“Some among us urge strongly for Independency”

In August 1822, Timothy Pickering invited John Adams to do something the retired President really liked doing: explaining how he was close to the center of the most important decisions of the American Revolution.

Just four days after Pickering sent his letter from Salem, Adams responded with a long account of how the Continental Congress came to declare independence 250 years ago.

He started with a vivid word picture of the Massachusetts delegation to the First Continental Congress being “met at Frankfort [Frankford] by Dr [Benjamin] Rush, Mr [Thomas] Mifflin, Mr [John] Bayard and several others of the most active Sons of Liberty, in Philadelphia.”

That meeting was on 29 Aug 1774, according to Adams’s diary. At that time he wrote:

A Number of Carriages and Gentlemen came out of Phyladelphia to meet us. Mr. Thomas Mifflin, Mr. [Thomas] McKean of the Lower Counties [Delaware], one of their Delegates, Mr. [Edward or John] Rutledge of Carolina, and a Number of Gentlemen from Philadelphia. Mr. [Nathaniel] Folsom and Mr. [John] Sullivan, the N. Hampshire Delegates. We were introduced to all these Gentlemen and most cordially wellcomed to Philadelphia.

We also have Dr. Rush’s recollection in his memoir:

I went as far as Frankford to meet the delegates from Massachusetts, and rode back into town in the same carriage with John Adams, and two of his colleagues. This gentleman’s dress and manners were at that time plain, and his conversation cold and reserved. He asked me many questions relative to the state of public opinion upon politicks, and the characters of the most active citizens on both sides of the controversy.

Rush evidently warned Adams and Robert Treat Paine “against two Gentlemen particularly,” one being the Rev. William Smith of the University of Pennsylvania and the other not. (Adams’s diary preserved only one name.)

In his letter almost fifty years later, Adams stated that the Philadelphia radicals had come out for that meeting to warn the Massachusetts men that people viewed them as “four desperate adventurers.” The locals advised the newcomers to:

• let Virginians and other southerners take the lead on radical measures. 
• “not utter the word Independence, nor give the least hint or insinuation of the idea, neither in Congress or any private conversation.” 

Yet Adams recorded no hint of that warning in 1774. And the presence of a South Carolina delegate in the party would surely have inhibited discussion of how to lead along the south.

Adams’s 1822 letter then skipped ahead to the spring of 1776 as if the same situation still prevailed. Of course, a lot had happened during those eighteen months. By 1776 the Second Continental Congress delegates were discussing independence openly, though they insisted they weren’t pushing for it—rather, the Crown was pushing them toward it.

On 9 Jan 1776, for example, Richard Smith of New Jersey wrote in his diary: “Several Members said that if a Foreign Force shall be sent here, they are willing to declare the Colonies in a State of Independent Sovereignity.”

Robert Morris told a colleague on 15 February:

America has long been charged by her Enemys in England with aiming at Independency. The charge was unjust, but we now plainly see, that the burning of Towns, seizing our Ships, with numerous acts of wanton barbarity & Cruelty perpetrated by the British Forces has prepared Men’s minds for an Independency, that were shock’d at the idea a few weeks ago. This you may depend on, and should this Campaign open with furious Acts of Parliament, you may bid adieu to the American Colonies. They will then assuredly declare for Independency…

Joseph Hewes of North Carolina wrote home on 20 March:

some among us urge strongly for Independency and eternal separation, others wish to wait a little longer and to have the opinion of their Constituents on that subject, you must give us the sentiment of your province when your Convention meets.

Carter Braxton of Virginia reported on 14 April:

Independency & total Seperation from Great Britain are the interesting Subjects of all ranks of Men & often agitate our Body.

Notably, Morris and Braxton both opposed independence that spring. But they weren’t averse to discussing it.

Nonetheless, the next part of Adams’s letter was an almost necessary part of his post-Presidency memories: everyone disliking him because of his far-sighted and courageous stances.

It soon became rumoured about the City that John Adams was for Independence; the Quakers & Proprietary Gentlemen, took the alarm; represented me as the worst of men, the true-blue Sons of Liberty pitied me; all put me under a kind of Coventry. I was avoided like a man infected with the Leprosy. I walked the streets of Philadelphia in solitude, born down by the weight of care and unpopularity. But every ship for the ensuing year, brought us fresh proof of the truth of my prophesies and one after another became convinced of the necessity of Independence. I did not sink under my discouragements; I had before experienced enough of the Wantonness of popularity in the trial of Preston and the Soldiers, in Boston.

I’ve previously noted how there’s actually no contemporaneous evidence of Bostonians shunning Adams in the early 1770s because he represented Capt. Thomas Preston and the soldiers after the Massacre. 

Likewise, documents from 1775 and early 1776 show that Adams’s fellow Congress delegates continued to put him on many committees and to dine with him. No doubt it was awkward when the royal authorities intercepted and published letters in which he criticized colleagues like John Dickinson, but really Adams brought that on himself.

TOMORROW: Drafting the Declaration at last.