Americanism Redux
June 11, your today, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago, in 1776
The larger group uses a familiar process.
Five people, picked from the group, will take up a task as a committee.
Ever been part of something like that? What’s your advice to the five folks?
It’s today, 250 years ago, and you’re on the new committee within the Continental Congress, charged with writing a “declaration of independence” while the debate over independence hits top-speed at Pennsylvania State House.
* * * * * * *
Nothing new here.
Committees are a common tool used by the Continental Congress ever since it came into being back in the late summer of 1774 and called a “General Meeting” of delegates “congressing” together. As the Union’s most visible governing expression, the Continental Congress has relied on committees to carry much of the public load.
The usual range of committee participants is from three to six delegates. They’re not a team, by any stretch, yet they’re not aliens or strangers either. At least some committee members will have spent time formally and informally, directly and indirectly. They’re an ongoing, ad hoc set of neighbors and colleagues who work temporarily together on a specific topic, problem, or issue. Often, they’re dealing with complexity and volatility. They don’t decide with finality; recommendations, suggestions, and advised judgments are their normal outcomes. Unanimity is rare and unity a bit more common.
This level of the Union is steeped in committees, a fact the five chosen members know well.
* * * * * * *
From Massachusetts, John Adams, 40 years old, is a lawyer, widely experienced in legal thought and theory, and a sturdy veteran of the pro-colonial side in the imperial-colonial dispute. He’s recently written his “Thoughts on Government” that has shoved, jolted, and pushed the debate on independence forward. No one exceeds Adams in enthusiasm for and urgency to do independence, to split from Britain. He’s a wide and deep reader, ambitious, vain, prickly toward criticism, and a tortured soul who grapples with any of his negative inner traits on a constant basis. He knows each of his four fellow committee members.
Wanna sit next to him when the committee convenes?
* * * * * * *
Born in Adams’s Boston but identified with Philadelphia, 70-year old Benjamin Franklin is a villain to pro-imperial people and a hero, legend, and trans-Atlantic superstar to everyone else. He’s an inventor, an innovator, an experimenter, an early adopter, and a phrase-maker. He’s known for civic, scientific, political, and business achievements. As widely traveled as he is widely informed, Franklin has an easy manner that appeals to almost everyone and understands human bridge-building as a way of life. He’s also a bit late to embrace total separation and full independence but once there, no one out-does him in creativity and imagination in advancing a distinct America.
Catch his eye in the first committee meeting and you’ll likely get a wink.
* * * * * * *
33-years old, with light red hair and fair skin, Thomas Jefferson is pure Virginia and the latest member in a longstanding Virginia family. A lawyer building a home on a little mountain, his range of travel is mental—reading constantly and across cultures, eras, and schools of thought. He’s inclined toward the quiet and observant, recording inward insights into people and places that he’ll hold for years into the future. He’s a combination of cautiousness and fearlessness. Jefferson wields a violin bow, a quill pen, and a drawer’s tool with equal ability. He’s multi-talented as an architect, musician, writer, agriculturalist, and intellectual. Regarding the Union and the imperial-colonial crisis, Jefferson is at or near the front of the pack, signaling toward the next bend ahead.
Sit by him and you’ll be struck by his length, the tallest at the table, and his manner, nimble and softly confident.
* * * * * * *
He’s the youngest here at age 29, a New Yorker of wealth and status. Robert Livingston is a navigator of law, politics, business, and social influence. His family’s connections to New York are generational. Both they and he know how tough and nasty interactions can be with rival families in the same community and colony. He’s even seen and been involved with similar dynamics inside his own family. Of special importance is the limitations set on him by New York Unionists, skeptics, and opponents—he’s not allowed to vote for independence until otherwise notified. Though supportive of separation and independence, he’s in a waiting game. Livingston is also the one most closely identified with the swirling, chaotic scene of expected war in New York City.
In a seat next to him you’ll be justified in wondering what’s behind his inclusion here.
* * * * * * *
Roger Sherman is 55 years old, sharing a birthday with the same date as the start of the imperial-colonial shooting war at Concord, Lexington, and the Old Bay Road a year earlier. Coming from a background of modest living standards, modest livelihoods, and modest lifestyles, he is, yes, an inherently modest man. He’s a lawyer, a politician, and a civic leader in his native Connecticut. He enjoys shoe-making, astronomy, and land surveying, a range of skills and know-how that belies his reserved bearing. He’s one of those people who, in the midst of major problems, other people like to have around and rely on—because of his steadiness, intelligence, and work ethic. Regarding the imperial-colonial crisis, Sherman believes in separation and independence, which means he’ll work like a fiend to get it done and say hardly a word about himself while doing it.
Sit down alongside him, and he’ll instinctively move his chair so you’ve got plenty of room.
* * * * * * *
Each first sits down at the table with the last thing they’ve done.
John Adams has attempted to convince George Washington to do more to boost Boston’s defenses and military readiness. Earlier success in driving the British out of the community don’t comfort him. He fears another invasion.
Benjamin Franklin is still recovering from the work of another committee; this one sent to Canada. The mission has nearly killed him. Worst of all, it failed to encourage Canadian support of the Union. It’s a tough setback to come back from.
