It was autumn 1774. In British North America and on the island of Great Britain an intellectual, political and legal revolution that was intended to recognize America’s unique status within the realm would become the sword of American independence. The First Continental Congress drafted a document not for the purpose of securing liberty, but for the purpose of persuading King and Parliament that the colonists possessed the same rights, privileges and immunities as any other Englishman residing in Great Britain.[1]
On Friday, October 21, 1774, the Continental Congress appointed a committee to compose a letter to their British cousins setting forth the grievances of British North Americans under the title “The Association.” It was a lengthy address to the people of Great Britain. Initially, the committee that constituted “The Association” had set forth a series of concerns, complaints and grievances. Congress had intentionally formed the committee of delegates from the colonies of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, namely: Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Jr., Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, all of Virginia; Joseph Hewes and Richard Caswell of North Carolina; and, Henry Middleton, Thomas Lynch, Christopher Gadsden, John Rutledge, and Edward Rutledge of South Carolina.[2] John Jay of New York would be charged by the Congress to draft the letter expressing the sentiments of “The Association” as he was known as a diplomat.[3]
The names attached to “The Association” were anything but Machiavellian. The Continental Congress had with mental deftness appointed the leading political figures of the Southern colonies. These were men who were conservatives in politics, law and business. They were proprietors—the leading gentry from the South. The names attached to “The Association” were an attempt by the Continental Congress to deflect from New England’s tensions with British rule while bringing home to Englishmen living across the pond that even in the Southern colonies there was a crisis developing through neglect, mismanagement and abuse of British North Americans by Lord North and his government. (Parenthetically, as late as 1969, the English constitutional historian, Sir David Lindsay Keir, a product of his time—born 1895—ignored the growing crisis in British North America and was of the opinion that the American colonies had no right to self-rule, and were thus relegated to argue natural law.)
Let us return to “The Association” of October 1774. The address began:
Friends and fellow subjects,
WHEN a Nation, led to greatness by the hand of Liberty, and possessedof all the glory that heroism, munificence, and humanity can bestow,
descends to the ungrateful tasks of forging chains for her Friends and Children,
and instead of giving support to Freedom, turns advocate for Slavery and Oppression, there is reason to suspect she has either ceased to be virtuous, or been extremely negligent in the appointment of her rulers.[4]
The Declaration of Independence pales in relation to the opening paragraph of “The Association.” The Founding Fathers were taking their case to the people of Great Britain, Lord North and his ministers having turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to their American cousins. Turning their attention to their British cousins, the drafters of “The Association” wrote:
The cause of America is now the object of universal attention:
it has at length become very serious. This unhappy country has
not only been oppressed, but abused and misrepresented: and the
duty we owe to ourselves and posterity, to your interests, and the
general welfare of the British empire, leads us to address you on this
very important subject.[5]
The Founding Fathers then drove home that which any Englishman could not deny:
That we claim all the benefits secured to the subject by the English
constitution, and particularly the inestimable one of trial by jury.
That we hold it essential to English Liberty, that no man be
condemned unheard, or punished for supposed offenses, without
having an opportunity of making his defense.
That we think the Legislature of Great-Britain is not authorized
by the constitution to establish a religion, fraught with sanguinary
and impious tenets, or, to erect an arbitrary form of government, in any
quarter of the globe. These rights, we, as well as you, deem sacred.
And yet sacred as they are, they have, with many others, been repeatedly
and flagrantly violated.[6]
As one reads these first three points of “The Association,” one cannot help but see the Sixth Amendment’s right to counsel; the Fifth Amendment’s Procedural Due Process Clause; and the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause taking root in the fertile intellectual soil of the emerging American mind.[7]
Turning their attention to the landed gentry of Great Britain, the committee that formed “The Association” wrote:
Are not the Proprietors of Great-Britain Lords of their own property!
can it be taken from them without their consent! will they yield it to
the arbitrary disposal of any man, or number of men whatsoever! – You
know they will not.
