As part of our celebration of America at 250, we’ve started a weekly newsletter by historian Jonathan Horn. Learn what happened this week in American history, why it matters, and what else you should see and read in The Free Press and beyond. This week, Jonathan looks at how John Adams paved the way for independence in the Continental Congress. To get this newsletter in your inbox every week, sign up here. —The Editors
Even a man of George Washington’s stature couldn’t escape one of the more annoying features of modern life: meetings. Worried as he was to leave his army in New York City amid reports of thousands of British reinforcements, including German troops, on the move (see our earlier newsletter), the general couldn’t turn down an “invitation” 250 years ago this week from the Continental Congress to confer in Philadelphia.
It didn’t take many visits to the brick state house where Congress convened in the City of Brotherly Love for Washington to complain about delegates “still feeding themselves upon the dainty food of reconciliation” and moving too slowly toward a declaration of independence from Great Britain. As it turned out, events were moving faster than Washington perceived, thanks in large measure to a series of maneuvers orchestrated by Massachusetts delegate John Adams.
The plan had come together the previous week when Adams and his allies in Congress introduced a resolution advising all 13 colonies to put in place governments “sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs.” Seemingly harmless, the measure passed the chamber easily on May 10, 1776. Only then did Adams come forward with a proposal for adding a preamble that revealed what he really intended the resolution to accomplish. The text included this line: “It is necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed, and all the powers of government exerted under the authority of the people of the colonies.” When affixed to the resolution, it was a call for all the colonies to eradicate every last vestige of loyalty to George III and set up governments deriving their power from the people alone.
