First Continental Congress

The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from

12 of the 13 British colonies that became the United States. It met
First Continental Congress
from September 5 to October 26, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after the British Navy instituted a
blockade of Boston Harbor and Parliament passed the punitive
Intolerable Acts in response to the December 1773 Boston Tea
Party. During the opening weeks of the Congress, the delegates
conducted a spirited discussion about how the colonies could
collectively respond to the British government's coercive actions,
and they worked to make common cause. A plan was proposed to
create a Union of Great Britain and the Colonies, but the delegates
rejected it. They ultimately agreed to impose an economic boycott
on British trade, and they drew up a Petition to the King pleading Type
for redress of their grievances and repeal of the Intolerable Acts.
That appeal had no effect, so the colonies convened the Second Type Unicameral
Continental Congress the following May, shortly after the battles History
of Lexington and Concord, to organize the defense of the colonies
Established September 5, 1774
at the outset of the Revolutionary War. The delegates also urged
each colony to set up and train its own militia. Disbanded October 26, 1774
Preceded by Stamp Act Congress
Succeeded by Second Continental
Contents Congress

Convention Leadership

Declaration and Resolves President Peyton Randolph

(through October 22,
Accomplishments 1774)
List of delegates Henry Middleton
Notes Secretary Charles Thomson
Gallery Seats 56 from 12 of the 13
See also colonies

References Meeting place

Sources
External links

Convention
The Congress met from September 5 to October 26, 1774, in
Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia; delegates from 12 British
colonies participated. They were elected by the people of the
various colonies, the colonial legislature, or by the Committee of
Correspondence of a colony.[1] Loyalist sentiments outweighed
Patriot views in Georgia, and that colony did not join the cause
until the following year.[2]

Peyton Randolph was elected as president of the Congress on the

opening day, and he served through October 22 when ill health
forced him to retire, and Henry Middleton was elected in his place
for the balance of the session. Charles Thomson, leader of the
Philadelphia Committee of Correspondence, was selected as the
congressional secretary.[3] The rules adopted by the delegates
were designed to guard the equality of participants and to promote
free-flowing debate.[1]

As the deliberations progressed, it became clear that those in

attendance were not of one mind concerning why they were there.
Conservatives such as Joseph Galloway, John Dickinson, John Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia
Jay, and Edward Rutledge believed their task to be forging
policies to pressure Parliament to rescind its unreasonable acts. Their ultimate goal was to develop a reasonable
solution to the difficulties and bring about reconciliation between the Colonies and Great Britain. Others such
as Patrick Henry, Roger Sherman, Samuel Adams, and John Adams believed their task to be developing a
decisive statement of the rights and liberties of the Colonies. Their ultimate goal was to end what they felt to be
the abuses of parliamentary authority and to retain their rights, which had been guaranteed under Colonial
charters and the English constitution.[4]

Roger Sherman denied the legislative authority of Parliament, and Patrick Henry believed that the Congress
needed to develop a completely new system of government, independent from Great Britain, for the existing
Colonial governments were already dissolved.[5] In contrast to these ideas, Joseph Galloway put forward a
"Plan of Union" which suggested that an American legislative body should be formed with some authority,
whose consent would be required for imperial measures.[5][6]

Declaration and Resolves

In the end, the voices of compromise carried the day. Rather than calling for independence, the First
Continental Congress passed and signed the Continental Association in its Declaration and Resolves, which
called for a boycott of British goods to take effect in December 1774. It requested that local Committees of
Safety enforce the boycott and regulate local prices for goods. These resolutions adopted by the Congress did
not endorse any legal power of Parliament to regulate trade, but consented, nonetheless, to the operation of
acts for that purpose. Furthermore, they did not repudiate control by the royal prerogative, which was
explicitly acknowledged in the Petition to the King a few days later.

Accomplishments
The primary accomplishment of the First Continental Congress was a compact among the colonies to boycott
British goods beginning on December 1, 1774 unless parliament should rescind the Intolerable Acts.[7]
Additionally, Great Britain's colonies in the West Indies were threatened with a boycott unless they agreed to
non-importation of British goods.[8] Imports from Britain dropped by 97 percent in 1775, compared with the
previous year.[7] Committees of observation and inspection were to be formed in each Colony to ensure
compliance with the boycott. It was further agreed that if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed, the colonies
would also cease exports to Britain after September 10, 1775.[7]
The Houses of Assembly of each participating colony approved the proceedings of the Congress, with the
exception of New York.[9] The boycott was successfully implemented, but its potential for altering British
colonial policy was cut off by the outbreak of hostilities in April 1775.

Congress also voted to meet again the following year if their grievances were not addressed satisfactorily.
Anticipating that there would be cause to convene a second congress, delegates resolved to send letters of
invitation to those colonies that had not joined them in Philadelphia, including: Quebec, Saint John's Island,
Nova Scotia, Georgia, East Florida, and West Florida.[10] Of these, only Georgia would ultimately send
delegates to the next Congress.

