Despite Bernard's opposition, there was little he could do to stop such a meeting. London had already set the stage for it, and all the King's royal officers in America could do was wait and hope for the least possible damage.
"In imposing the Stamp Act, [Prime Minister] Grenville departed from the time-honored British policy of ruling the colonies by taking advantage of their sectional and social divisions," writes John C. Miller in Origins of the American Revolution. In one fell swoop, Grenville had basically erased those divisions, giving the colonies a common adversary and reason to unite.
While it was possible that Otis's intercolonial congress might speak out as forcefully as Henry's Resolves, thus accentuating at least part of the moderates' dilemma, whatever emanated from such a congress would more assuredly be representative of colonial consensus than what had been passed in Virginia. And that was Otis's prime objective.
Henry preferred to railroad provocative Resolves through a political body in the waning days of its session with few legislators present to stop him. By contrast, Otis wanted as many voices at the table as possible. That was the best way to achieve true colonial unity, articulate a genuinely representative statement on the Stamp Act, and achieve the best results from London.
The idea of the colonies coming together in an official capacity was not altogether new. Thomas Hutchinson and Benjamin Franklin had proposed an intercolonial union during the Seven Years' War. However, it would be in Boston in 1765 that the idea would take root. And the seeds had been planted almost immediately after word reached the colonies of the new Stamp Act.
Before Otis made his historic proposal, a Boston town meeting on May 24, 1765, urged the town's representatives in the colonial Assembly to "use your Endeavors" to unite "his Majesty's other North American Colonys" to add "their weight" to "this Province." The resolution declared that "...by the united Applications of all who are Aggrieved, All may happily obtain Redress."
The Massachusetts House shortly thereafter issued a circular to the other colonies, asking them to urge their agents to "unite in the most serious Remonstrance" against the Sugar Act and the upcoming Stamp Act.
The Massachusetts Assembly then adopted Otis's proposal and plans were made for a Stamp Act Congress in October.
The Stamp Act Congress, while a better venue for the moderate Whigs to exert influence than the status quo, was not exclusively supported by the moderates. In fact, many radicals, including Sam Adams, saw a great opportunity with an intercolonial congress. While arguably somewhat responsible for the climate that produced much of the violence British America had seen, Adams recognized that coordinated political protest, backed by the threat of economic consequences to British merchants, was the colonies' best hope for success. It was far preferable to mobs in the streets. (In fact, Adams had been reportedly horrified to learn of Hutchinson's house being destroyed.)
