Who Authorized the Declaration of Independence?

In 1774, my ancestor Henry Ashfield of the Quaker settlement at Wrightsborough, in the Province of Georgia, was a signer of a petition to the Crown as follows:

"We, the inhabitants of the town of Wrightsborough and placesadjacent, understanding that fourteen persons have drawn up several resolutions respecting the disputes between Great Britain and the town of Boston, con- cerning the destroying of a quantity of tea, the property of the East IndiaCompany, and have published them as the act of the Province, and which we look upon as a great imposition, having no knowledge of them 'till after they were passed: therefore we do, in this public manner, deny passing any concerning them, and disapprove of them altogether, such proceedings as a few acting for the whole without their knowledge, we apprehend being contrary to the rights and privileges of every British subject.”

This was a repudiation of the Boston Tea Party. I am reminded of this petition every Independence Day and wonder just how much consent there really was for the Declaration of Independence. I have concluded that the Declaration of Independence was a similar act of a few for the whole with questionable authority.

The Declaration was the act of the Second Continental Congress, the members of which were appointed by the various provincial legislatures. These legislatures, at least in Virginia and North Carolina where most of my ancestors resided at the time, were selected by free white men of property. Since there was lots of land to be had, this encompassed as much as 75% of free white men. However, there was considerable indifference about voting, and a turnout of 33-50% was usual. Accordingly, legislators were chosen by a minority of the denizens of the province, perhaps less than a tenth of the population. Women, blacks, mulattoes, Indians, persons not 21 years of age, the landless, and un-naturalized denizens were excluded. The candidates themselves were by various measures limited to the wealthier landowners and merchants and members of the official church. Voting was not secret, and intimidation was a major factor.

Since they lived mainly on the frontier and were for the most part not part of the ruling elite within the provinces, I doubt that many of my ancestors at that time knew much about what was going on in the Second Continental Congress or that they were much consulted about whether independence ought to be declared. A number of them served in the armed forces of their newly minted independent states. Others endeavored to remain neutral. The town of Wrightsborough was devastated and plundered and its peaceful Quakers harried.

To the extent that they consented to any of this, I have no doubt that my ancestors’ consent was, for the most part, engineered. The prospect of getting their hands on some of that land the Crown had set aside for the Indians was very appealing to them, and I reckon that they believed that they would be more free than they were under the Crown and Parliament. I can’t really say whether this turned out to be the case for them. Some of them did get free or really cheap land from the displacement of the Cherokee Indians, something the Crown had been blocking.

Anyway, I’m not so sure any longer that there’s much cause for celebration. I like getting a day off from work, but the yahoos with their fireworks really perturb one of my dogs.