Early in he was elected to the Continental Congress and was soon deeply immersed in its deliberations and committee operations. Although wholly committed by this time to the cause of independence, and despite the fact that he himself had been a merchant, he was shocked by the activities of other merchants, both in and out of Congress, whom he felt were capitalizing on the war.
Through most of Laurens served as president of Congress. At the end of he accepted a diplomatic mission to Holland. However, he never arrived in Holland, for the vessel on which he was sailing was captured by the English, and Laurens, despite protests of diplomatic immunity, was imprisoned in the Tower of London.
He remained there for more than a year and was treated most harshly; his health was broken and, to a degree, his spirit too. He spent his declining years successfully rebuilding his war-ravaged estate. He died on December 8, , at his Mepkin plantation on the Cooper River.
As stipulated in his will, he chose to have his remains cremated before burial. His ashes were interred at Mepkin. Clark, Peggy J. Frech, Laura Page. Hamer, Philip M. The Papers of Henry Laurens. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, — McDonough, Daniel J. Selinsgrove, Pa. Moore, Warner Oland. Wallace, David Duncan. Despite these sentiments of the time, Laurens held out hope that reconciliation could still be made with Britain. On March 26, South Carolina became the second colony to adopt a new Constitution.
He served on the Commerce Committee and the Treasury Board. For over two weeks in December of he suffered so much with his gout that he was unable to attend Congress. He conducted business from his bed. Although he offered to resign for medical reasons his offer was denied. During the debate on the Saratoga Convention he was the only South Carolina delegate and had to be carried into the chambers because he was so ill. When France entered the war, Laurens decided to remain in Congress as he worked hard to establish trade contracts with French businesses but did so with caution as he did not find French motives trustworthy.
In November he attempted to vacate the Presidency, but the House voted unanimously to ask him to stay until the Articles of Confederation were acceded by all States. Laurens felt bound to stay in Congress when his fellow delegate William Henry Drayton died leaving him the sole representative from South Carolina.
This decision made him available to be elected on October 21, to travel to the Hague to negotiate a loan of not more than 10 million dollars. In addition on November 1, he was elected as Minister to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce with the Netherlands. During his travels to the Netherlands he was redirected to England to be questioned by British police authorities.
He was charged with suspicion of high treason after they confirmed his identity and presented the paper that commissioned him to borrow money from countries in Europe to be used by Congress. He was then committed to the Tower of London 7. He is the only American to have ever been held prisoner there.
On October 13th he received his first visitors. It is documented in the Tower's Register that the members of his family were allowed to visit every ten days to two weeks thereafter. He was not allowed to leave his rooms until November 7th and walk the grounds with guards during this first walk, bars were installed on the windows. While a prisoner he wrote articles for a rebel newspaper with pen and paper provided by a woman who smuggled them in to him and the articles out of the prison for him.
In April of , his son John arrived in Paris on the behalf of Congress to serve as a special envoy to King Louis XVI of France to appeal for supplies for the relief of American armies and while there appealed to the French Government to intervene for the release or at the very least the better treatment of his father.
When John reported to Congress he suggested that if America treated a high value British prisoner similarly they may trade him. He was officially discharged with a full and unconditional release on April 27, ; he spent 15 months as a prisoner in the Tower, not of war but as a prisoner of the State since he was deemed a traitor. Since he was not a prisoner of war he could not be traded for another prisoner until the capture of General Cornwallis who was the Constable of the Tower.
In January of when General Cornwallis, who was paroled by America in exchange for Henry Laurens, arrived in England it was supposed to absolve and discharge him from his parole when Laurens was released.
He had not been home long when his youngest daughter, Mary Eleanor, sought his approval for marriage at the age of sixteen. Laurens objected to the match on the ostensible grounds of the youth of his daughter and because she was thirteen-and-a-half-years younger than Pinckney, though one suspects that political differences might also have played a role.
