USA > New York > Organization of the Revolutionary movement in New York State, 1775-77 > Part 10
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if the majority of the Counties shall be of opinion that such new Government ought to be instituted, then to institute and establish such a Government.
Although this was quoting out of context with a vengeance, it presented the Congress with an acute dilemma. If it denied the veracity of the meaning, then the people could accuse it of "promoting the selfish views of ... oligarchy." On the other hand, if Congress accepted the Mechanics' explication, the people would regard its acceptance as a pledge to refer 1 the constitution to the people for ratification.
1. They warned Congress: "Posterity will behold that Resolve as the test of your rectitude. It will prove that you have fully restored to us the exercise of our right finally to determine on the laws by which this Colony is to be governed; a right of which, by the injustice of the British Government, we have till now been deprived .... " Ibid.
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Expounding on the necessity and propriety of reliance upon the "sound judgment, integrity, and moderation of a free people," the letter confuted emphatically the idea that any man or men could draft a con- stitution to which a majority of the people would have no objections whatsoever. The people's free assent constituted the "only charac- teristick of the true lawfulness and legality that can be given to human institutions." Any other procedure smacked of the "illegal and tyrannical," and proceeded "from the selfish principles of corrupt oligarchy." Furthermore, fundamental law derived in this arbitrary fashion "could be lawfully binding on none but the legislators then- Belves." Asserting that the British had deprived the colonists of the right to determine their own laws, the Mechanics argued that ex-
isting laws "have but a relative legality, and that not one of them is lawfully binding upon us." They added, however, that these laws should be "tolerated" for "common conveniency" until a new government " shall have been freely ratified by the co-legislative power of the people, the sole lawful Legislature of this Colony." Finally, the power to ratify connotes the power to amend the fundamental law whenever the majority shall choose. Associated with this authority is the right of the people to recall their deputies to committees and congresses when a majority in such "district shall think fit."
Despite these strictures the communication welcomed the reso- lutions and extended to Congress
that tribute of esteem and respect to which you are justly entitled for your zeal in so nobly asserting the rights which the people at large have to legislation, and in pro- moting their free exercise of those rights.1
1. Ibid.
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At the same time the Mechanics pledged their continued support for 1
Congress.
The reaction of Congress to this letter was extraordinary. Congress customarily read its correspondence and entered it.in the Journal. Indeed, a previous Mechanics' letter of May 29 did receive 2 this treatment, but the congressmen did not adhere to the precedent. There is no notation in the Journal of the letter's receipt or of any discussion of it. 3 Since Congress did not ultimately submit the con- stitution to the people for ratification, it is perhaps possible that some of the deputies never intended to have the people affirm it and, therefore, managed to bury the Mechanics' letter. Failing to obtain any response from Congress, the Mechanics presumably sent their letter to the newspapers to place the issue before the people. In the city's military atmosphere in June, 1776, and with most of populace evacuated, the Mechanics aroused little response from the people on the ratifica- tion dispute.
1. They maintained, likewise, their right to express their opinions "with propriety" and to rely "on public indulgence for any imperfection."
2. Jour, Prov, Cong., I, 474.
3. The Congress must have received the letter, since it was found among that body's papers and published with its papers along with the Journal. Moreover, it is quite likely that a group of Mechanics Committee leaders attended Congress to present their letter, since they had followed this procedure with their first letter on June 4. Ibid., II, 241-43.
4. Subsequent events gave the advantage to the Mechanics' opponents. The rapid exodus of the population in June would have hampered any large scale effort to bring pressure to bear on Congress. Also the appearance of the British at the end of the month threw everything into turmoil; Congress adjourned hurriedly and left the city.
