Ever set out on a journey when your objective was just to get away from where you were. But you weren’t really sure where you were headed?
Such was the case with the 56 delegates who gathered at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia 250 years ago this week. These colonists agreed on only one thing – that they were unhappy with the way the British government was handling their affairs, and they wanted a voice in their own future. But that was all they agreed on, other than to meet and talk.
The Declaration of Independence did not pop out of a vacuum on July 4, 1776. Tensions between the colonies and the British had been building for years – and there were strong differences of opinion among the colonists themselves.
Georgia, the lone colony without representation at that first meeting in Philly, wanted to remain loyal to the mother country because they needed her support in fighting Native Americans. A couple of colonies were close to breaking away from the Crown, but most were somewhere in between.
As the 1st Continental Congress convened, Patrick Henry, a delegate from Virginia, believed it was time to declare independence. He was met with a wide range of opinions, with more conservative delegates wanting only to ask the British Parliament to rescind actions that had started this mess in the first place.
This “mess” had all begun back when the French and Indian War left Great Britain in serious debt from defending the colonies and preserving its own interests in the New World. Most colonists thought themselves quite British until Parliament decided the colonists should help pay for that war debt. The colonists felt they should have a say in whether and how they were taxed. The tensions grew from there.
Lest I lose the majority of my readership in the details of those fateful days, let me cut to the chase. What intrigues me about what happened in Carpenters’ Hall in 1774 was how these 56 delegates were able to figure out where they wanted to go.
There was no obvious end goal, except to resolve the conflict somehow. Colonies declaring themselves independent was not considered a strong option in those days. And forming a unified government from 13 distinct colonies? Good luck on that. The colonies had no armies of their own, no shared infrastructure, no joint funds, no common currency, not even united values.
All that these delegates knew was they didn’t like where they found themselves. They sensed that the present situation was at once untenable and not easily resolved. And they realized that the colonies they represented were no more of one mind than they were. If they couldn’t agree on a destination, how were their colonies going to agree as well, let alone get there together?
Three things got the delegates – and by extension the colonies they represented – to where they needed to go. And they didn’t have all three when they started.
- Courage
What they did have, even among the more conservative members, was courage. They had no authority to convene that meeting in Philly. All power resided with the British Parliament and with King George III. The colonists, being colonists, had no voice, no vote in Parliament’s decisions.
Compared with other colonists who were propertyless white men, or women, or persons of color, or indentured servants, or enslaved, these 56 delegates were white men of privilege, in some cases among the wealthiest in the New World. But all that money and privilege still left them without control over their own destinies.
To meet as they were doing was treasonable. Parliament did not approve this congress. Not even the colonial governments had independent say in the matter. The British-appointed governor kept dissolving Virginia’s elected House of Burgess whenever that House voted something contrary to the king’s wishes. These delegates were largely self-appointed, sent by unauthorized ad hoc leadership groups, or commissioned by colonial legislatures without approval from the motherland.
That trip to Philadelphia took a whole lot of courage. As Patrick Henry famously declared a few months later, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
These largely wealthy delegates did pay dearly for their actions, sometimes losing their great fortunes. George Washington himself would come close to bankruptcy in short order. The only option the Congress had, short of taking up arms against the strongest military force on earth, was boycotting Great Britain.
The Boston Tea Party had occurred the year before. The Greenwich Tea Party near where I grew up in South Jersey would take place a few weeks after this 1st Continental Congress convened. The Congress went much further, calling for a complete boycott of all British imports and, should that not work, all exports to Great Britain.
The problem was that the colonies were almost entirely dependent on Britain for trade – both imports and exports. The very wealth that enabled these delegates to meet in Philadelphia at their own expense, that gave them leadership positions in their own colonies, that provided them vast creature comforts relative to the 18th century, came from all that trade with Britain. Boycotts shut off their economic lifeblood.
More seriously, they risked imprisonment or the loss of their own lives. Contrary to popular opinion, none of them actually suffered torture or death at the hands of the British. Only one, Richard Stocton of New Jersey, was taken prisoner by local Tories for signing the Declaration of Independence two years later. Many other delegates, including those who served in subsequent congresses, did suffer much loss, but not as a direct result of convening or even of signing the Declaration.
All that said, their actions had serious consequences, and it did take much courage to convene in the face of opposition from the greatest power on earth at the time.