This was a high tribute because Laurens was a freshman delegate and not a signer of the Declaration of Independence. It was widely believed that Laurens could lead this fledgling nation to complete the first Constitution of the United States and win the war with Great Britain. Delegate Roberdeau wrote:. On April 1, , Mrs. Robert Morris wrote her mother Mary White:. Hancock intends resigning his seat in Congress, and going home; it is imagined he will be appointed Governor of Boston.
They meant to have complimented Mr. I assure you I do, and begin to be reconciled to Independence. Continental Congress Historian Dr. Sanders writes of this event:. Big business was not without influence in America in In his first official letter to the States as President he wrote:. And I have it in command to transmit to you the inclosed extract from the minutes of Congress for that purpose.
On November 15, , without much further debate the Constitution of , the Articles of Confederation, was passed by Congress. Its birth, however, required its ratification by all 13 States and this would not be realized until March 1, under President Huntington. Henry Laurens would sign the document, not as President of the Continental Congress, but as a delegate from South Carolina when South Carolina formally ratified the Articles of Confederation on July 9, Laurens noted he often dined on only bread and cheese with a glass of grog.
Laurens learned the burden of the office included being the conduit of unhappy correspondence between Congress and the half starved Commander-in-Chief. In addition to this, Laurens was responsible for the diplomatic correspondence, chairing the meetings, the granting and refusal of favors to be heard by Congress.
In the first part of December he, like his predecessor, had a severe attack of the gout which confined him to his room. For the next three months Laurens walked with a limp. At the crisis over the Saratoga Convention he was carried into the York-Town Courthouse to preside over the crucial meeting. He wrote I am:. This encourages horrible swellings which are not quite dispersed with the short respite in bed. On December 12th, a mere 42 days after his election, he asked Congress to elect him a successor:.
The Malady under which he labours has made such progress as to convince him by reflecting upon former attacks that he will not be able to move out of the House nor to attend his duty in Congress for some Weeks to come. When he accepted the Honour which you were pleased to confer on him it was with a single Eye to your service in the most comprehensive meaning.
Now he finds himself incapable of performing his duty he is anxious to Resign that Honor, which he accepted only on obedience to your Vote. President of the Continental Congress on February 6, President Laurens was an active participant in debate especially when he was the sole delegate represented by South Carolina.
His Presidency drew criticism by his fellow delegates, as he was not hesitant to use his chair to make timely and uncomplimentary remarks about his colleagues. In his book the President of the Continental Congress — Sanders writes:. Congressional leadership must not be construed to mean merely the activities of members on the floor of that body. One gains the impression from a perusal of the correspondence of the day, that important matters were discussed informally outside Congress by coteries, fractions, and cliques as they ate their meals together or visited their rooming places.
Action in Congress, therefore, might at times be little more than formal recognition of what had already been agreed upon outside. Through this type of leadership a President might exercise great influence, and yet never participate in debate from the chair.
Laurens expertly utilized this power throughout his Presidency to accelerate or impede the consideration of all official business of the United States of America. Henry Laurens tenure as President was during one of most stormy periods in the Revolutionary War. The controversy then exploded occurring during the same period that President Henry Laurens was occupied with the Saratoga Convention, negotiating the surrender settlement of British General Burgoyne and his army.
They strove for a strict system of control over the Commander-in-Chief. It was the constructive faction who transformed the fitful rebellion into an organized and successful revolution.
The plot, however, had few active supporters in Congress and the Continental Army. The movement to displace Washington began before the Victory at Saratoga. As the attacks on Washington mounted the plotters made wild charges of his incompetence. It was asserted that cowardice restrained Washington from driving General Howe out of Philadelphia in even though he had two to three times more forces than the British. For example, James Lovell the delegate from Massachusetts maintained that Washington marched his army up and down with no other purpose then to wear out their clothing, shoes, and stockings.
An attack on Philadelphia would have decimated the Continental Army. What a fatality attends some men in the choice of their favorites! It seems as if honest men are not to be found in the 13 United States sufficient to make aids de Camp, Secretaries and privy Councellors to one great Man, whom no Citizen shall dare even to talk about say the Gentlemen of the Blade. The Continental Congress, to make matters more complex for Washington, bestowed upon Gates and his supporters a series of appointments and promotions.
