A leading political figure in Pennsylvania, Joseph Galloway after 1776 was branded a "traitor" and a "cringing, bowing sycophantic Tory." Galloway's tragedy is shown in this book to have been ideological: he was a strict constitutionalist. In this respect, Dr. Ferling contends, he was a typical Loyalist, generally more principled than self-serving.

In 1774, Galloway's Plan of Union lost in the Congress by one vote-a loss that changed the course of history, since Galloway tried to avoid revolution by anticipating the British commonwealth system. In 1775, when the Assembly spurned Galloway's recommendation that it abandon its defiance of Britain, Galloway quit the Assembly and the Congress-whereas Franklin joined the forces that conceived the Declaration of Independence.

Galloway served General Howe as a compiler of intelligence reports, as a recruiter of Loyalist troops, and as police commissioner of British-occupied Philadelphia. After 1778 he pamphleteered in London to rally the flagging British war effort, and he wrote one of the earliest histories of the "American Rebellion." Until his death in exile in 1803, Galloway remained steadfast in his belief that "the most proper Plan for cementing the two countries together" would have been constitutional, granting "America the same Rights and Privileges as are enjoyed by the Subjects in Britain."