Editorial: America is derived from the consent of the governed

In the fall of 1774, 56 men from 12 of the 13 American colonies met in Philadelphia in the First Continental Congress.

It included John Adams and his cousin Samuel, Patrick Henry, John Jay and George Washington. The purpose was to decide how to proceed after Great Britain’s harsh consequences for the Boston Tea Party.

The response was a letter, the Petition to the King, written by Pennsylvania lawyer John Dickinson.

“We … most earnestly beseech your Majesty, that your Royal authority and interposition may be used for our relief, and that a gracious Answer may be given to this Petition,” Dickinson wrote.

It did no good. Nine months later, the Second Continental Congress met, this time adding Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Robert Morris, Thomas Jefferson and others. The shots at Lexington and Concord had already rung out. They tried to find a path toward settlement to remain “faithful subjects” of George III with the Olive Branch Petition.

Again, there was no peace. In summer of 1776, the Second Continental Congress reconvened. A third document was drafted.

This time there was no attempt at appeasement or wheedling to authority. The Declaration of Independence severed the ties that bound colonies to country and elegantly explained why.

We were still 11 years and a bloody war away from being “we, the people of the United States.” America was a loose and far-flung cluster of communities tenuously connected by bad roads. The big city of Philadelphia had a population of 40,000 — barely more than that of rural Greene County today.

But America as a country was born in the moment those representatives set ink to paper and politely but firmly declared they would no longer bow to a king.

It was more than just a fit of anger. It was an agreement on importance and priorities. We often focus on the “all men are created equal” or “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” lines.

But others are critical, too. We are a nation whose powers “derive from the consent of the governed.” We spoke ourselves into being by calling out a leader “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

America was not inherited. It was created — and continues to be sculpted from the evolving clay of our changing world. It is the responsibility of all of us, every day, to remember why and live up to the intent of our independence.