From Compulsion, Nothing

In October 1774, a congressional committee with Richard Henry Lee at the helm drafted a Petition to the King. The petition invited “royal attention” to colonial grievances in pursuit of a peaceful resolution to the mounting crisis. That petition died in Parliament, starved of attention, but it wasn’t the last formal attempt by the Continental Congress to seek conciliation with the mother country. Another attempt in the summer of 1775, milder in tone, and with the Congress divided on the weight and wisdom of the measure, found its way to Lord Dartmouth. Tune in this month to hear the tale of the so-called Olive Branch Petition, a last-ditch diplomatic overture that failed to re-leash the dogs of war, leaving the path to independence wide open. Listen now to From Compulsion, Nothing.

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Transcript

SM 3:4

From Compulsion, Nothing 

Intro: This month on Stratford Mail, an 11th-hour attempt to re-leash the dogs of war and reconcile with mother England in the wake of Bunker Hill.

In the aftermath of Lexington & Concord, Massachusetts patriot Dr. Joseph Warren was nearing the breaking point, but he hadn’t yet given up on reconciliation with mother England. In his April 27, 1775 letter to colony agent Dr. Arthur Lee in London, Warren wrote: The next news from England must be conciliatory, or the connexion between us ends, however fatal the consequences may be … If any thing is proposed which may be for the honour and safety of Great Britain and these Colonies, my utmost efforts will not be wanting to effect a reconciliation. 

Warren was killed in battle at Bunker Hill, where, despite being made to retreat, the Continental Army emerged encouraged and emboldened by virtue of its now demonstrated capability for inflicting appreciable loss on British forces. Even with the body count mounting on both sides, some colonial leaders hadn’t despaired of reconciliation with the Crown, chief among them John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, author of the wildly influential Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. Letters from a Farmer persuaded many colonists that they were victims of British overreach and urged lawful economic resistance to the unlawful taxes imposed by the Townshend Acts of 1767. Dickinson consistently preferred to meet and defeat unconstitutional and innovative oppressions with a coolly-reasoned assertion of legal precedents, historical rights, and constitutional forms of dissent. 

For Dickinson, persuasion, boycotts, and lawful refusals were key to retaining the high ground. Political dissent and resistance were more or less normal fixtures of the political landscape, but mob violence and the destruction of private property put at risk the integrity of the patriot cause. Dickinson therefore opposed the Stamp Act riots and the Boston Tea Party. And Dickinson’s later opposition to independence wasn’t a failure of patriotic will, but rather sprang from practical misgivings about what he famously called our intent to brave the storm in a skiff made of paper. What he meant was, as he argued in the debate on the Lee resolution on July 1st: When our Enemies are pressing Us so vigorously, When We are in so wretched a State of Preparation, When the Sentiments & Designs of our expected Friends are so unknown to Us, I am alarm’d at this Declaration being so vehemently presented.

Arthur Lee had known John Dickinson since mid-summer 1768 when he’d relocated from Williamsburg to Philadelphia, where he collaborated with Dickinson on encouraging Philadelphians to resist British overreach through petition campaigns and commercial boycotts. Arthur had been inspired by Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer to try his own hand at political writing, and in 1768 published under the pseudonym ‘Monitor’ a series of essays that were companion pieces to Dickinson’s Letters. Despite Lee’s move to London later that summer, the two men kept up a regular correspondence, exchanging views on political developments as tensions between England and its colonies deepened toward full-blown crisis. Dickinson hoped that cooler heads would prevail, and attributed the crisis to the outsized influence of what he termed Villains and Idiots in the ministry of Lord North. In October 1774, Dickinson wrote to Lee, Why should Nations meet with hostile Eyes, because Villains & Ideots have acted like Villains & Ideots? Still, Dickinson was under no illusions, and his hope was tempered with doubt: I wish for peace ardently; but must say, delightful as it is, it will come more grateful by being unexpected. 

The peace he longed for did not come, and Dickinson found himself at the center of last ditch efforts to put the brakes on a war already afoot and to explain the American rationale for taking up arms against His Majesty’s troops. Nine days after Bunker Hill, the Continental Congress appointed Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson to a committee charged with drafting a document justifying organized armed resistance. Drafted by Jefferson, revised extensively by Dickinson, and adopted by Congress on July 6, 1775, the final draft called Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms stated the cause succinctly: We are reduced to the alternative of chusing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force. The latter is our choice. At the same time, the Declaration assured friends and fellow-subjects elsewhere that We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent states. It allowed for reconciliation, but made clear that if the terms were unreasonable, Americans were confident in their strength of arms. The Declaration also allowed the King a degree of rhetorical latitude, attributing the necessity of resistance to the tyranny of bad actors, of toxic ministers in the government of Lord North. Finally, the overall tone of the Declaration was resolute: Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. Though, of course, foreign assistance hadn’t yet been attained. 

