On September 1, 1775, George III refused to accept the Olive Branch Petition, Congress’s last attempt to avoid war.
When John Adams heard the word back in America, he must have breathed a sigh of relief.
On July 5, 1775, almost a year to the day before our Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress had signed and sent off the Olive Branch Petition to King George. Congress phrased the petition in the humble manner of subjects addressing their sovereign lord: “We, your Majesty’s faithful subjects … entreat your Majesty’s gracious attention to this our humble petition.” The petition’s substance, of course, was still to request massive concessions on the part of the British government:
your loyal colonists … were alarmed by a new system of statutes and regulations adopted for the administration of the colonies, that filled their minds with the most painful fears and jealousies; … the apprehensions that now oppress our hearts with unspeakable grief, being once removed, your Majesty will find your faithful subjects on this continent ready and willing at all times, as they ever have been, with their lives and fortunes, to assert and maintain the rights and interests of your Majesty, and of our Mother country.
John Adams didn’t want Congress to send the Petition. He was convinced that America must and would declare independence, and this petition—the nightmare would be if George actually accepted it, repealed the Intolerable Acts, and then waited for Congress and the colonies to submit to royal authority. But Adams still had only minority support in Congress. The majority supported the more conservative John Dickinson, who still hoped that some solution could be found short of actual rebellion. British government might be intolerable, but open rebellion was still, if not unthinkable, as yet unacceptable.
As it so happened, Adams didn’t need to worry. George had already declared the colonies to be in rebellion by the time he received the Petition, and so he dismissed it unread. It didn’t hurt that British ships had captured an American vessel with some of Adams’ private letters, and they could use his confidential opinions as justification to dismiss the Petition as a hypocritical deception.
I am myself as fond of Reconciliation, if We could reasonably entertain Hopes of it upon a constitutional Basis, as any Man. But, I think, if We consider the Education of the Sovereign, and that the Lords the Commons, the Electors, the Army, the Navy, the officers of Excise, Customs &c., &c., have been now for many years gradually trained and disciplined by Corruption to the System of the Court, We shall be convinced that the Cancer is too deeply rooted, and too far spread to be cured by any thing short of cutting it out entire. …
In my opinion Powder and Artillery are the most efficacious, Sure, and infallibly conciliatory Measures We can adopt.
The British didn’t quite understand that John Adams and John Dickinson had different opinions—or no longer cared. The troop ships were on the tide, and it was too late for petitions.
Adams didn’t care for the Petition, he hadn’t supported it—but he was prudent enough to see that the road to independence ran through such petitions.
However, this Continent is a vast, unweildy Machine. We cannot force Events. We must Suffer People to take their own Way in many Cases, when We think it leads wrong—hoping however and believing, that our Liberty and Felicity will be preserved in the End, tho not in the Speedyest and Surest Manner.
The more conservative majority of Congress needed to make the last-gasp effort for reconciliation and see it spurned before they would support independence. Adams played the long game for the support of the American people, as Abraham Lincoln would play the long game to bring about support for Emancipation, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt would play the long game to bring about support for American intervention in World War II. George might choose to play the tyrant, but Adams, like all America’s greatest leaders, knew that one could only persuade a free people by letting them try alternatives before making a final decision.
We still face the question of when to play the long game before coming to a final decision. President Trump gave Iran 60 days to negotiate about their nuclear bomb program, and the Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons complex had that much more support from America because America had tried diplomatic negotiations for 60 days. The Trump administration’s Executive Orders give our colleges and universities fair warning that they should cease to practice race and sex discrimination voluntarily—and if and when the administration acts more forcefully to require nondiscrimination, they will have the support of a public that knows the administration made a fair offer to our ivory towers that they reform themselves.
Our leaders still believe the slow and winding path often is the best way to lead a free people—and so it is, as long as our leaders still have a clear vision of the final destination. Adams saw that America must be free. The winding path is still good, so long as it ends in freedom.
And so long as our opponents are unimaginative Georges, who dismiss olive branches sight unseen, freedom remains our most likely destination.
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Art by Beck & Stone
