Mr. President by Ray Raphael Read Free Book Online

card. As delegates debated the several hot topics before them—the question of representation, what items to include and exclude in the Continental Association, Joseph Galloway’s controversial plan for reconciliation (he wanted two Parliaments, one in London and the other in America), whether to recompense the East India Company for the tea destroyed in Boston Harbor, and whether to urge the colonies to prepare for a military conflict with the mother country—they did not want an advocate of any particular position to sit in the chair. That’s why they liked Randolph: their honored leader knew his place, which was not to “lead” in the sense we think of today but to serve as a steadying influence, lest the debates get out of hand.
    Given the rhetorical training and large egos of the men who spent the better part of two months in Carpenters’ Hall wagging their tongues, this in itself was no easy task. As John Adams noted famously to his wife, Abigail, on October 9:
    I am wearied to death with the life I lead. The business of the Congress is tedious, beyond expression. This assembly is like no other that ever existed. Every man in it is a great man—an orator, a critick, a statesman, and therefore every man upon every question must shew his oratory, his criticism and his political abilities. The consequence of this is, that business is drawn and spun out to an immeasurable length. I believe if it was moved and seconded that we should come to a resolution that three and two make five we should be entertained with logick and rhetorick, law, history, politicks and mathematicks, concerning the subject for two whole days, and then we should pass the resolution unanimously in the affirmative. 5
    It might be argued, perhaps, that President Randolph should have been more aggressive in moving the debates along, but delegates would no doubt have balked if he had applied too heavy a hand. To cut off debate was not within his authority. He could convene the body or adjourn it, that was all.
    On October 24, as Congress was wrapping up its business so delegatescould return home for the winter, Randolph suddenly left his post to preside over Virginia’s House of Burgesses, which had been called back into session. Nobody doubted that the House of Burgesses, an official governing body, took precedence over this ad hoc convention, which had run its course in any case. Two days later Congress dissolved itself. Although it resolved that another Congress should convene the following May “unless the redress of grievances, which we have desired, be obtained before that time,” it did not provide for a central executive body to deal with the crises over the ensuing six months. The First Continental Congress was not a government but just a convention, and its job was over. 6
    By contrast, the First Provincial Congress in Massachusetts, meeting simultaneously in October 1774, did attempt to establish executive authority. It had to. Unlike the convention in Philadelphia, this body was facing an imminent military invasion from British regulars. In the previous two months, patriots from all of Massachusetts outside Boston had overthrown British authority, both politically and militarily. In the “shiretown” of Worcester, for instance, 4,622 militiamen from thirty-seven townships—half the adult male population of the entire county—had lined both sides of Main Street on September 6 and forced two dozen British-appointed officials, hats in hand, to walk the gauntlet, reciting their recantations thirty times apiece so all the militiamen could hear. Everyone knew that British leaders, sooner or later, would send an army into the countryside to reassert control, so the Provincial Congress needed to raise, train, arm, and supply a military force of its own. That was a far tougher task than passing resolutions and writing letters. It required
execution
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    Fearful of ceding any authority, however, delegates formed themselves into committee