“Congress should, for the Safety of the said Colonies, declare them Independent”

On 10 May 1776, the Massachusetts Council informed the lower house of the General Court that it would not approve a call for upcoming town meetings to discuss how the men they elected to the next legislature should vote on independence.

Samuel Freeman (1743–1831, silhouette shown here) of Falmouth, Maine, was chairing the assembly that day, filling in for William Cooper as pro tem replacement for James Warren.

The assembly responded to the Council’s move with a new measure:

Resolved, As the Opinion of this House that the Inhabitants of each Town in this Colony, ought in full Meeting warned for that Purpose, to advise the Person or Persons who shall be chosen to Represent them in the next General Court, whether that if the honorable Congress should, for the Safety of the said Colonies, declare them Independent of the Kingdom of Great-Britain, they the said Inhabitants will solemnly engage with their Lives and Fortunes to Support the Congress in the Measure.

The assembly had made adjustments to its previous resolve in response to the Council’s objection. Now they were couching the towns’ likely statements of support for independence as a proactive response to a decision by the Continental Congress, not an attempt to push that Congress forward.

More important, the Massachusetts house was expressing its own opinion, not trying to speak for the whole General Court. It thus didn’t need the Council’s input at all. Neither Thomas Cushing nor any other cautious Council member could stand in its way.

The assembly then went on:

Ordered, That Mr. Cooper get the foregoing Resolve printed in the several News-Papers, as soon as possible.

Benjamin Edes ran the assembly’s resolve in the next issue of the Boston Gazette on 13 May over the names of Samuel Freeman, speaker pro tem, and William Story, clerk.

Independence would be on the agenda at the town meetings that spring. As the Rev. Samuel Cooper told Samuel Adams:

The House, tho they would have been glad of the Concurrence of the Council in this Matter, have determin’d to proceed without them; and Instructions will come from all Posts on this Head: And it seems, by appearances thro the Continent, you will not be able to defer a great While, your Decision on the grand Question.

Adams, of course, was eager to have that discussion in Philadelphia. And to be able to tell his colleagues that Massachusetts towns supported independence.