Why then are the Proprietors of the soil of America less Lords
of their property than you are of yours, or why should they submit
it to the disposal of your Parliament, or any other Parliament, or
Council in the worlds! Can the intervention of the sea that divides us,
Cause disparity in rights, or can any reason be given, why English subjects,
who live three thousand miles from the royal palace, should enjoy less
liberty than those who are three thousand miles distant from it![8]
Here we notice “The Association” speaking in the language of the landed gentry, of men of property addressed to their cousins across the pond, men of property. This part of “The Association” is couched in economic terms with an undercurrent of equal protection of the law. It was a masterful stroke of the quill in diplomacy, law and economic thought. And yet, both King and Parliament ignored or worse, turned a deaf ear to reason.
Buried within this lengthy plea to the British people lies an olive branch. The committee wrote:
We call upon you yourselves, to witness our loyalty and attachment
to the common interest of the whole empire: Did we not, in the last
war, add all the strength of this vast continent to the force which
repelled our common enemy? Did we not leave our native shores,
and meet disease and death, to promote the success of British arms in
foreign climates? Did you not thank us for our zeal, and even reim-
burse us large sums of money, which, you confessed, we had advanced
beyond our proportion and far beyond our abilities! You did.[9]
The olive branch which the Continental Congress through “The Association” held out to the people of Great Britain was factually accurate. But did the facts, just the facts, sting? In years prior to “The Association” and the Declaration of Independence Dr. Samuel Johnson remarked: “The greater the truth, the greater the libel.” The truth which we find in “The Association” speaks to facts, to responsibility and equally important, to accountability. The facts stung. Being lectured, even diplomatically of responsibility, hit at the conscience of the British people. But accountability? To be held to an accounting of your government’s bad choices pierced the souls of Englishmen. Had the Continental Congress crossed a line which they could not undo? Or, did the people of Great Britain need to be reminded of accountability?
Three pages later “The Association” tried once again in holding out an olive branch writing: “It would be of some consolation to us, if the catalogue of American oppressions ended here.”
The olive branch here, resembles more of the carrot and the stick in the world of British politics and diplomacy. The committee which constituted “The Association,” and its chief diplomat and drafter, John Jay, could not come up with words other than those above which would have conveyed their mixed feelings for their mother country while recognizing just the facts of what was transpiring before their very eyes.
Near the end of their ten page letter to the people of Great Britain, we read these words: “We believe there is much virtue, much justice, and much public spirit in the English nation–To that justice we now appeal.”[10] Had the words of the Continental Congress come too late in the day to persuade Englishmen residing three thousand miles away of their just cause?
On January 20, 1775, The Right Honorable the Earl of Chatham supported by Lord Camden, a distinguished member of the Bar and a leading advocate of civil liberties, made a motion in the House of Lords to repeal the Coercive Acts and withdraw British troops from the colonies stating: “ ‘I tell you the Acts must be repealed. … My Lords, there is no time to be lost; every moment is big with dangers. Nay, while I am now speaking the decisive blow may be struck, and millions are involved in the consequence.’”[11] That said, Chatham’s motion was “heavily defeated.”[12]
Three days later, on January 23, 1775, Edmund Burke rose in Parliament and made a motion to repeal the Coercive Acts. Burke was a tour de force in British politics, but even he could not carry the day. His motion on conciliation with America was defeated on a vote of 82 to 197. [13] “Next, Chatham got introduced in the lower house a bill conceding every practical point demanded by Congress; it was roundly defeated.”[14]
Lord North did not help his government. Adding salt to the wound, the Prime Minister “pushed through Parliament a resolution providing that if any colony would raise the costs of its own government, plus a proper quota (determined in England) for defense, Parliament would forbear to tax the colony, and would pay the customs duties collected within its borders into the colony treasury.”[15]
The handwriting was on the wall. Lord Chatham had predicted as much in his January 20 speech to the Lords. On April 19, 1775, General Gage’s troops fired upon the colonists at Lexington and Concord. “The shot heard round the world” forever changed the course of British and American history.[16] King George and Lord North found themselves in a guerilla war–one which British troops were unfamiliar with; one that was not reduced to writing in any text on warfare.
