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Authors: Gordon S. Wood
Tags: History
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Virginia, the Congress endorsed the fiery Resolves of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which recommended outright resistance to the Coercive Acts. But the Congress was not yet ready for independence. It came very close—failing by the vote of a single colony—to considering further and perhaps adopting a plan of union between Britain and the colonies proposed by Joseph Galloway, leader of the Pennsylvania assembly and spokesman for the conservative congressional delegates from the middle colonies. Galloway’s plan was radical enough: It called for the creation of a grand colonial council composed of representatives from each colony. Laws passed by either the American grand council or the British Parliament were to be subject to mutual review and approval.
By 1774, however, it was unlikely, even if Galloway’s plan had been adopted, that the Congress could have reversed the transfer of authority that was taking place in the colonies. In the end, the Continental Congress simply recognized the new local authorities in American politics and gave them its blessing by establishing the Continental Association. This continentwide organization put into effect the nonimportation, nonexportation, and nonconsumption of goods that the Congress had agreed on. Committees in all the counties, cities, and towns were now ordered by the Congress “attentively to observe the conduct of all persons,” to condemn publicly all violators as “enemies of American liberty,” and to “break off all dealings” with them.
Thus with the Congress’s endorsement of the Continental Association, local committees, speaking in the name of “the body of the people,” carried on the political transformation. Groups of men, from a few dozen to several thousand, marched through villages and city streets searching out enemies of the people. Suspected enemies, under threat of being tarred and feathered, were often forced to take back unfriendly words or designs against the public, to sign confessions of guilt and repentance, and to swear new oaths of friendship to the people. In all the colonies there were signs of an emerging new political order.
These remarkable political changes were not simply the product of the colonists’ resistance to British imperial reform. Britain’s attempts to reorganize its empire took place not in a vacuum, but in complicated, highly charged situations existing in each colony. In some cases these local political conditions had as much to do with the escalation of the controversy between the colonies and the mother country as did the steps taken by the British government three thousand miles away. Everywhere in the 1760s various groups in the colonies were eager to exploit popular resentment against the British reforms in order to gain local political advantage—with, however, little understanding of the ultimate consequences of their actions.
In New York, for example, political factions that were led by the well-to-do Livingston and De Lancey families vied with each other in whipping up opposition to the imperial legislation and in winning the support of popular extralegal groups such as the Sons of Liberty. Thus these gentry generally helped expand the rights and participation of the people in politics—not with the aim of furthering electoral democracy, but only for the tactical purpose of gaining control of the elective assemblies. While this sort of unplanned popularization of politics had gone on in the past, particularly in urban areas, the inflamed atmosphere generated by the imperial crisis gave it a new explosive power with unpredictable implications.
In colony after colony local and often long-standing quarrels became so entangled with imperial antagonisms that they reinforced one another in a spiraling momentum that brought all governmental authority into question. Even authorities in those colonies that were not ruled by royal governors, such as the proprietary governments of Pennsylvania and Maryland,
By 1774, however, it was unlikely, even if Galloway’s plan had been adopted, that the Congress could have reversed the transfer of authority that was taking place in the colonies. In the end, the Continental Congress simply recognized the new local authorities in American politics and gave them its blessing by establishing the Continental Association. This continentwide organization put into effect the nonimportation, nonexportation, and nonconsumption of goods that the Congress had agreed on. Committees in all the counties, cities, and towns were now ordered by the Congress “attentively to observe the conduct of all persons,” to condemn publicly all violators as “enemies of American liberty,” and to “break off all dealings” with them.
Thus with the Congress’s endorsement of the Continental Association, local committees, speaking in the name of “the body of the people,” carried on the political transformation. Groups of men, from a few dozen to several thousand, marched through villages and city streets searching out enemies of the people. Suspected enemies, under threat of being tarred and feathered, were often forced to take back unfriendly words or designs against the public, to sign confessions of guilt and repentance, and to swear new oaths of friendship to the people. In all the colonies there were signs of an emerging new political order.
These remarkable political changes were not simply the product of the colonists’ resistance to British imperial reform. Britain’s attempts to reorganize its empire took place not in a vacuum, but in complicated, highly charged situations existing in each colony. In some cases these local political conditions had as much to do with the escalation of the controversy between the colonies and the mother country as did the steps taken by the British government three thousand miles away. Everywhere in the 1760s various groups in the colonies were eager to exploit popular resentment against the British reforms in order to gain local political advantage—with, however, little understanding of the ultimate consequences of their actions.
In New York, for example, political factions that were led by the well-to-do Livingston and De Lancey families vied with each other in whipping up opposition to the imperial legislation and in winning the support of popular extralegal groups such as the Sons of Liberty. Thus these gentry generally helped expand the rights and participation of the people in politics—not with the aim of furthering electoral democracy, but only for the tactical purpose of gaining control of the elective assemblies. While this sort of unplanned popularization of politics had gone on in the past, particularly in urban areas, the inflamed atmosphere generated by the imperial crisis gave it a new explosive power with unpredictable implications.
In colony after colony local and often long-standing quarrels became so entangled with imperial antagonisms that they reinforced one another in a spiraling momentum that brought all governmental authority into question. Even authorities in those colonies that were not ruled by royal governors, such as the proprietary governments of Pennsylvania and Maryland,
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