As you may recall, several months ago some members of the Continental Congress thought it was important to make one last effort to reconcile with Britain before things got worse. So they composed the Olive Branch Petition and sent it off to England.
Transit times being what they were then, the petition took several weeks to get to its destination. In the meantime, things got worse.
So when the Olive Branch Petition arrived, nobody really cared. But there were two other documents that made matters worse. Plus, you know, all the shooting that went on in April. And in June.
Since May 10, the Second Continental Congress had been working for six days a week. And on any given day, depending on the committee to which they were attached, they’d work from anywhere between eight and twelve hours.
And remember: this was in the height of summer in Philadelphia, where the temperatures were in the 90s and chances are, so was the humidity most of the time.
Now, as Mike will attest in today’s episode, they got a LOT of stuff done in those ten weeks. And considering how thoughtfully they took every subject they tackled, it was a definite feat on their part. It was a well-deserved break.
It’s not entirely Lord North’s fault that his proposal for securing peace took so long to get to the Colonies; messages took a long time to get across the ocean.
It is his fault that he sent it to individual people across the Colonies, thinking he could demonstrate that the Colonies are divided and aren’t on board with the revolution.
It’s also his fault for not counting on someone from the New Jersey delegation (in this case; it could have been any delegate) bringing the proposal to the Second Continental Congress.
Unfortunately, before anyone on this side of the Atlantic saw it, fighting had broken out at Lexington and Concord, and the document was seen as far too little, far too late.
We told you a short time ago about a document sent to Canada by the Second Continental Congress. It outlined the reasons we got into a shooting match with Britain. It also made a point of noting that we’re not asking them to join us, but we wouldn’t complain too loudly if they did. The Canadians declined and they maintain a connection to Britain even as an independent nation. (As this is written, King Charles III is considered the King of Canada.)
Some time later, Congress sent a similar letter to Jamaica. For what it’s worth, Jamaica is still a “commonwealth realm”, with Charles III as king. (We didn’t do an episode on that one, but it also happened around this time.)
And on this day in 1775, Congress sent yet another letter to Ireland. The Irish also managed to stick with the Mother Country for a while, but finally broke away themselves a few years ago.
The Continental Congress thought they had a strong candidate in Dr. Benjamin Church as their Surgeon General. And while Church was a generally good doctor as such, and a loyal member of the Sons of Liberty, he wasn’t especially good at leading others to do the same. This eventually turned into a big problem that came to a head in October, when George Washington needed to step in.
First off, let me note that sometime this week we cracked the 1,000-download mark, and we have you to thank for that, especially inasmuch as 40% of that took place in the last 30 days or so. We’re grateful that you’re giving us this little slice of your life each day. We’re also happy to see that the number of daily downloads has grown, slowly but surely, so consider yourself ahead of the curve. You’ve got bragging rights, my friend.
In yesterday’s episode, Mike teased the commandeering and re-outfitting of a British ship, but further research revealed that that took place on a different date, so we went with this short story plus my longer rant about historical documents.
Okay…it’s not so much a rant as it is a hissy fit.
It’s not even that. Look, just listen to it, all right?
Even when it’s Mike’s voice you hear on the episode, it’s Claude who takes the blame for the episode titles.
It wasn’t a bad thing for members of the Continental Congress to disagree, but some level of decorum was still expected from those members. And almost certainly, one of the commandments was Thou Shalt Not Trash Talk Thy Fellow Delegate. (I may have softened the language a little bit, there.)
Still, Adams had a right to express whatever frustration he had with John Dickinson, unfortunately the letter in which he did it got intercepted by the British and publicly published; the mere suggestion that there was some dissention among the ranks of a group that typically presented its work as a united front was certainly a Big Deal.
And it certainly didn’t grease the skids between Adams and Dickinson, nor was that rift ever truly healed.
John Adams wrote to his wife twice on this day in 1775. What did you do for your spouse that was such a big deal?
In these letters, the sparks don’t fly the way they do in many others, but the affection he feels for her is still present nonetheless. That he took the time to write a second, more thoughtful letter after dashing off the first one is a nice measure of his esteem for her, and his ability to use her as a sounding board, even when she’s 300 miles and several days’ travel apart.
As long as we’ve had a Constitution, the United States has had a nominal separation between church and state. What that means is that Congress isn’t able to establish a state-sanctioned religion.
For longer than we’ve had a Constitution, Congress has proclaimed days of prayer of some kind or another.
For a long time, these days were announced not as a National Day of Prayer (the current nomenclature), but rather as “a day of fasting, prayer and humiliation.” Now, this isn’t the old Christian kind of humiliation in which haircoats are worn, or self-flagellation is necessary. In this context, “humiliation” refers to self-reflection and expression of sorrow or remorse before God.
In 1988 televangelist Jimmy Swaggert (who died just a couple of weeks ago) was caught with a prostitute. When he cried on television and gave his “I have sinned” speech, he was humiliating himself before God. Even if he hadn’t done it in front of an audience, it would still be an act of humiliation. Oddly enough, the national presbytery wasn’t buying it as genuine and stripped him of his credentials anyway. And they were right, considering that he was busted a second time with a prostitute a few years later.
Anyway.
“Fasting” and “prayer” retain their meanings to this day, so explanations probably aren’t necessary here. It’s worth noting, however, that fasting is meant to have a spiritual purpose and again, can show some level of humility.
If you’re going to be in rebellion, you may as well do something rebellious.
Thus was (presumably) the reasoning behind Ben Franklin putting forth a resolution that the Colonies would effectively ignore a ban on the importation of weapons and gunpowder to the Colonies.
And while we’ve mentioned numerous times that the Congress doesn’t seem to do a lot more than form various Committees, again we need to stress that these were serious men, who gave serious thought to whatever they presented to the larger group, because they knew that any votes had to be unanimous. They took the job with great gravity, and in fact worked long hours. And in Philadelphia in the summer time…that is no joke, my friend. I mentioned it in a Baltimore context during the show, but remember that these cities aren’t very far apart, and thus have similar climates.
