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🪵 The Threshold

Factional coalitions inside Pennsylvania's assembly blocked independence

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tagsja-picks, factual_claims, singleton, xref, category/factual-claims

4 min read

Factional coalitions inside Pennsylvania’s assembly blocked independence

Evidence

Late in 1775, after Congress authorized New Hampshire to replace its royal charter with a republican constitution, Dickinson secured instructions from the Pennsylvania Assembly directing its congressional delegation to “dissent from and utterly reject any propositions, should such be made, that may cause or lead to a separation from our Mother Country.” — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 180 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Even as the Pennsylvania Assembly began formulating its response to the resolution, Philadelphia’s self-proclaimed patriot committee (which by then had become something of an unelected parallel government) called a public meeting for May 20 outside the statehouse. On that rainy Monday, an estimated 7,000 people turned out to cheer a reading of the resolution and pass a series of ever more aggressive resolutions against the lawmakers who sat within earshot. Shouting their unanimous approval by voice vote to each measure, they denounced the assembly’s instructions as having “a dangerous tendency to draw this province from that happy union with the other Colonies which we consider as our glory and protection” and the sitting government as incompetent to meet “the exigencies of our affairs.” Finally, they voted to replace the assembly with a Provincial Convention to be “chosen by the People” and to direct Philadelphia’s patriot committee to invite deputies from similar bodies across the colony to a “Provincial Conference” to lay the groundwork for convening that convention. Republican rule had come to Pennsylvania with a radical cast. Working behind the scenes, Franklin backed the soft coup and served as the resulting convention’s president. After years of maneuvering, he had finally bested Dickinson and the pro-proprietorship faction. Because of the upheaval, Dickinson lost his seat in Congress and retired to his Delaware plantation. … Acting a week later in the name of “the people” even though not actually elected, the conference approved a “Declaration” on independence. It accused King George III of “an Accumulation of Oppressions unparalleled in History” from excluding colonists “from his Protection” through hiring “Foreign Troops to assist in enslaving” them to exciting “the Negroes to embrue their Hands in the Blood of their masters.” Underscoring its radical intent, the declaration leveled its charges against the king and cited Parliament only for concurring in his “arbitrary and unjust” acts. Avowing that the obligations of colonists to the king “are now dissolved” by his despotism and that “Loyalty to him is Treason against the good People of this Country,” the declaration concluded by expressing the willingness of the conference “to concur in a Vote of the Congress declaring the United Colonies free and independent States.” Pennsylvania had joined the revolution. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 182 (#expands, via linked claim)

Because of the upheaval, Dickinson lost his seat in Congress and retired to his Delaware plantation. The Pennsylvania Assembly, last elected only weeks earlier with a reduced pro-reconciliation majority, tried to proceed as if nothing had happened, but, between the May 15 congressional resolution and the May 20 public meeting, the political ground had shifted. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 182 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: Assembly instructions constrained four middle colonies’ delegates against independence — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 180; Pennsylvania’s governance structure shaped its anti-independence stance — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 178; Pennsylvania’s assembly formally barred its delegates from supporting independence — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 180 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

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