No great accomplishment is ever achieved without courage. Courage is not the absence of fear or anxiety, but it is the presence of resolve. Not everyone laid it out like Patrick Henry. But by the end of that first Congress, they had all come to an agreement: no matter what, they were going to see this through.
- Consensus
Independently, the 13 colonies stood no chance of standing up to the British government. It was hard enough winning together, let alone separately. And when they first met on September 5, 1774, they were far from unified. Georgia refused to send representation. The delegates who did come and the colonies they represented were all over the map on what they wanted.
But they knew they needed to work together, or they were wasting their time. A few, such as Patrick Henry or Sam Adams, were hotter-headed than others. But even they knew that they could not get anywhere alone. Henry might be willing to die for his freedom, but he’d never get the chance if others didn’t work with him.
And that togetherness would take time. Thus the reason this congress is called the First.
The Continental Congress would keep convening for the next 15 years, eventually declaring independence from Britain, forging a long and uncertain war of independence, cobbling together the Articles of Confederation by which to govern themselves, and then finally calling for a constitutional convention which produced the U.S. Constitution.
That 1st Continental Congress met for only 7 weeks. They haggled over everything from reconciliation to revolution. In the end they agreed on a boycott of British goods if Parliament would not rescind its actions.
For some of the more progressive delegates, such action must have seemed weak, ineffective, a waste of effort. And while the boycott was useful in stopping 97% of all imports, it did not change Parliament’s mind. Instead, it led to war in Boston the following spring.
But it was a start – a very auspicious start – that would have been impossible without those 56 minds coming together to find common ground.
In a day and age when independence and loner heroes are celebrated and when resorting to compromise is labeled weakness, the 1st Continental Congress is a reminder that much is gained by building consensus, even with those with whom we can find little common ground. All we need is just a little common ground and we can build from there.
- Clarity
All of that consensus would have been for naught had they not come to some workable way forward. They didn’t have to have the end goal fleshed out. They just needed next steps.
The consensus they came up with in October 1774 was to try and get Parliament to back off. That, they could agree on. So, they appealed to Parliament.
And they agreed on two other actions: one, they would boycott trade with Great Britain; and, two, they would continue meeting. Not a very big patch of common ground, but it was a start, a most significant start.
Looking back, I find it impressive that they would get to that much agreement and that solid a plan in just 7 short weeks. Granted Philadelphia didn’t have the Phillies in the playoffs that year or the Eagles headed for the endzone to divert their attention. Nevertheless, they came up with a bold course of action.
Boycotts, like tariffs, generally hurt the boycotters and the tariff-enforcers themselves more than the other side. But they knew they had to send a message, and not just words. They had to show that they were willing to sacrifice for what they believed in (courage), and they had to do it together (consensus).
The specific action they passed (clarity) was something called the Articles of Association. Interestingly enough, it started with a pledge of loyalty to King George III. “Hey, King Buddy, we’re still with you. Is there a way we can settle this nicely or else?”
It also set in place a course of action – banning imports, eventually banning exports, forbidding price gouging (due to scarcity of goods), and providing the means to monitor compliance, even to the point of blocking trade with any colony that refused to play ball. The Articles went as far as discouraging extravagant entertainment and calling for frugal funerals, such as no black cloth for funeral decorations, now in short supply due to the boycott.
It would take a lot of effort to get all the colonies and colonists to comply. And they didn’t all comply. But it was a start. By the following spring, military conflict would begin in Boston, and a year and a half later North Carolina would be the first colony to declare independence. Shortly thereafter, all 13 colonies would sign the Declaration of Independence, even Georgia.
The inconceivable was being conceived.
No, you don’t have to know where you are going when you start. You don’t have to have all the steps lined out like a GPS turn-by-turn. But you do have to have something in mind, something specific. People who wait for the whole package often end up just waiting.
Those delegates had no clue that 15 years later there would be something called a Constitution. They could not have foreseen that George Washington, one of their number, would be the first President of something called “these United States of America.” I doubt most of them could even conceive of the idea of a Declaration of Independence.
But they had a plan. And they knew what their next steps were. And they took those next steps.
For those of us who are citizens of this U.S. of A., the 250th anniversary of the convening of the 1st Continental Congress is something to celebrate. We owe it to these men of privilege that they used that privilege to demonstrate courage, find consensus, and produce clarity – a good lesson in leadership.
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Public domain photo: Independence Hall, Philadelphia