Such confident defiance offered a robust counterpoint to another document adopted by Congress only one day earlier, on July 5th. That document was The Humble Petition of the Delegates of the Colonies to HIs Majesty or the so-called Olive Branch Petition. The Olive Branch petition was drafted by the same committee that drafted the Declaration of Causes (minus Thomas Jefferson and William Livingston). Its primary author was John Dickinson, and it differed in substance and tone from the Declaration of Causes, though it shared the presumption that Villains & Idiots had spoiled the King’s connection to his colonies. The petition put the colonies in a rhetorical position of humble petitioners seeking the relief of a rational and compassionate monarch. It underscored the important benefits of union, chalked up the strife to machinating ministers, and made this pitch: Attached to your Majesty’s person, family, and government, with all devotion that principle and affection can inspire; connected with Great Britain by the strongest ties that can unite societies, and deploring every event that tends in any degree to weaken them, we solemnly assure your Majesty that we not only most ardently desire the former harmony between her and these Colonies may be restored, but that a concord may be established between them upon so firm a basis as to perpetuate its blessings, uninterrupted by any future dissensions, to succeeding generations in both countries. Dickinson later wrote a letter explaining the petition to Arthur Lee: 

Before this comes to Hand, You will have receiv’d, I presume, the Petition to the King. You will perhaps at first be surpriz’d, that We make no Claim, and mention no Right. But I hope [on] considering all Circumstances, You will be [of] opinion, that this Humility in an address [to] the Throne is at present proper.

Our Rights [have] been already stated – our Claims made – [War] is actually begun, and We are carrying it on Vigor[ously.] This Conduct & our other Publications will shew, [that our] spirits are not lowered. If Administration [be] desirous of stopping the Effusion of British [blood] the opportunity is now offered to them [by this] unexceptionable Petition, praying for [an] Accommodation. If they reject this appl[ication] with Contempt, the more humble it is, [the more] such Treatment will confirm the Minds of [our] Countrymen, to endure all the Misfortunes [that] may attend the Contest.  

In a November pamphlet addressed to the British public under the pseudonym ‘an old member of Parliament,’ Arthur Lee echoed Dickinson’s claim about the temperate tone of the colonial petition, to which he added, from Conciliation we may expect every thing–from compulsion nothing. Till we learn this lesson–till we remember that free spirits may be led, but cannot be driven, we shall never know the true art of governing. On July 8th, the Olive Branch sailed to England in the care of Richard Penn Jr. of Pennsylvania, who joined Arthur Lee in London on August 21. On September 1, Penn and Lee formally presented the petition to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Dartmouth, who eventually delivered it to King George III. If timing is everything, the timing here was catastrophic. News of Bunker Hill had already reached London and George III responded with the Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, which on August 23rd (7 days before Lee and Penn go to Dartmouth) declared the colonies to be in open and avowed rebellion, and its residents traitorously preparing, ordering, and levying war against us. The Proclamation put paid to the fiction that Congress was really contending with Parliament and not the King. It now became impossible to separate Villians & Idiots from the King himself, and this would be made clear in the Declaration of Independence adopted on July 4, 1776. In the meantime, Penn and Lee were reclassified as rebels before the Olive Branch reached Dartmouth. When Penn and Lee pressed Dartmouth for the King’s response, Dartmouth answered: As His Majesty did not receive it on the Throne, no answer would be given. In point of fact, no answer was an answer, and, after all, what remained to be said that hadn’t been clarified by the Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition. 

Arthur Lee published the full text of the ‘Olive Branch’ petition in the London papers, following up in November with a pamphlet under his pseudonym ‘an old member of Parliament.’ In that pamphlet, written in the guise of a loyal Briton, he complains of the ungracious reception of Congress’ petition and bemoans the contemptuous rejection of every really conciliatory proposition. Lee entertains the objection that the petition isn’t on the level, writing: The colonies have been accused of not intending the conciliation they implore; because while they hold the olive branch in one hand, they brandish the drawn sword in the other. Their humble petition to the throne was accompanied, it is said, with an address to the people, and a declaration of their reafons for taking up arms. While they sue for peace, they are preparing for war. The imagined objection, that the Olive Branch was little more than a political ploy, wasn’t unreasonable–the Declaration and the Olive Branch, adopted by Congress a day apart, seemed to pull in different directions. This wasn’t due to studied duplicity or deceit on the part of Congress, but was rather reflective of real differences in Congress, disagreements about what diplomacy might yet achieve. In his autobiography, John Adams recalled, Mr. Richard Penn had sailed for England, and carried the Petition, from which Mr. Dickenson and his party expected Relief. I expected none, and was wholly occupied in measures to support the Army and the Expedition into Canada. Congress and Dickinson learned the fate of the Olive Branch on November 9, 1775, by which time an invading Continental Army under major general Richard Montgomery sat on the doorstep of Montreal. As for Dickinson, he neither backtracked on his practical misgivings about what he considered a premature decision on independence nor did he surrender his hope that cooler heads might prevail across the Atlantic, but he did not allow his hope to derail what seemed to be the will of the people. He was absent from the Pennsylvania State House on July 2, 1776, enabling Pennsylvania to return a ‘yes’ vote on the Lee Resolution for independence. After Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence two days later, Dickinson retired to his Kent county estate in Delaware, the state which sent him back to Congress as its delegate in 1779, a story for another day. 

Outro      

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