A public servant to the last

It was 250 years ago this week that the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia to organize America’s rebellion against the British crown. War had broken out a few weeks earlier at Lexington and Concord. But there was as yet no national government, no formal American army or relations with foreign countries, and no clear explanation of what the rebellious colonists sought to accomplish.

Over the ensuing months and years, the Second Continental Congress would answer these questions and many more. It featured the first congressional service by the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Hancock. And one of its first actions was to name George Washington commander-in-chief.

North Carolina’s own Richard Caswell — our state’s first governor, and one of our first wartime heroes — played a key role in the Congress. Born in Maryland, he migrated south as a teenager to what became Kingston, North Carolina to work as a surveyor before switching careers to study law.

(Yes, you read that right. When Caswell himself introduced the bill to formally incorporate the town, its name “Kingston” was meant to honor King George III. After American independence was secured, the locals dropped the “g” to disavow any tie to royalty.)

Serving in the pre-war North Carolina House of Burgesses for two decades, Richard Caswell built a statewide reputation as a judicious lawmaker. Few were surprised when in 1774 he was selected as one of three North Carolina delegates to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. A fellow delegate, John Adams of Massachusetts, later remarked that the Congress “always looked to Richard Caswell for North Carolina” for “he was a model.”

By the time the Second Continental Congress convened on May 10, 1775, most colonists were outraged by illegal British taxes, the related implication that American legislatures did not truly possess the traditional power of the purse, and heavy-handed British efforts to subjugate the surly residents of Massachusetts.

But most Americans, and probably most delegates in Philadelphia, were not yet ready to declare full independence. They thought the Parliament in London might be forced to reset its relations with the colonies, or that King George might intervene on America’s behalf.

That had been Richard Caswell’s position, too. He’d spent years backing the actions of North Carolina’s royal governors. As a militiamen, he even helped suppress backcountry rebels at the 1771 Battle of Alamance. By the time Caswell represented North Carolina in the Continental Congress, however, his views had swung strongly toward American resistance and self-government.

By the late spring of 1776, of course, most delegates and their supporters back home agreed with Caswell. His congressional colleagues Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman would draft a Declaration of Independence. The full Congress approved it in July. But Caswell didn’t sign it. He was too busy.

He’d already left Philadelphia in late 1775 to command the militia in North Carolina’s New Bern District. As Colonel Richard Caswell, he was in overall command of the Patriots who defeated a Tory column at the pivotal Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge on Feb. 27, 1776.

Later in the year, when North Carolina’s Fifth Provincial Congress convened in Halifax to write a constitution for the new state, Caswell served as congress president and chaired the committee that wrote the document. After approving the constitution, the lawmakers chose Caswell to serve as the first governor.

By no means was Richard Caswell finished with public service when he left the governor’s office in 1780. After commanding troops again at the Battle of Camden — an embarrassing defeat for the Patriots, alas — Caswell served as state comptroller and in the state senate, then another stint as governor from 1785 to 1787. Failing health precluded him from representing North Carolina that summer at America’s Constitutional Convention, but he insisted on returning to the legislature.

On Nov. 8, 1789, Speaker of the Senate Richard Caswell suffered a stroke during a floor speech and died two days later.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy and American history.