Analysis: New York Mechanics Declaration of Independence

Date: May 29, 1776

Author: General Committee of Mechanics

Genre: address; political tract; speech

Summary Overview

Beginning in 1765, tensions developed between the American colonies and the British government. This was mainly the result of the royal government passing three unpopular laws: the Sugar Act, which enforced tariffs on imported molasses; the Stamp Act, which required a range of legal documents to be printed on special paper sold by British tax collectors; and the Quartering Act, which forced the colonists to house British troops in their midst. Out of the tension emerged a group of revolutionaries known as the Sons of Liberty, sometimes known as Liberty Boys.

In early summer of 1776, the American colonies were on the brink of outright war with Great Britain. There had already been several skirmishes between Americans and British troops, and the royal government was attempting to enforce an embargo against American ships to economically strangle the colonies into submission. Nonetheless, many colonial politicians wanted to avoid all-out war at any cost, fearing that it was impossible to take on an enemy as powerful as Great Britain.

A radical faction of the Sons of Liberty movement, comprising members of what might be called the working class, those who earned their livings through manufacturing goods, petitioned the New York Provincial Congress to support independence. The group, the General Committee of Mechanics in union, drafted a brief but impassioned letter outlining its position; the letter was read aloud to the New York Provincial Congress by a mechanic named Lewis Thibou on May 29, 1776.

Document Analysis

As is noted by popular historian Howard Zinn, the Declaration of Independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson was actually a late entry into the revolutionary scene. By 1776, there were at least ninety other declarations of independence, created at the local and state levels, calling for some form of political separation between the colonial government and the British Crown. The New York mechanics declaration of independence was written as a letter at the Mechanics-Hall, the Manhattan headquarters of the General Committee of Mechanicks faction of the Sons of Liberty.

The letter was personally delivered to the Third Provincial Congress of New York by Thibou, who read it aloud to the assembled state politicians. The Provincial Congress had already agreed that merchants would no longer be allowed to supply British military vessels in New York harbor and were edging toward support for the wider revolutionary movement, but many of its delegates sought a peaceful compromise with the British Crown. Thibou presented a petition for far more radical change to this relatively moderate political assembly, presumably representing the opinion of the wider working class of New York.

The letter begins in interesting terms, stating that it is a humble request, as would have been expected by the wealthy and influential members of the Provincial Congress. However, it also states that the mechanics are speaking for a wider base of constituents. The importance of this phrasing would not have been lost on the politicians, who must have been aware of the growing practical importance of placating the working-class members of New York society who made the goods needed in the emerging state.

The letter conveys that New York is in a dire situation, saying that the state is “bleeding” as a result of British oppression. The term is almost certainly a reference to the violent acts carried out by British troops against revolutionary protestors. As a faction of the Sons of Liberty, the group involved with the bloodshed in January of 1770 by the British Sixteenth Division, the General Committee of Mechanicks would have been both personally impacted by British aggression and keen on redress for this perceived insult to American pride.

In the next passage, the mechanics paint a romantic picture of the North American continent. They describe it as governed by principles of freedom and religious tolerance, and boast that its land has been so exceptionally bountiful as to have attracted praise from around the world. They then contrast the happy situation that America had previously enjoyed with the present situation, which they say is marked by oppression and death.

It is worth noting the rather hyperbolic nature of the language of the letter. Although it is true that America had been something of an economic miracle over the previous century, and indeed was blessed with a bounty of valuable natural resources, it was still not important enough to global commerce to attract such glowing praise from around the world. Furthermore, the enforcement of the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, and Quartering Act did not really represent a tyrannical burden that broke the back of an otherwise tolerant and liberal society. While there certainly had been several fatal incidents between British troops and American citizens by May 1776, the death toll was not really so great as to have affected many families in the colonies. Indeed, the death toll of the ensuing war, estimated to have been around twenty thousand (or more than the entire population of New York City at the time), dwarfed any violence that took place prior to it. However, drawing a stark contrast between the goodness of America and the evil nature of British oppression was popular on the eve of the Revolutionary War and had been a staple of Sons of Liberty rhetoric for more than a decade.

The mechanics turns its attention to the British monarch, King George III. He had ruled Britain and its colonies since 1760 and was widely perceived by Americans as having been the driving force behind the unpopular laws imposed upon them. The mechanics’ letter to the Provincial Congress states that the king, by virtue of his station and according to the oaths he had sworn, was obligated to protect all people under his rule, including colonial subjects. As free men (as opposed to slaves), the colonists should have the same rights as any people under the king’s rule, especially because the commerce generated by the hard work of the American colonists had helped to make Britain under George III as wealthy and powerful as it had ever been.

The letter then inquires if Americans should continue to remain silent when faced with a British monarch who refuses to hear their peaceful appeals for better treatment. It rhetorically asks if it is possible to support a king who does not intervene on behalf of his American subjects and instead allows them to become disenfranchised of their rights and liberties. According to the mechanics, King George III had not been willing to address the legitimate grievances of the American people. On the contrary, they state, the king has acted as though he was intent on the destruction of American society. The letter goes on to list acts of oppression for which they believe the Provincial Congress should hold the king responsible.

