Mr. President by Ray Raphael Read Free Book Online Page A

after committee to perform these executive functions; they even formed committees to appoint other committees. Only one job required a single individual to serve in an executive capacity, and that’s how Receiver General Henry Gardiner, tax collector for the Province of Massachusetts, became the first executive officer in the future United States to be empowered separately from, and in opposition to, British authority. Whereas President Randolph, like the moderators of countless town meetings, county conventions, and provincial congresses, possessed no powers beyond the meetings he led, Henry Gardiner was instructed to solicit and receive tax moneys from every town in Massachusetts, a delegated executive task.
    A new Continental Congress did in fact convene on May 10, 1775. The “redress of grievances” had not been “obtained”; instead, British soldiers had marched on Lexington and Concord, and blood had flowed. Delegates to the Congress in Philadelphia, like those in Massachusetts, found themselves with a war on their hands. Upon the request of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, the Continental Congress assumed “the regulation and general direction” of the army gathering around Boston. 7
    Now in the business of managing an army, the Second Continental Congress had no choice but to assume executive functions, and like their fellow patriots in Massachusetts members insisted on performing all these by themselves. They formed new committees, a host of them, almost daily. Anytime delegates faced a problem, they appointed an ad hoc committee to address it. On one day alone, June 3, Congress created seven new committees: one to prepare a response to Massachusetts, one to borrow £6,000 for the purchase of gunpowder, one to provide an estimate of further sums that needed to be raised, one to write a petition to the king, and three distinct committees to write separate letters to the people of Great Britain, Ireland, and Jamaica. Once each committee had performed its isolate task, it automatically dissolved. 8
    Congress had a new president this time, John Hancock, the wealthy Boston merchant who had funded many of the revolutionary activities there. On May 10, delegates had reelected Peyton Randolph, but two weeks later President Randolph left once again to head the House of Burgesses. Hancock, his ambitious substitute, became attached to his prestigious position, and when Randolph returned to Congress in September, Hancock refused to step down. Yet despite the new president’s ambitions, Congress gave him no more powers than it had given Randolph. He couldn’t issue orders of any sort, make purchases, borrow money, or even contact foreign emissaries without the express consent of Congress. When not presiding on the floor, he sent, received, and transmitted countless communications. While the president inscribed his fabled “John Hancock” on letter after letter, regular delegates, in their floating committees, ground out the work of coordinating and supplying a fledgling army.
    Slowly, the hodgepodge array of ad hoc committees evolved into a lesser and more manageable number of standing committees, each one dealing with all matters within its specified field: the Maritime Committee, Treasury Committee, Board of War and Ordnance (actuallya committee), Medical Committee, Committee of Secret Correspondence, and the Secret Committee of Commerce, charged with keeping the supply train flowing. The surfeit of committees reflected Congress’s continuing rebellion against the abuses made possible by the concentration of executive authority. For a century and more, British officials, often holding multiple offices, had profited at the colonists’ expense. Now the people themselves vowed to control their own government, and this meant distributing executive tasks as widely as possible.
    That was the idea, at any rate. In reality, a few men did more than their share, and these ardent delegates emerged with disproportionate