’s collection of “Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer,” and Jefferson’s latterly-famous “A Summary View of the Rights of British America.” The writings made similar points that would be fundamental to the revolution: 1) that the colonies were of supreme economic importance to Great Britain and therefore ought to be accommodated; and 2) that the colonists were entitled to the very same rights enjoyed by British citizens in the homeland.
Next time: The First Continental Congress, and what it left undone.
Salisbury resident Tom Shachtman has written many books, including three about the Revolutionary Era.