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Although the people read occasionally about some aspects of the government question in the newspapers, they read about, and probably discussed, even more frequently the correlative issue of independence. Even though no formal debate on this question had occurred in the Third Congress, New Yorkers had read the pros and cons of the subject in the 1 newspapers for five months. "Lycurgus" introduced the topic in the. .
press in late December, 1775, when he castigated the Pennsylvania As- sembly for forbidding their delegates to the Continental Congress to vote for independence. He did not espouse the opposing position,
1 but contended that the blank prohibition bound the delegation when no one could foretell what would be necessary in the future. Although "Lycurgus" discussed independence obliquely, "Memento" confronted it squarely and unhesitatingly advocated separation rather than submission 2 Paine's Common Sense inspired other letters to the British "yoke."
which advocated an end to colonialism. "Independent Whig" saw nothing to lose and everything to gain by separation. The North administration is convinced we mean to be independent, he reasoned, and we shall lose no friends by asserting our intent. As for those in Parliament who have opposed the North measures, we shall experience small loss by their alienation. For all their friendship for America they have proved in-
1. N. Y. J., 21 December 1775.
2. N. Y. P., 25 January 1776. See also the anonymous piece quoted in John C. Hamilton, The Life of Alexander Hamilton; A History of the Re- public of the United States of America, as Traced in His Writing and in Those of His Contemporaries, 1,112 (hereafter cited as Life) .
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capable of blocking the government's policies. 1
"Candidus" assailed British regulation of land, commerce and manufactures, concluding that the colonial system sought to "milk rather than to suckle" the colonies. Turning his wrath pr colonial officialdom, he accused them of carrying on "their oppressions, vexations and depredations" under the color of royal authority.
2
Hardly a week passed from late February through June in which the newspapers did not carry at least one contribution to the great controversy. The writers reviewed the causes of the crisis and the 3 colonists' constitutional relations to crown and Parliament. One of the authors disclosed the progress of the sentiment for independence by elaborating the stages which public opinion kad traversed. Events compelled the people to abendon these positions as illusory:
That the King can do no wrong; that the interests of Great Britain and the colonies were the same, reciprocal and inseperable; ... that the King was imposed upon by his ministers: that a change in administration would rectify the evils complained of; ... that our friends throughout the nation would return a better parliament than the last; that the act declaring their right to tax us in all cases whatsoever, would not be carried into execution, ... that the several repeals and seeming
1. R. Y. J., 22 February 1776. See also anon., ibid., 7 March 1776; "Z. F., " N. Y. P., 7 March 1776.
2. Ibid., 21 March 1776. See also anon .. ibid., 18 April 1776; Torce, op. cit., 4th Ser., V, 974-77.
3. Anon., N. Y. J., 4 April 1776; anon., anon. "Queries," "Amicus Patriae, " anon., Const, Gaz., 9, 30 March, 5 June, 3 July 1776; "Speech of & Farmer," "A. B.," "To the Freeborn Sons of America in General and of Connecticut in Particular, " "Hector, " anon., "Independent Whig," N. Y. P., 14, 21 March, 11, 18 April 1776; "Cato" no. 3, 20 April 1776, Hamilton, Life, 1, 113,
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alterations in their plan of conduct, proved a relinquish- ment of any evil intentions; ... that we have no resources to carry on a war; that jealousies and opposition of in- terests would ever prevent a junction of the colonies. 1
A notable alteration of content in these polemics occurred toward the close of April. No writer any longer questioned the propriety of inde- pendence. When differences cropped up, they revolved around the timing of the separation. The letter writers pronounced the present as most 2 propitious for independence and warned against delay.
Notwithstanding the inaction of the Provincial Congress, the . Tories feared the worst:
There is a great talk of independence, and the unthinking multitude are mad for it; but how matters will terminato, I cannot judge, but believe great will be the opposition [in Congress] to such & declaration. A pamphlet called Common Sense, has carried off its thousands; an answer thereto is come out, but instantly seized in the printer's shop, and burnt in the street, as unfit to be read at this time. I fear, from this line of conduct, the people here will shake you off, and, once gone, will never be regained.3
Try as some deputies might, they could not avoid the issue of
independence. Gouverneur Morris spoke at length upon the topic in
1. Anon., Const. Gaz., 9 March 1776.
2. "Serious Questions Addressed to the Congress, " Force, op. cit., 4th Ser .. V, 1078-79; anon., Const. Gaz., 8 May 1776; "Hermina, " "Columbus, " N. Y. J., 16 May, 13 June 1776.
There is some evidence for believing that the prevalence of these pro-independence letters was directly proportional to the general senti- ments of the populace. Britisher Ambrose Serle expressed amazement at the "incredible influence" of the newspapers in New York. "One is astonished to see with what avidity they are sought after, and how im- plicitly they are believed, by the great bulk of the people." Serle to Dartmouth, 26 November 1776, Stevens, op. cit., XXIV, no. 2059.