List of delegates
Colony Name
New Hampshire Nathaniel Folsom; John Sullivan

Massachusetts Bay John Adams;[A] Samuel Adams; Thomas Cushing; Robert Treat Paine
Rhode Island Stephen Hopkins; Samuel Ward
Connecticut Silas Deane; Eliphalet Dyer; Roger Sherman

John Alsop;[B] Simon Boerum; James Duane;[B] William Floyd;[C] John Haring;[D] John
New York
Jay;[B][E] Philip Livingston;[B] Isaac Low;[B][F] Henry Wisner[D]
New Jersey Stephen Crane; John De Hart; James Kinsey; William Livingston; Richard Smith

Pennsylvania Edward Biddle; John Dickinson; Joseph Galloway;[F] Charles Humphreys; Thomas Mifflin;
John Morton; Samuel Rhoads; George Ross
Delaware Thomas McKean; George Read; Caesar Rodney
Maryland Samuel Chase; Robert Goldsborough; Thomas Johnson; William Paca; Matthew Tilghman
Richard Bland; Benjamin Harrison; Patrick Henry; Richard Henry Lee; Edmund Pendleton;
Virginia
Peyton Randolph;[G] George Washington[A]
North Carolina Richard Caswell; Joseph Hewes; William Hooper

Christopher Gadsden; Thomas Lynch Jr.; Henry Middleton;[G] Edward Rutledge; John
South Carolina
Rutledge[E]

Source:[1]

Notes
A. Future U.S. president.[11]
B. Appointed by the Committee of Fifty-one of the city and county of New York and authorized by
the counties of Albany, Duchess, and Westchester.
C. For Suffolk County.
D. Appointed by the general meeting of all the committees of Orange County.
E. Future U.S. Supreme Court chief justice.[11]
F. Ultimately became a loyalist.
G. Served as president of the Congress.

Gallery
 Embossed copy of the Broadside copy of the
Petition to the King Continental Association

200th anniversary of the First Continental Congress

commemorated on two 10-cent U.S. postage stamps
of the 1971–1983 Bicentennial Series

See also
American Revolutionary War#Prelude to revolution
Founding Fathers of the United States
List of delegates to the Continental Congress
Papers of the Continental Congress

References
1. "First Continental Congress: Proceedings of the First Continental Congress" (http://www.ushist
ory.org/Declaration/related/congress.html). ushistory.org. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:
Independence Hall Association. Retrieved April 30, 2019.
2. Cashin, Edward J. (March 26, 2005). "Revolutionary War in Georgia" (https://www.georgiaency
clopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/revolutionary-war-georgia). New Georgia
Encyclopedia. Georgia Humanities and the University of Georgia Press. Retrieved April 30,
2019.
3. Risjord, Norman K. (2002). Jefferson's America, 1760–1815. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 114.
 4. McLaughlin, Andrew C. (1936). "A constitutional History of the United States" (http://www.consti
tution.org/cmt/mclaughlin/chus.htm). New York, London: D. Appleton-Century Company.
pp. 83–90. Retrieved August 27, 2014.
5. Greene, Evarts Boutell (1922). The Foundations of American Nationality (https://archive.org/str
eam/foundationsofame005250mbp#page/n477/mode/2up). American Book Company. p. 434.
6. Miller, Marion Mills (1913). Great Debates in American Hist: From the Debates in the British
Parliament on the Colonial Stamp (https://archive.org/details/greatdebatesina16millgoog).
Current Literature Pub. Co. p. 91 (https://archive.org/details/greatdebatesina16millgoog/page/n
109).
7. Kramnick, Isaac (ed); Thomas Paine (1982). Common Sense. Penguin Classics. p. 21.
8. Ketchum, p. 262.
9. Launitz-Schurer p. 144.
10. Frothingham, Richard (1872). The Rise of the Republic of the United States (https://archive.org/
details/riserepublicuni01unkngoog). Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, and Company.
pp. 375 (https://archive.org/details/riserepublicuni01unkngoog/page/n405)–376. Retrieved
April 30, 2019.
11. "Continental Congress" (https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/the-continental-co
ngress). A&E Television Networks. October 3, 2018 [Originally published February 4, 2010].
Retrieved April 30, 2019.

Sources
Bancroft, George. History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American
continent. (1854–78), vol 4–10 online edition (https://web.archive.org/web/20070216045633/htt
p://jrshelby.com/sc-links/bancroft.htm)
Burnett, Edmund C. (1975) [1941]. The Continental Congress. Greenwood Publishing. ISBN 0-
8371-8386-3.
Henderson, H. James (2002) [1974]. Party Politics in the Continental Congress. Rowman &
Littlefield. ISBN 0-8191-6525-5.
Launitz-Schurer, Loyal Whigs and Revolutionaries, The making of the revolution in New York,
1765-1776, 1980, ISBN 0-8147-4994-1
Ketchum, Richard, Divided Loyalties, How the American Revolution came to New York, 2002,
ISBN 0-8050-6120-7
Miller, John C. Origins of the American Revolution (1943) online edition (https://www.questia.co
m/PM.qst?a=o&d=493014)
Puls, Mark, Samuel Adams, father of the American Revolution, 2006, ISBN 1-4039-7582-5
Montross, Lynn (1970) [1950]. The Reluctant Rebels; the Story of the Continental Congress,
1774–1789 (https://archive.org/details/reluctantrebelss0000mont). Barnes & Noble. ISBN 0-
389-03973-X.
Peter Force, ed. American Archives, 9 vol 1837–1853, major compilation of documents 1774–
1776. online edition (https://web.archive.org/web/20070206214032/http://dig.lib.niu.edu/amarc
h/index.html)

External links
Works related to First Continental Congress at Wikisource
Media related to Continental Congress at Wikimedia Commons
Full text of Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (http://memory.loc.gov/am
mem/amlaw/lwjclink.html)
 Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789 (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwdg.html)

Succeeded by
Preceded by First Continental Congress
Second Continental
Stamp Act Congress September 5 – October 26, 1774
Congress

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