During the summer of 1774, political leaders throughout the American colonies debated on what to do about British policies. Some said they should try to put pressure on Britain by not buying merchandise from them. Others focused on preparing for war, in case that should ever happen. Others wanted to simply keep asking the King and Parliament to reconsider, to listen to reason, to take a different approach toward the colonies.
Bryan Fairfax was one of the latter. He was a close friend of George Washington, and while he strongly believed that American rights were being violated by British policies, and he was ready to stand firmly for what he believed, he favored the approach of asking: asking for justice, for the British government to changes policies — rather than trying to force them into it. He thought that a petition would be better than a boycott.
One reason he gave for this opinion was that while a lot of Americans talked big, they might not put their money where their mouth was. If the colonists decided to stop buying British goods, they would be making things harder for themselves; a lot of things weren’t manufactured much in America, and people would have to do without. You can understand that if you’ve ever gone on a diet: it’s not hard to say that you won’t eat any ice cream, but following through with that is another thing…
Fairfax wrote to George Washington, explaining his position and urging that they send another petition to the King, to ask for — rather than demand — a change in policies. Washington responded (it was on July 4th, of all days):
As to your political sentiments, I would heartily join you in them, so far as relates to a humble and dutiful petition to the throne, provided there was the most distant hope of success. But have we not tried this already? Have we not addressed the Lords, and remonstrated to the Commons? And to what end? Did they deign to look at our petitions? Does it not appear, as clear as the sun in its meridian brightness, that there is a regular, systematic plan formed to fix the right and practice of taxation upon us? Does not the uniform conduct of Parliament for some years past confirm this? Do not all the debates, especially those just brought to us, in the House of Commons on the side of government, expressly declare that America must be taxed in aid of the British funds, and that she has no longer resources within herself? Is there any thing to be expected from petitioning after this? Is not the attack upon the liberty and property of the people of Boston, before restitution of the loss to the India Company was demanded, a plain and self-evident proof of what they are aiming at? Do not the subsequent bills (now I dare say acts), for depriving the Massachusetts Bay of its charter, and for transporting offenders into other colonies or to Great Britain for trial, where it is impossible from the nature of the thing that justice can be obtained, convince us that the administration is determined to stick at nothing to carry its point? Ought we not, then, to put our virtue and fortitude to the severest test?
Washington wasn’t a flaming radical. If he were alive today, you wouldn’t find him as a TV or radio talk show host. He stood for ideals, but he was a realist. (Or, to irreverently borrow a phrase from Meredith Willson’s song “Shipoopi,” in The Music Man, he had his “head in the clouds, feet on the ground.”) His own virtue and fortitude would soon be put to a very severe test; almost exactly a year after he wrote this letter, he took command of the newly-formed, makeshift American army near Boston, and he spent the next eight years working and fighting for his ideals. Without a lot of virtue and fortitude, he wouldn’t have made it through that test. Fairfax wasn’t sure that the colonists would be able to carry through with their plan; Washington wasn’t sure either, but he saw no viable alternative, and he was determined to do what he could.
Source
“From George Washington to Bryan Fairfax, 4 July 1774,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified March 30, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0075. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 10, 21 March 1774 – 15 June 1775, ed. W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, pp. 109–110.]