3. Anon., Letter from New York, 22 March 1776, The Remembrancer, 1776, p. 85. See also Joseph Full to Henry Remsen, 1 June 1776, Force, op. cit., 4th Ser .. VI, 672.
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May in the course of the debate on creating a new government, but the question of independence was not on the order of the day. The Me- chanics Committee, however, raised the question when it drew up an address to the Congress urging that body to instruct the delegates at Philadelphia to work for independence. 1 Although the Mechanics' letter bore the date of May 29, the Committee did not present it to their repre- sentatives until June 4. Presumably, the Mechanics delayed delivery until they had word of the Congress's decision on the matter of govern- ment. If so, an item in the New York Gazette of June 3, which also carried the Congress's resolutions of May 31, must have stirred them. The news was the text of the Virginia resolutions instructing their continental delegates to move for independence. 2
Congress's reaction to the Mechanics' letter reveals clearly their censitivity to the question of independence. When the repre- sentation from the Mechanics in Union led by their chairman, Lewis Thibou, entered the house and presented the address, the chair first cleared the house of all spectators so that Congress might determine whether it was "proper" to receive the memorial. Having "inspected" the document, the congressmen opened the doors and invited Thibou to read it to the house. Although the Journal neither mentions any time lapse in the inspection process, nor describes what Congress did, the house handed Thibou a formal, detailed reply when he finished reading
1. Becker, op. cit., p. 270.
2. N. Y. G., 3 June 1776.
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the Mechanics' letter. 1
The answer betrayed resentment at the po-
litical activity of the Mechanics:
We flatter ourselves, however, that neither that asso- ciation, nor their Committee, will claim any authority whatsoever in the public transactions of the present times; but that, on the contrary, they will ever be ready to submit to that constitutional authority which, by a free election, has been vested in Congress and Committees.2
The point was wholly gratuitous, since the Mechanics not only had not claimed such authority, but had been very deferential:
We as part of your constituents ... beg leave in a dutiful manner at this time, to approach unto you our Repre- sentatives, and request your kind attention to this our humble Address ... should you ... think proper to instruct our most honourable Delegates ... it would give us the highest satisfaction; and we hereby sincerely promise to endeavour to support the same with our lives and fortunes.3
Congress then declined to accede to the Mechanics' plea;
We are of opinion that the Continental Congress alone have that enlarged view of our political circumstances, which will enable them to decide upon those measures which are necessary for the general welfare; we cannot
1. Jour, Prov. Cong., I, 474. The vagueness and brevity of the record suggest abnormal procedure. Normally all motions and resolutions were entered in the Journal. Congress could not have drawn up the reply without some motion or order which they ought to have recorded, but none appears in the Journal.
2. Ibid. Since these remarks were completely irrelevant, they may have served the dual function of inhibiting the Mechanics' political aggressiveness and of obscuring the key issue which was not any Me- chanics' claim to authority, but Congress's refusal to move on the question of independence. The Mechanics later asserted their right to speak up when they saw fit. Mechanics to Provincial Congress, 14 June 1776, ibid., II, 243.
3. N. Y. J., 6 June 1776; Const. Gar., 5 June 1776; Force, op. cit., 4th Ser., VI, 615.
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presume, by any instructions, to make or declare any resolutions, or declarations, upon a so general and momentous concern: but are determined patiently to await and firmly to abide by whatever a majority of that august body shall think needful. We therefore cannot presume to instruct the Delegates of this Colony on the momentous question to which your address refers, until we are informed that it is brought before the Continental Congress, and the sense of this Colony be required through this Congress.1
The Third Congress's disinclination to act on independence seems to have dashed the hopes of the enthusiasts who began to look toward the 2
election of the Fourth Congress to remedy the colony's laggardness.
