October 1774 - Closing Congress and Opening Divides

It's October 20, 1774. American Independence is 623 days away.    As the First Continental Congress draws to a close in Philadelphia, 53 out of the 56 members of the Congress put their signature on a document that represents the culmination of two months worth of intense deliberation and debates.  The document they signed, known by history as the Articles of Association, would eventually be looked back upon 93 years later by Abraham Lincoln in his first Inaugural Address as the true moment that the America Union was first born.   This month's episode picks up where September left off, closing out the work of the First Continental Congress as the representatives worked to forge a path forward that could bind all the disparate elements of the American patriot movement together in common cause. In the process these men would lay the foundational work of what would eventually become the new American nation, but also create fissures that would isolate many who once called the American colonies home - the men and women who would become known as the American Loyalists.   Sources: 1774: The Long Year of Revolution by Mary Beth Norton   Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World by Maya Jasanoff   American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 by Alan Taylor   Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution by Woody Holton   American Insurgents, American Patriots by T.H. Breen   Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution's Lost Hero by Christian Di Spigna   Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760-1791 by Richard D. Brown