Thomas Jefferson hasn’t been back in Philadelphia for very long after returning from his home. In real ways, he’s still there in his head. He’s been immersed in writing a preamble, constitution, and suggestions for new governmental design in Virginia. His knowledge of English constitutionalism and political philosophy have been vital.
Robert Livingston is a walking encyclopedia of the latest war news from New York and New York City. Much of his knowledge is bleak and pessimistic. He’s spent a lot of time on another committee in face-to-face meetings with General George Washington.
Roger Sherman has been putting in 10-hour days at the Continental Congress. He’s working on other committees and carrying much of the load on such issues as the postal network, frontier policy, and treasury accounts.
In these states of mind, they walk toward the chairs around the table.
*******
As they settle in their seats, they can lean on important bonds.
In addition to active belief in an America distinct and apart, the five share a love of the word—spoken, written, read, and every other form. They use this love and live this love daily. They’ll be at home with words for this document of declaration.
Two sets of previously written words also join the five in a special way. One is about a century ago—John Locke’s two “Treatises on Government” that lays out natural rights, natural law, the right of revolution, and more. The other is from not quite six months ago—Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” that takes a hammer, saw, and torch where Locke used a goose feather. Paine’s impassioned 46-page booklet on the immediate need to separate and cut off any ties to monarchy has smashed, severed, and burned a deadlock in actions and attitudes. Each of the five has read a lot of the same books and essays, and some of those other works are very important. None, however, are more vital at this table than these two works.
They’re a spiritual bunch, no question about it. They know, respect, and generally try to embrace Christianity. Also, though, they’re much less united in specific aspects of the religion. You’ll find them fanning out across a spectrum of practices and doctrines in the realm of the soul.
Speaking of spectrums, all five live in a world of a 0-100 continuum, the range that spans no freedom and automony on one end (0) to full freedom and autonomy on the other end (100). Three enslave people, and one rents people. As a practice, two of them oppose enslavement, the zero of the continuum. In their younger years, three of them were themselves rented, hired, or apprenticed out somewhere in the mid-range of the continuum.
They share a record and outlook of action and involvement in their communities, often in things that tend to pertain to multiple communities. No one’s coming to the table with a strong revulsion toward working with other people or collaborating on projects. They’re not naive about it, either, but they are clear-eyed, clear-minded, and clear-sensed. Dream worlds and utopias don’t take up a lot of space in their thinking.
* * * * * * *
The five know the writing needs written. They know that they’ll be mutually involved in some fashion of it. They know that they’re reporting out to the wider group of delegates. They know their work is part of a sequencing that’s still being argued about—of declaring, of confederating, of foreign allying.
This won’t do itself. So, fellow fivers, let’s get started on the assignment handed to us by the Union’s chief public body. It’s today, 250 years ago.
Also
Just down the narrow street is one of her dearest friends. She has a deep and genuine liking of him—and he of her. She sent her two daughters to learn from him. He’s absolutely fantastic with the two girls, upbeat, enthusiastic, a constant encourager.
The two girls’ mother, the Countess Antonia Lodron, treasures their piano teacher, the 20-year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
She’s talking with her family, today, 250 years ago, about paying Mozart to write a special piece of music for her.
While five men gather in a Philadelphia room to tackle the task of creation, Mozart, in a Salzburg room by himself, will do the same, often working at blazing speeds. His music will rise above time itself in a composition he’ll entitle “First Lodron Night Music.”
For You Now
You’ve likely been on a committee, haven’t you? I’ll bet an adult beverage on that fact. So what feels the most familiar to you in this entry? How do you see yourself in this committee? What does your experience with committees tell you about taking on a writing assignment meant for group approval and public consumption?
Each of these questions will draw important thoughts and reflections from you.
I want to reiterate points that either get shortchanged or ignored in this moment.
First, it’s part of the standard process of the Continental Congress. Committees do the work and have since conception of the body in September 1774.
Second, an entire flow of life is happening, within the individual worlds of each of the five delegates, the Continental Congress, and outside the Pennsylvania State House. Along each line the pace is fast. More than we tend to realize, they are playing “catch-up” to the continued blast from Paine’s “Common Sense” and the war’s relentless impact on daily life.
Third, they’re starting together. It’s the one instance of the greatest evenness in their endeavor. Everyone is at the top of the same page for a very brief and short while. They’ll scatter out soon enough. Whatever degree of coming back together occurs will be all the more cohesive and bonded.
Fourth, group and team are not the same. Our five may benefit from not being a team. Individuals can bump more naturally into each other. Friction can sharpen ideas, creativity, and perceptiveness. But it’s true, a group can make for group think. However, teams are not impervious to the condition. A committee can go either way.
Remember what causes rapids on a river—the grade of land falls sharply, the banks narrow, or both. The water meets every object with speed and force; encounters become collisions and the time for reaction drops. A key question emerges: will one vessel hold the five or will the five choose separate vessels and try to stay together?
We can pause our five on the verge of rapids. Wish them well in the waters ahead.
Suggestion
Take a moment to consider: what’s a committee’s greatest strength and biggest weakness in handling the whitewater of a river?
(Your River)
