From Petition to Independence
In 1775, Congress humbly petitioned King George - and a year later, they declared independence
This continues my series marking the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution. Previously was The Battle of Bunker Hill, on 14 June 1775.
On 5 July 1775, the Second Continental Congress wrote a humbly-worded petition to King George, to "entreat your Majesty's gracious attention" to "direct some mode" of "a happy and permanent reconciliation".
Just under a year later, in the Declaration of Independence, the same Second Continental Congress called him "a Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant", and threw off his authority.
This change from 1775 to 1776 was probably inevitable. The Revolutionary War had already started; given the colonists' military successes over that year, and King George's stubbornness, it was probably inevitable they'd move to independence. But we shouldn't be surprised that they didn't start out that way. In 1775, even with the war begun, we shouldn't be surprised they wrote him an apparently-humble petition.
The humbly-worded 1775 petition (later dubbed the "Olive Branch Petition", from how it held out a figurative olive branch of peace) was addressed not to Parliament or to King George's ministers, but to the King himself. This wasn't just a matter of form. Unlike Britain's current King Charles III, King George did choose and often direct his ministers and his government. In practice, the Cabinet did have to command the confidence of Parliament, but the King could select anyone he wanted who was able to usually win Parliamentary votes. Starting from this basis, he frequently influenced their policy choices.
But more significantly, the Patriots petitioned King George because - by their political theories - he was the one who had the authority to act.
The Continental Congress explained this one day after the Olive Branch Petition, on July 6th, in the "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms": The colonies were subject to the King of England, but they had their own legislatures with power separate from the British Parliament or from the King's British ministers.
Congress, in the Declaration, was vague on exactly what if any power Parliament had over them; they didn't agree on that themselves. Some Patriots held that Parliament had authority in some fields and their colonial legislatures in others, much like the modern American federal and state governments. (They disagreed on exactly where those fields were.) Others believed that the British Parliament and each colony's legislature were equals under the same king, just like in the modern British Commonwealth where King Charles reigns as King of Britain and King of Canada but neither nation's legislature has any authority over the other.
But everyone in Congress agreed that what Parliament had done was "not only unjustifiable, but... peculiarly reprobated by the very Constitution of that Kingdom".
This was the theory under which Massachusetts had rejected the Act of Parliament reorganizing its government and formed its own Provincial Congress. By July 1775, many other colonies had formed their own Provincial Congresses too. They were, they protested, still loyal to the King. (At least for most ordinary Americans, I believe that was sincere.) But, they denied Parliament. Everything done against them - the Intolerable Acts, and the "Ministerial Army" fighting them - they blamed on Parliament and the ministers. This wasn't exactly wrong; the ministers were the ones giving the orders.
So if they petitioned King George himself - whose authority they recognized, and who had power over the ministers oppressing them - perhaps it might work?
It wouldn't work. Everything the ministers had done to America, King George approved.
The Continental Congress should have guessed that. Benjamin Franklin, now delegate from Pennsylvania, had been in London for years; he at least had good evidence. Perhaps many of them did guess. John Adams, at least, did; he shrugged at the Olive Branch Petition as hopeless.1 But many Congressmen weren't willing to believe that yet. So, they still wanted to try what many Americans wanted to work - and what many thought might have a chance of working.
By the time of the Olive Branch Petition, the war had already started at Lexington and Concord and expanded at Bunker Hill. Congress had, days before, voted for an invasion of Canada under the impression that the colonists there wanted to join the Revolution2. Meanwhile, Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, was sitting in a Royal Navy ship plotting to bombard the Patriots and restore royal authority. Tories and Whigs across America were starting to take up arms against each other in bitter local feuds.
But at the same time, the Patriots starting to fight this war had grown up loyal to the King. They'd also been loyal to the local colonial governments which Parliament and the king's ministers were fighting, so many Patriots were happy to take up arms in defense of what they were used to.
But throwing off their allegiance to their king was another matter. So, they sent this petition - petitioning the king to reverse everything his ministers had been doing. It was very unlikely to get a good answer. They should've guessed King George approved what had been happening; they must've known he was unlikely to reverse it. Every other colonial petition in the past had been brushed off.
There wasn't any further plan for negotiations with the king, because there was no one still able to carry them out. All Pitt's attempts in Parliament on their behalf had failed. After Pitt had left London in defeat, and after Franklin had sailed home (to be elected to the Continental Congress), there was no one left in a reasonable position to try. But, Congress sent this petition, carried by two Americans3, in one last hopeless attempt.
The petition was, indeed, rejected. "His Majesty did not receive it on the throne," Congress's delegates sadly reported.
Instead, King George issued a Proclamation of Rebellion, calling the Patriots traitors.
Over the next year between the Olive Branch Petition and the Declaration of Independence, the Canadian invasion failed, but other than that the war went very well for the Patriots. British efforts in Virginia came to naught; a planned invasion of North Carolina fell apart through mismanagement; General Washington eventually drove Gage and Howe out of Boston. In late summer of 1776, a much larger British army would arrive - but in spring and early summer of 1776, the Patriot cause was looking very rosy.
Yet, if Patriots continued to follow the political theories that had led Congress to send the Olive Branch Petition - all of this would mean meant little in the end. If they wanted to remain loyal to King George, they needed to convince King George in far-off England to be willing to tolerate their cause. But in fact, this war seemed to be simply making him more determined to suppress the rebellion.
This led many Americans to change their minds and support independence.
Pro-independence speakers and writers found a fruitful hearing. Some Patriot leaders, like John Adams, had been long dreaming of it. Others were newcomers to the cause - most notably, Thomas Paine, whose January 1776 tract Common Sense quickly became the bestselling book in the colonies.
I've read Common Sense, and I totally understand how electrifying it was at the time. Paine lays out a practical case that monarchy is a bad idea, that it's silly for a small nation like Britain to rule a far-off large land like America, and that independence is a practical thing. He doesn't ascend into the heights of rhetoric Jefferson later would in the Declaration of Independence, and rarely adopts the theoretical arguments about government where Jefferson echoed Locke. But, he shows why America should follow those arguments. And, people listened to him.
Not everyone agreed with independence. John Dickinson, who'd written the Olive Branch Petition, refused to sign the Declaration. That lost him his seat in Congress. Still supporting the Patriot cause, though, he reluctantly joined the Pennsylvania militia fighting for the independence he had opposed - which won him praise from his political adversary John Adams, and eventual reelection to Congress. But, many did sign - many more than would have been willing to in 1775.
In the triumphant days of mid-1776, amid military success and after a year of hostility from King George, Americans were ready to declare independence.
A year before then, in mid-1775, they weren't ready yet - but they were carving a path forward, coupled with King George's intransigence, would lead them there.
Looking back, we can see the Olive Branch Petition and the Declaration of Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms as half-measures, as an unstable position which would inevitably lead either to surrender or to independence. But, they set forth what many at the time really did believe. If King George had been more open to the Patriots' position, perhaps they would have remained loyal to him, and independence would have been averted. As it was, though, the Petition did point America down the road that would shortly lead to independence.
Adams wrote as much to a friend; his letter was captured by British soldiers and used as evidence of Congress's insincerity.
According to at least one historian, Kevin P. Phillips, this impression might have been correct. Regardless, the invasion failed, so we don't have solid evidence one way or the other. I'll talk more about that invasion later this year.
Both of the messengers remained in Britain. Arthur Lee of Virginia served as a spy for the Patriots before helping negotiate the alliance with France; Richard Penn of Pennsylvania (grandson of William Penn) retired during the war before being elected to the British Parliament in 1784.