Meanwhile the Virginia Convention, taking steps to win support for its decision to introduce an independence resolution in Philadelphia, posted off a letter to New York which solicited the latter to give the Virginia resolves due "consideration." The New York Congress received this letter June 5, two days after the resolves had appeared in the
1. Underscoring mine. The underscored passage does not appear in the letter as published in the press, but appears only in the Journal's version. This passage and the following sentence are in fact mutually exclusive. Since the Continental Congress delegates could not act without instructions from their congresses, a decision on independence could not be taken until colonies like New York instructed their deputies for it. It is inconceivable that the Provincial Congress could have thought that the people did not know this fact. It is not unlikely that these words were the consequence of the haste with which Congress drafted their reply to the Mechanics. Perhaps some members noticed the inconsistency when they prepared copies of the letter for the newspapers and deleted the clause. Jour, Prov. Cong., I, 474; N.I.J., 6 June 1776; Const. Gaz., 5 June 1776.
2. Colonel Jedidiah Huntington wrote Governor Trumbull of Connecticut, 6 June 1776: "The mechanicks of the city have voted independence; it is expected the new Congress will follow muit. There will be, I am told, a majority of Presbyterians, which will probably give the representation a different guise from what it has heretofore had." Force, op. cit .. 4th Ser., VI, 725.
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C.
Gazette. Drafted by Jay and Morris, Congress's answer constituted a polite evasion. £ The firmest commitment in the message was a pledge that the resolves "will be considered .. . with all the deliberation due to the importance of the subject." Perhaps to offset the indefinite- ness of its response, Congress concluded in a tone of affirmation: the Congress of this Colony will invariably adopt and pursue every measure which may tend to promote the union and secure the rights and happiness of the United Colonies.1
Unlike their colleagues at home, the New York delegation in the Continental Congress could not avoid the question of Independence.
2 Virginia presented its motion for independence June 7 and the debate flowed on through June 10. None of the New Yorkers seem to have sanctioned independence, at least not at that juncture, but they di- vided as to whether they had the power to cast any vote or only a
1. The Journal is so cut and dried that it is impossible to determine whether there was any opposition to the substance. Jour, Prov. Cong., 1, 475, 481.
2. Becker, op. cit., p. 271. In view of the supreme importance of the independence cuestion, one would suppose that the representatives would have explained to their colleagues in New York that the debate had commenced. That would have been the fact of the matter, since they dated their letter June 8, the second day of disputation, and one of them had participated in the exchanges. Nevertheless, they gave no intimation of this state of affairs: "Your delegates here ex- pect that the question of Independence will very shortly be agitated in Congress ... and all wish to have your sentiments thereon. The matter will admit of no delay." Jour. Prov. Cong., 1, 488.
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1
negative vote on the motion. Undaunted by his voteless status, Robert R. Livingston joined Wilson, Dickinson and Rutledge in the op- position. Averring their approbation of the measure and admitting the impossibility of a return to the status quo ante, they insisted, nevertheless, that the most propitious moment had not arisen. Let
"the voice of the people drive" Congress to it, they said. As for New York, Livingston maintained that the people of that province were 2 not yet "ripe" for the break, but that they were "fast ripening."
The first part of Livingston's characterization certainly ar-
plied to the Provincial Congress. When the continental delegates!
1. Edward Rutledge implied to Say that Clinton, Floyd, Lewis, Wisner and Alsop of New York opposed independence. The tore of the letter leads to the inference that Jay held similar views, an inference which Jay's reply buttresses: "Your ideas of men and things. . . run, for the most part, parallel with my own .... " Rutledge to Jay, 29 June 1776, Jay to Rutledge, 6 July 1776, Johnston, op. cit., I, 67, 68; Edmund C. Burnett, ed., Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, I, 517 (hereafter cited as Letters).
When the Continental Congress resumed the discussion July 1, the New Yorkers assured their colleagues that they approved the declaration and #were assured their constituents were for it." Mckean of Delaware, long after the event, positively stated that Winner voted for independ- ence July 2. Since New York cast no vote, he may have meant that, Wisner approved independence. Burnett, Continental Congress, p. 184; Julian P. Boyd, et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, I, 314; Burnett, Letters, I, no. 753, n. 3.
The June 8 letter of the New Yorkers contained this interpretation of their authority: "Some of us consider ourselves as bound by cur in- structions not to vote on that question .... " Since none of them seem to have been thinking of voting yes, the implication is that some thought they had power to vote no. Jour, Frov. Cong., I, 488. For a different view, see Becker, op. cit., p. 271.
