Declaration The
Nine Tumultuous Weeks When America Became Independent, May 1-July 4, 1776 by
William Hogeland
If
you thought that Thomas Jefferson might be the central figure of this book
describing the swirl of events in Philadelphia prior to the signing of the
Declaration of Independence, you would be wrong. The central figure of this roughly 200-page book
is Pennsylvania. The keystone colony, wealthy and powerful, was the leader
among the middle colonies of Delaware, Maryland, New York and New Jersey. As voted Pennsylvania, so voted the other
mid-Atlantic colonies.
Mr.
Hogeland gives a detailed account of the controversies, intrigues and factions
that needed to come together in order for Pennsylvania and the colonies to
deliver a united declaration to break from the mother country.
In
May of 1776, Pennsylvania was voting on a new assembly. Currents of rebellion had been brewing in the
colony. A movement was afoot to gain the
vote for unpropertied, white men. The
ultimate objective of this radical faction was a dissolution of the existing
assembly and the creation of a democratic assembly, a change that would
substantially alter the balance of power in this essentially loyal British
colony. Along the way, this faction also
supported independence from Britain.
John
Dickinson, a distinguished and wealthy Pennsylvania Quaker, was both the
majority leader in the Pennsylvania assembly and the colony’s head delegate to
the Continental Congress. In 1768, Dickinson
had written and received wide recognition for his Letters from a Farmer in
Pennsylvania. In it, Dickinson
argued persuasively that English law guaranteed its (propertied) citizens
certain rights and guarantees of freedom.
The mother country had no right to tax the colonies without their
consent. Taxation without representation
was not to be tolerated! By 1776, though
Dickinson still held to this position, he had no intention of a break with
Britain. Dickinson was a
reconciliationist; he sought to reach agreement with England over any
differences whilst maintaining loyalty to the king. Neither did he support a change in the colony’s
assembly.
In
another camp, John Adams and Samuel Adams, originally enthusiastic supporters
of Dickinson, now sought to undo his influence in the Pennsylvania assembly in order
to gain passage of Virginian Richard Henry Lee’s resolution calling for the
definitive break from the mother country. The Adams cousins took advantage of the
colony’s radical movement to neutralize Dickinson and the reconciliationists in
order to promote their own agenda. In
the end, they were successful. Dickinson
and another Pennsylvanian, Robert Morris, put up no further fight by “removing
themselves from Congress.” Pennsylvania
voted for the Lee resolution 3-2. On
July 2, the “united colonies”* passed Lee’s resolution and the revolution was
official.
What
about Thomas Jefferson and his declaration? As it happened, both were still in the cutting
room the day after the historic July 2nd vote, and Jefferson winced
at the nips and tucks his colleagues made to his writing. It is instructive to note that Thomas
Jefferson is scarcely mentioned in this book prior to page 167; the book is only
187 pages long. When he does surface,
his appearance is a bit underwhelming, his contribution part of standard
operating procedure. The preamble was a rationale or contextualization of the statements
made in the resolution. It seems to have
been routine to include this sort of introduction as part of the type of
resolution Lee had written. In some
accounts though not this one, Jefferson was approached by John Adams and asked
to write an introduction or preamble to Lee’s resolution because Jefferson was
a Virginian and a good writer. Jefferson
by some accounts is said to have demurred but finally agreed.
As
Hogeland points out, a preamble is not a legal document. Lee’s resolution was the legal document. Hogeland goes on to explain that even after
the declaration had been approved, the document “…had no official title. Nobody had signed it, and usually nobody
signed such documents, except perhaps…[the] president of the Congress.” (P. 175) Hogeland more or less delivers the final reality check when he writes,
“The document lay there, and for six months members would sign when they came
to the Congress. They signed whether or
not they’d been in the room when Lee’s resolution had passed on July 2, or when
the Declaration had passed on July 4th.” (P. 176)
That
our country’s independence is celebrated on July 4th with all
accolades to Jefferson’s artful writing was a matter of some concern to John
Adams as the years went on. It’s worth
reading just the last 20 pages or so of this book in order to reflect upon the
fact that, as we and our forebears celebrate our country’s revolution, we focus
almost exclusively on Jefferson and his work.
Jefferson’s genius must be that
he was able to capture and then express in eloquent and understandable language
the spirit of revolution that motivated the people and the founders. (I've since heard it expressed that the Declaration of Independence expressed the moral rationale for independence.) The
irony is that Thomas Jefferson had very little to do with the tumult of the
nine weeks pre-ceding the decisive vote.
When
I casually pulled this book off the library shelf, I had no idea what I was
getting into. The level of detail, the
flip-flopping factions, the particular focus on Pennsylvania, John Dickinson,
the Adams cousins and Benjamin Franklin, a real operator whom I’ve not even mentioned,
was all completely unexpected. I thought
I had learned all there was to know about the Declaration of Independence from
one chapter in Benson Bobrick’s book!
Just goes to show, don’t presume. And don’t underestimate the intricacies,
depths and twists of the human mind. Who
else but rational human beings could make the cause of freedom so complicated?
This
book is well-written and to the point.
There are a few photographs embedded among the pages, somewhat difficult
to find, and there are some 50 pages of Notes.
There are no maps, but no maps are needed!
*(New
York abstained until that delegation gave its yes vote on July 19th).
