| Olive Branch Petition | |
|---|---|
 Signature page of the Olive Branch Petition, withJohn Hancock's prominent signature at the top | |
| Ratified | July 5, 1775 |
| Signatories | Second Continental Congress |
| Purpose | Avoiding war betweenGreat Britain and theThirteen Colonies |
| Part of a series on the | ||||||
| American Revolution | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 TheCommittee of Five presents their draft of theDeclaration of Independence to theSecond Continental Congress inPhiladelphia | ||||||
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TheOlive Branch Petition was adopted by theSecond Continental Congress on July 5, 1775, and signed on July 8, 1775, in a final attempt to avoid war between Great Britain and theThirteen Colonies in America. The Congress had already authorized theinvasion of Canada more than a week earlier, but the petition affirmed American loyalty to Great Britain and entreated KingGeorge III to prevent further conflict. It was followed by the July 6, 1775Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, however, which made its success unlikely in London.[1] In August 1775, the colonies were formally declared to be in rebellion by theProclamation of Rebellion, and the petition was rejected by the British government; King George had refused to read it before declaring the coloniststraitors.[2]
TheSecond Continental Congress, convened in present-dayIndependence Hall in the revolutionary capital ofPhiladelphia in May 1775, and most of its delegates initially supported fellow delegateJohn Dickinson in his quest to attempt to reconcile withKing George III. But a smaller group of delegates to the Second Continental Congress, led byJohn Adams, argued that war with theBritish would ultimately prove inevitable, and they instead abstained from supporting Dickinson's efforts, choosing instead to await a suitable moment to rally theThirteen Colonies in support of war and the cause of American independence.
The disengagement of this smaller number of delegates, however, allowed Dickinson and the delegates who supported his efforts to attempt to reconcile their differences and concerns with the British.[3][page needed]
Dickinson was the primary author of the Olive Branch Petition, andBenjamin Franklin,John Jay,John Rutledge, andThomas Johnson served on the drafting committee for the document.[4][page needed] Dickinson claimed that the Thirteen Colonies did not seek complete independence from theBritish Empire, but did seek more equitable trade and tax regulations.
Dickinson asked thatKing George III establish a lasting settlement between Great Britain and the colonies "upon so firm a basis as to perpetuate its blessings, uninterrupted by any future dissensions, to succeeding generations in both countries", beginning with the repeal of theIntolerable Acts. The introductory paragraph of the letter named twelve of the thirteen colonies, all exceptGeorgia. The letter was approved on July 5 and was signed byJohn Hancock, President of the Second Continental Congress, and by representatives of these twelve colonies. On July 8, 1775, the letter was sent to London in the care ofRichard Penn andArthur Lee.
The letter is housed in theNational Archives in London.[5][page needed] Dickinson hoped that news of theBattles of Lexington and Concord combined with the "humble petition" would persuade the King to respond with a counter-proposal or open negotiations.[3][page needed]
John Adams, a delegate to theSecond Continental Congress and advocate of full independence from theBritish Empire, wrote a friend, saying that the petition served no purpose, that war with the British was inevitable, and that the Thirteen Colonies should have already raised a navy and taken British officials as prisoners. Adams' letter was intercepted by British officials, and news of its contents reachedGreat Britain at about the same time as the petition itself arrived. British advocates of a military response used Adams' letter to argue that the petition itself was insincere.[6]
Penn and Lee provided a copy of the petition to colonial secretaryLord Dartmouth on August 21, followed with the original on September 1. They reported back on September 2, writing, "we were told that as his Majesty did not receive it on the throne, no answer would be given."[7]
By this time,King George III had already issued hisProclamation of Rebellion on August 23 in response to news of theBattle of Bunker Hill, declaring theThirteen Colonies to be in a state of open rebellion and ordering "all Our officers ... and all Our obedient and loyal subjects, to use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such rebellion".[8] The hostilities which Adams had foreseen undercut the petition, and the King had answered it before it even reached him.[9][page needed]
King George III's refusal to consider the petition gaveJohn Adams and others the opportunity they sought to push for the colonies' full independence and to argue that the King was intransigent and uninterested in addressing the colonists' grievances.
Adams served to polarize the issue in the minds of many in the Thirteen Colonies, who began to see that there was little promise for reconciliation and that only two realistic options existed: complete independence, which almost would require war with the British, or complete submission to British colonial rule.[5]Thomas Paine further expanded this recognition inCommon Sense, his widely-read pamphlet, which was published in January 1776, six months before theSecond Continental Congress agreed to unanimously adopt and publish theDeclaration of Independence, largely authored byThomas Jefferson, which detailed the grievances of the Thirteen Colonies and the case for their independence.
Works related toOlive Branch Petition at Wikisource
