Revolution and independence
- Also called:
- thirteen colonies or colonial America
- Date:
- May 14, 1607 - September 3, 1783
- Related Places:
- United States
- New York
- British Empire
- Massachusetts
- New Jersey
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The First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress gave the patriot cause greater breadth, depth, and force. Its 56 members, representing all of the colonies except Georgia, were lawyers, country gentlemen, and merchants, respectable and responsible men, and America followed them. They made it clear that Britain would not be permitted to subdue Massachusetts without interference by the other colonies. They demanded repeal of the Intolerable Acts and the Quebec Act and described them, together with several other measures taken after 1764, as unconstitutional. They called for a return to the “good old days” of 1763. But they wanted more than that. They urged that the crown abandon its right to name the councillors in the royal colonies. They questioned the authority of Parliament much more forthrightly than had the Stamp Act Congress but carefully refrained from petitioning it for redress. The Congress did, however, send an appeal to the crown and an address to the British people. It also endorsed a declaration of rights, which accused the British government of violating colonial charter rights, the rights of British subjects, and the natural rights of mankind. The inclusion of natural rights was of the greatest importance. Hitherto, the colonists had chosen to rely principally upon the rights of British subjects, although some of their leaders had earlier invoked the rights of mankind. English law and custom had not turned out to be impregnable bastions of American liberties. The Americans were moving away from the narrower argument concerning the rights of British subjects toward the more fundamental one of the natural rights of man.
One of the decisions taken by the Congress was extraordinary. Calling upon Britain once more to repent and repeal, it devised what it called the Association. Defenders of American liberty were urged to associate to prevent the importation or consumption of goods from Britain or the British West Indies after December 1, 1774, and, if Britain failed to give ground, to stop the exportation of colonial products, except for rice, to the same places after September 10, 1775. Since the will of the Congress was everywhere respected, there followed the remarkable spectacle of 13 colonies carrying on an organized boycott of British goods. Arranging to reconvene in May 1775 to take whatever further steps might be necessary, the delegates went home in October 1774. During the winter months the patriots began to prepare for battle.
Parliament’s response
In Parliament early in 1775, Pitt, Edmund Burke, and John Wilkes urged the justice and necessity of reconciliation with America. The opposition solemnly warned against trying to solve the problem by military force. Its speakers predicted that the colonists would fight, and they voiced the fear that France and Spain would seize the opportunity of an Anglo-American war to retrieve the losses they had suffered in the Seven Years’ War. British manufacturers and merchants also urged an attempt to please the Americans, for they felt the effects of the American boycott. George III and his political allies had double the votes of their opponents in Parliament, however, and the decision was in their hands. As early as November 1774, the king had expressed his conviction that Britain must assert its sovereignty. Most of his advisers took the same stand and were even eager to use force. They scoffed at the arguments of an opposition that sympathized with the Americans, because both were seen as enemies of the ministry. With the support of the monarch and of a large segment of public opinion, they swept on to action. The king and his ministry chose not only to employ force but to place their reliance upon the army, ignoring the advice of Gage and well-informed military men in Britain, and overcoming the reluctance of Lord North and his stepbrother, William Legge, 2nd earl of Dartmouth, who had become colonial secretary in 1772. Lord William Barrington, the secretary at war, expressed grave doubt that Britain could put enough soldiers in the field to overrun the colonies and suggested a naval blockade as a more appropriate means of coercion. North and Dartmouth wished to avoid bloodshed. In the end, they could not stand against the will of their associates, but the prime minister insisted that the employment of the army be not undertaken without a gesture toward conciliation. Parliament gave its support to both economic and military coercion.
So it was that Britain, which had been tempted three times to seek a settlement by arms, at length plunged into war. Parliament also endorsed, reluctantly, Lord North’s conciliatory resolution, which declared that Parliament would in the future refrain from taxing any colony which through its assembly supplied its fair share of funds necessary for imperial defense. It was addressed separately to each colony, a device inevitably interpreted by the colonists as intended to cause division among them. No message was sent to the Continental Congress. One was sent to Gage, who was ordered to make vigorous use of the troops he had available. In accordance with his instructions, received on April 14, 1775, he ordered a detachment of 700 men to march to Concord to destroy patriot military supplies there. Forewarned, patriot militiamen gathered to oppose the king’s troops, and the running Battles of Lexington and Concord followed on April 19.