2. Jefferson's Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress, Boyd, Op. cit., I, 309; Rutledge to Jay, 8 June 1776, Johnston, OP. cit., I, 66, p.1.
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letter reached the city on the morning of June 10, Congress promptly resolved itself into secret cession to deliberate on the matter, but it deliberated inconclusively. 1 Late that afternoon the deputies wrestled again with the problem, wrangling over the interpretation of Congress's powers, the continental delegates' powers, and the election resolutions of May 31. The latter reference provided Jay with a strata- gem to postpone any decision until the new Congress would meet in July . On the next day he introduced two resolutions which the congressmen amended and passed unanimously. The first of these declared That the good people of this Colony have not, in the opinion of this Congress, authorized this Congress or the Delegates of this Colony ... to declare this Colony to be and continue independent of the Crown of Great Britain.2
The second resolve proposed that the people at the June election invest their representatives with sweeping discretionary power
to deliberate and determine on every question whatso- ever that may concern or affect the interest of this Colony, and to conclude upon, ordain, and execute every act and measure which to them shall appear conducive to the happiness, security and welfare of this Colony .... 3
The final clause recommended the electors to "inform" their deputies of their "sentiments" on independence.
1. Jour, Prov. Conc., 1, 488. The resort to secrecy is a cardinal indication of the majority's attitude toward independence.
2. Ibid., I, 489, 490. See Becker, op. cit., pp. 271-72 and n. 103. 3. Jour, Prov. ConE-, I, 490.
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Having blocked any positive action until July, Congress re- versed itself and nullified its unanimous agreement. It voted to postpore publication of the resolutions until after the elections. Since the resolutions could not take effect without the elections, Congress would have to revise the former at a later date to provide for a special referendum. If this were not true, the motion to post- 1
pone publication renders the resolves meaningless. The parliamentary meaning of the postponement was that Congress had moved to reconsider the previously adopted motions. However, such immediate reconsidera- tion was a violation of rule six of the Congress's own rules of procedure: That after the determination of any matter or thing, the same shall not be resumed but with the consent of such majority as aforesaid, upon notice of a motion for that purpose, previously given at least one day before the same is made .2 .
Nevertheless, after empowering Jay and Remsen to "draft an answer" for the direction of the Philadelphia deputies, the house dropped the whole 3 subject.
The Jay-Remsen draft denied the colony's delegates any authority to vote on independence. If Congress formally approved the letter, it did not record its action in the Journal. The reply reiterated the sense of the first resolution on the lack of power to act. It pro- fessed to see that the question of independence would be divisive and
1. Becker, op. cit., p. 272, n. 103. The letter to Philadelphia spe- cifically states that a later election will be held on the question of independence. Force, op. cit., 4th Ser., VI, 814.
2. Underscoring mine. The rules adopted by the Third Congress are in the Journal, 1, 450.
3. Ibid., I, 490.
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would exercise "an unhappy influence" on the cognate question of a new government should both problems be submitted simultaneously to the -
electorate. Hence it would be "imprudent" to obtrude the first matter 1 upon the people. Congress assured their representatives:
the earliest opportunity will, however, be embraced of ascertaining the sentiments of the inhabitants of this' Colony on that important question .... 2
Since Livingston and his Associates in Philadelphia knew that €
the Continental Congress would resume the subject of independence July 1, this information from New York must have made it clear that they would . be without power to vote on the question. The delegates know that the scheduled elections would occupy the third, if not also the fourth, week of June. They could not receive their authorization to vote, based on an independence referendum, before July 1. Proof of the delegates'
knowledge of the situation in New York derives from the following. Jay specifically promised Livingston that he should have the "earliest advice" of the May 31 resolutions on forming a government. Two of the delega- tion, Alsop and Lewis, who had visited home, did not set out for Phil- adelphia until June 1, so they possessed all the necessary information. Moreover, Gouverneur Morris arrived in Philadelphia June 10, so there 3 was no dearth of news from the Provincial Congress. Nonetheless, when
1. Force, op. cit., 4th Ser., VI, 814; Becker, op. cit., p. 271. Becker incorrectly uses "inexpedient" for "imprudent."
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