ir fellow Virginians and
delegates from every colony except Georgia whose governor had prevented
the legislature from sending delegates. The Massachusetts men,
conscious that many colonists considered them radical, impulsive, and
even crude, determined to operate behind the scenes, deferring to the
Virginians whom Adams called "the most spirited and consistent of any
delegation". They were successful, for Caesar Rodney of Delaware was
soon complaining that "the Bostonians who have been condemned by many
for their violence are moderate men when compared to Virginia, South
Carolina, and Rhode Island". The union of New England and the southern
colonies quickly produced the election of Peyton Randolph as speaker of
the convention and alarmed the more conservative members like Joseph
Galloway of Pennsylvania.

Try as they might the members of this first congress made slow headway.
They knew little of each other and often spent time defending their own
reputations rather than finding common grounds for action. While bound
together by parliament's invasion of their rights, they could not move
forward in unison with a specific plan to protect those rights. So
limited were their visions by their own provincial experiences that
they had to be asked directly by Patrick Henry, "Where are your
Landmarks; your Boundaries of Colonies. The Distinctions between
Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no
more. I am not a Virginian, but an American!" George Washington in his
more plain way did the same thing by talking about "us" instead of
"you".

Then unfounded rumors circulated that Boston had been bombarded by
General Thomas Gage. Complacency ended. Congress acted with dispatch to
approve the Suffolk Resolves from Massachusetts. In direct, defiant
terms these Resolves restated the rights of the Americans in tones
familiar to Virginians:

"If a boundless Extend of Continent, swarming with Millions, will
tamely submit to live, move and have their Being at the Arbitrary
Will of a licentious Minister, they basely yield to voluntary
Slavery, and future Generations shall load their Memories with
incessant Execrations--On the other Hand, if we arrest the Hand
which would ransack our Pockets.... Posterity will acknowledge the
Virtue which preserved them free and happy...."

Slavery, freedom, happiness, virtue, liberty were the clarion calls to
which the colonials acted and reacted.