The letter mentions that the British had burned towns in the American colonies. Indeed, this had taken place in limited instances. The worst case occurred in the city of Norfolk, Virginia, at the beginning of 1776. Loyalist citizens who supported the king fled the town in the winter of 1775, and revolutionary sympathizers came to Norfolk as a show of strength. The revolutionaries seized abandoned properties and homes, and intended to use the city as a base of resistance against the British forces in the colonies. On January 1, 1776, British troops and Loyalist supporters torched many of the seized buildings in an effort to drive out the incoming Patriots. In the citywide blaze that ensued, much of Norfolk was destroyed. The other major fires of the Revolutionary War, including one in September 1776 that destroyed a large portion of New York City, were probably lit by American forces, however.

In the next part of the letter, the mechanics state that the British have encroached on the civil liberties of the Americans by seizing their ships. In late 1775, in an effort to crush the nascent rebellion against his power, George III gave the British military orders to halt trade in the American colonies by preventing shipping by American-owned ships. Although the blockade was never fully enforced, it did deal a staggering blow to the American economy, and its effects were felt strongly in New York Harbor. By 1776, the grievance had become an important staple of Patriot propaganda and would have been difficult for the members of the New York Provincial Congress to ignore. Many historians consider the passage of the Prohibitory Act, the law that allowed British forces to enforce a trading blockade against American ships, to be the edict that made the Revolutionary War inevitable.

The following line in the letter bemoans the fact that the British had killed “sons of liberty” and caused American families to suffer as a result. The use of the phrase “sons of liberty” is intentional. In small case letters, it was on its surface just a general way of signifying patriotic Americans. However, it also served to remind the members of the New York Provincial Congress who the Committee of Mechanicks represented. The Sons of Liberty, of which the Committee of Mechanicks was a part, was responsible for a series of destructive riots in New York City; thus, invoking the group’s name would have served as a veiled threat to the Provincial Congress to comply with the mechanics’ demands or face further riots.

The letter states that violence continues to be perpetrated against American colonists because they refuse to become slaves to the British and be taxed without consent. The equation of unfair taxation with the imposition of slavery on the American colonists may seem spurious to modern readers but would have been powerful rhetoric to the audience of the day. New York City was a major port of entry for African slaves, and, according to the racism of the day, African slaves were viewed as less than fully human. Slaves were not only the basest members of colonial society but also were considered to be morally bankrupt. The freemen of the day, no matter how poor they may have been, considered themselves to be intrinsically superior to the slave class. By imposing taxes on the colonists, the mechanics argued, the British were taking away their rights, and therefore relegating them to a debased existence equaled only by that of slaves.

After the making the comparison between the colonists and slaves, the document gets to its main point. After a whole year of atrocities, the 1775–76 period, there was no sign that the royal government intended to act in a more humane manner toward the American colonists. Therefore, the mechanics state, Americans are left with no choice but to sever ties with the oppressive British government. On their own behalf and that of their constituents, the letter continues, the New York mechanics call upon the Provincial Congress to support American independence. Many members of the Provincial Congress were men of considerable wealth and had strong vested interests in compromising with the royal government. Until the early summer of 1776, they had resisted supporting succession as a solution to the growing tension between the British government and the American colonies.

Again, the fact that the mechanics mention that they are speaking for their constituents is telling. Although the mechanics class was, overall, not financially powerful, it had numbers on its side; the class formed the single largest part of New York society. The Provincial Congress would have known that they could not entirely ignore the wishes of such a large base of residents, even if the individuals who made up the mechanics class were not rich or powerful on their own.

The letter closes by instructing the members of the New York Provincial Congress to vote for independence from Britain at the Congressional Congress to be held in August in Philadelphia. The mechanics pledge to give their lives and their fortunes to the cause of independence, pledges that would have been understood as significant to the war effort. The mechanics class, by virtue of their large numbers, represented a significant percentage of the male population that would be called upon to take up arms in the Revolutionary War.

The pledge to give their fortunes to the cause was also important because they were the people who made the hardware needed in the war. Without the mechanics firm commitment to the war effort, the American side would have had a difficult time outfitting itself with materials needed for waging a prolonged war against what was considered to be the most powerful military of the day.

Bibliography

Bernstein, Richard. Are We to Be a Nation? The Making of the Constitution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1987. Print.

Champagne, Roger. “Liberty Boys and Mechanics of New York City, 1764–1774.” Labor History 8.2 (Spring 1967): 115–35. Print.

Launitz-Schurer, Leopold. Loyal Whigs and Revolutionaries. New York: New York UP, 1980. Print.

Lynd, Staughton. “The Mechanics in New York Politics, 1774–1788.” Labor History 5.3 (Fall 1964): 225–46. Print.

Mason, Bernard. The Road to Independence: The Revolutionary Movement in New York 1773–1777. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1966. Print.

Peskin, Lawrence. “From Protection to Encouragement: Manufacturing and Mercantilism in New York City’s Public Sphere.” Journal of the Early Republic 18.4 (Winter 1998): 589–615. Print.

Zinn, Howard. Voices of a People’s History of the United States. New York: Harper, 1980. Print.