Their incompetence of managing the Board of War, Commissary and Quartermaster departments left wagon loads of clothing and provisions standing in the woods much to the chagrin of Henry Laurens. It was a political travesty. Washington never made this letter public. Henry Laurens learned of this through his son, a Washington Aide-to-Camp. Washington wrote a letter to Gates and copied Congress notifying him that it was his own aide, Wilkinson, who had been indiscreet and not anyone in his camp.
President Laurens wrote to his son:. Shall such a Man seperate friends or keep them asunder? It must not be. My Dear son, I pray God protect you. In the end Laurens neutrality embolden the Cabal but the scheme to replace George Washington with Horatio Gates fell apart in early when the plan was made public.
One after another the delegates and generals hasten to disclaim any connection to the Conway and Gates. The reaction of the people was clear, George Washington was strongly entrenched in the minds and hearts of the common man and they wanted him to remain the Commander-in-Chief. The Cabal was dead; the people had spoken this lesson to culminate finally combining the office of the U.
Presidency with the power of Commander-in-Chief in the 2nd Constitution of The Second Constitutional Convention, in , was still nine years away with the states still debating the ratification of the Constitution of , the Articles of Confederation. Despite Washington holding on as Commander-in-Chief the country fell into desperate times over the divisive philosophies in Congress on how to conduct business while the founders awaited the ratification of the Articles of Confederation.
Despite the challenges, Henry Laurens, remained constructive turning to the business of the Presidency. President Laurens, an astute merchant, believed that commerce provisions in one of the treaties were seriously flawed. Specifically he objected to the Confederation abandoning, by treaty, its claims over the control of Florida and the Bahamas which were important future sources of federal revenue in trade duties and land sales.
Additionally Laurens believed that French interest in these territories was political cautioning his fellow delegates that once the treaties were ratified Spain would lay claim to Florida. Laurens was heavily ridiculed by his peers and out maneuvered on measures to correct these inadequacies. Time however, proved Laurens right as the United States lost the valuable southern port of St. Augustine and large tracts of land which were both direly needed to fund the fledging government.
In the spring of , Laurens letters spoke continuously of the deficiency of State representation in Congress. He believed the inexperienced delegates were not capable of dealing with important commercial treaties between America and Denmark, Russia, Spain, Holland and Sweden.
He ardently sought more experienced representation from the state legislatures in numerous letters to their leaders. By the summer of his letters blossomed into the formation of a considerably strengthened Congress. Samuel Adams returned after an absence of six months. If you were here in this Room I could entertain you five minutes with description of an excellent attempt in favor of pivot which was not only ousted but brought on a proposition which, as a Man of honor he must have wished for, as a Man of politeness he must have wished for it, because all the World wished for it.
Your antagonists I find have not yet turned their backs, the more motions they make the more I suspect them. The long continuance of repeated accounts marking their intended embarkation has injured our Cause more than you are aware of. Laurens according to the Library of congress:.
That John Laurens understood the use of it in the present letter as a reference to Mifflin is indicated by this statement in his June 14th reply:. The inquiry into the conduct of the late quarter masters, must give pleasure to every man who wishes to see the betrayers of public trusts brought to condign punishment. General Mifflin would later be exonerated of these charges and go on to serve as President of the United States, in Congress Assembled.
George Washington, however, remained cool to Mifflin throughout the rest of his days never forgetting his role in the Conway Cabal. In an ironic twist a fate when George Washington resigned his office of Commander-in-Chief in it ended ceremoniously with his commission being returned to the President of the United States, Thomas Mifflin.
On June 20 , the news that the British had evacuated Philadelphia on the 18th reached Congress. The city was in complete celebration with barn fires, the lighting of the courthouse and fireworks. The Journals report:. According to adjournment, the president and a number of members met at the State House in Philadelphia on Thursday the 2d of July,and adjourned from day to day, to the present.
The Congress meets in the College Hall, as the State House was left by the enemy in a most filthy and sordid situation, as were many of the public and private buildings in the City.
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