that were rife in the Revolution were democratic in character.

After the Revolution passed the bounds of peaceful resistance it was distinctly a movement of the lower and middle classes. The men who had been prominent in public affairs were pushed into the background. A new set of leaders came forward, hitherto unknown, less educated, and eager for change. The very public documents became more illiterate. To the aristocratic and cultured class it seemed that the unlettered monster was unchained, and, while they waited for British power to restore the old order, they withdrew for the most part from what seemed an undignified contest.

It was by this standing aloof that the Tories failed to make their influence felt against the election of delegates to the Continental Congress. Very small proportions of the people-in some localities

not an hundredth part"-turned out to vote, and in some cases only the more violent. "In one place two men met and one appointed the other delegate to Congress." In North Carolina some of the representatives at the convention which appointed the delegates from that colony were chosen by committees of ten or twelve men; only a few enthusiasts seemed to be interested, and eight of the forty-four districts sent no representatives.3

1 Seabury, The Congress Canvassed, 13, 14

'Rivington's Gazette, November 6, 1776; Stillé, John Dickinson, Records of North Carolina, IX., 1042.

207.

3

j

In Georgia only five out of the twelve parishes were represented in the provincial congress which appointed its delegates.' The men thus chosen refused to serve, and only the parish of St. John was at first represented." In New York the loyalists were so active that in some Long Island districts there were heavy majorities against a convention for appointing delegates to the congress. Small

bodies of patriots, however, relying on outside support, sent representatives to the convention," who, however, felt the restraints natural to representatives of a minority.

Although the loyalists were terrorized during the period of this election, they might have voted in many cases where they only showed indifference. Thus they lost their last political opportunity. The radical leaders now had a small representative body to act upon, whose resolves and recommendations were apt to be obeyed because the colonies could, for a time, look to no other leader.

1 Force, Am. Archives, 4th series, II., 279.

Journals of Congress, May 13, 1775.

'Onderdonk, Revolutionary Incidents of Long Island, 316,

CHAPTER III

ORGANIZATION OF AN ARMY

(1775-1776)

ONSIDERING the uncertain authority of the

CON

second Continental Congress, which met at Philadelphia, May 10, 1775, their audacity will ever be a matter of wonder. Without unity in their instructions, with no power to form a government, without jurisdiction over an acre of territory, with no authority to administer government in an acre, if they had had it, with no money, no laws, and no means to execute them, they entered upon the task of regulating a society in the state of revolution.

The work of the Congress was far from unanimous. "Every important step was opposed, and carried by bare majorities." The New England delegates, led by the Adamses, were regarded with suspicion by the delegates from the central and southern States. John Dickinson, the bulwark of the conservatives, boldly stood in the way of efforts to hurry the colonies into a war for independence. In the early stage he had been as fierce as any to resist oppression. It was he who formulated the "Dec1 Adams, Works, II., 503.

laration of Rights" for the Stamp-Act Congress in 1765, and his Letters of a Farmer, published in 1768, had great effect in arousing the people to a sense of being wronged; yet, though he at first led and guided the resistance to taxation, he was no revolutionist, as Samuel Adams was. His action was always bounded by the legal limits of the situation.

Born to wealth, with leisure to cultivate his scholarship and refine his tastes, Dickinson loved the repose of a settled order of things. He felt pressed into the service of his country by a sense of his duty to her, he said, and though he loved liberty he also loved peace. There was in him a spirit of moderation and conciliation. Though born a Quaker, he believed defensive war permissible. His own rights he would not allow to be trodden upon, nor would he invade the rights of others. He was no swaggering hero, but mild and amiable. His whole training fitted him for the part he acted. A private tutor instructed him well in the classics, and later, in London, he studied law in the Temple. There he was trained solely in English statute and common law, and as a result his later arguments in the American cause had little tendency to fall back on philosophical concepts of natural law. Still the great difference between Dickinson and the Adamses was not a difference in political

'Stillé, Life and Times of John Dickinson; John Dickinson, Writings (Ford's ed.), passim.

argument, but a difference in temperament, which made the Quaker lawyer hesitate at bold and revolutionary actions.

When the Bostonians destroyed the tea Dickinson doubted their wisdom. He refused to approve their violent measures. Neither the "convivial glass," as a conversational aperient," nor even flattery could bring him to it. Then the New England men changed their epithet for him. He was no longer the "illustrious farmer," but the "piddling genius," the "timid," the "apathetic," the "deficient in energy." They sneered at his faith in the sincerity and intelligence of the British government. He held his opinion, however, in the face of unpopularity; and so frank and sincere was he, and so plain in his position, that we shall see him restored to influence in the midst of a war which he sought to prevent. For the present, in the new Congress, he fought long and steadily against the radical wishes of the Adamses.

Peyton Randolph, the president of the former congress of 1774, and at first chosen for this one,1 was recalled to preside in his own assembly in Virginia. In choosing a new president the Congress showed Great Britain how much they valued her proscriptions, for the outlawed John Hancock was placed in the chair by the influence of Samuel Adams, who saw in the wealthy merchant's silks and velvets and splendid coach a foil for his own 1 Journals of Congress, May 10, 1775.