On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution calling for American independence.[17] The die had been cast by the future governor of the Commonwealth. On July 2, 1776, Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. As the members of Congress walked out of Independence Hall, Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Dr. Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Dr. Franklin replied, “A Republic if you can keep it.”[18]
As I do every July Fourth, I shall sit back on my sofa amid an evening repast and re-read the Declaration of Independence – rededicating myself to the principles of liberty which the Founding Fathers held so dear.[19]
Happy Fourth of July!
Notes
[1] See 1 Samuel Eliot Morrison, Henry Steele Commager and William E. Leuchtenburg, The Growth of the American Republic 161 (6th ed., New York: Oxford University Press 1969)); see also Mary Beth Norton, 1774: The Long Year of Revolution (New York: Penguin/Random House 2020).
[2] See 1 Journal of the Continental Congress 81 (October 21, 1774).
[3] See 1 Journal of the Continental Congress 81 note 2 (October 21, 1774).
[4] See 1 Journal of the Continental Congress 82 (October 21, 1774).
[5] See 1 Journal of the Continental Congress 82 (October 21, 1774).
[6] See 1 Journal of the Continental Congress 83 (October 21, 1774).
[7] See Alison L. LaCroix, The Ideological Origins of American Federalism passim (1st ed., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 2011); see also Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1st ed., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1967).
[8] See 1 Journal of the Continental Congress 83 (Oct. 21, 1774).
[9] See 1 Journal of the Continental Congress at 84 (Oct. 21, 1774). [Italics added].
[10] See 1 Journal of the Continental Congress at 89 Oct. 21, 1774) [Italics added].
[11] See 1 Samuel Eliot Morison et al., The Growth of the American Republic at 164 (6th ed., 1969); see also, “The speech of The Right Honorable the Earl of Chatham, in the House of Lords, Jan. 20, 1775, on the following motion by his Lordship [for removing His Majesty’s troops from the town of Boston,” Library of Congress.
[12] Id.
[13] Id. at 164-65.
[14] Id. at 165.
[15] Id.
[16] See 1 Samuel Eliot Morison et al., The Growth of the American Republic 165 (6th ed. 1969).
[17] See Joseph Fred Benson, June 7, 1776, Mr. Lee’s Resolution on Independence, Jurist, July 4, 2021.
[18] See Independence National Historic Park, September 17, 1787: A Republic, If You Can Keep It, National Park Service.
[19] For those who want to learn more about the Declaration of Independence see, Carl L. Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (1st ed., New York.: Harcourt, Brace and Company 1922.) For movie buffs, 1776 which speaks to the Founding Fathers’ struggles in drafting of the Declaration of Independence will be on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), July 4, 2026 at Noon, Eastern Daylight Time).
Rabbi Joseph Fred Benson, a native of University City, Missouri, received an A.B. cum laude in English Legal History; American Legal History; and Political Science, American National Politics with an emphasis in Constitutional Law 1976; A.M. in American Legal History with an emphasis in Constitutional Law 1977; J.D., 1985, Saint Louis University; Semichah/Rabbinic Ordination 2007, Saint Louis Beis Din/Rabbinical Court. He served as the first Supreme Court Archivist – Legal Historian to the Supreme Court of Missouri (2000-2015). In retirement, Rabbi Benson teaches Hebrew to adults in Jefferson City and officiates at life cycle events throughout Mid-Missouri. He is also a provocateur of articles appearing in the Missouri Lawyer’s Weekly; St. Louis Jewish Light; and the Catholic Missourian. His first article in JURIST appeared on July 4, 2020, titled “The Real Independence Day: July 2, 1776.”
