P: The 1st Continental Congress

A COLONIAL Governing Body

Americans were fed up. The "Intolerable" Acts were more than the colonies could stand.  In the summer that followed Parliament's attempt to punish Boston, sentiment for the patriot cause increased dramatically. The printing presses at the Committees of Correspondence were churning out volumes.  There was agreement that this new quandary warranted another intercolonial meeting. It was nearly ten years since the Stamp Act Congress had assembled.  It was time once again for intercolonial action. Thus, on September 1774, the First Continental Congress was convened in Philadelphia. The Continental Congress was the governing body by which the American colonial governments coordinated their resistance to British rule during the first two years of the American Revolution.  

The Congress first met in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, with delegates from each of the 13 colonies except Georgia. On October 20, the Congress adopted the Articles of Association, which stated that if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed by December 1, 1774, a boycott of British goods would begin in the colonies. The Articles also outlined plans for an embargo on exports if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed before September 10, 1775.

On October 21, the delegates approved separate statements for the people of Great Britain and the North American colonies, explaining the colonial position, and on October 26 a similar address was approved for the people of Quebec.

Furthermore, on October 26, the delegates drafted a formal petition outlining the colonists' grievances for British King George III. Many delegates were skeptical about changing the king’s attitude towards the colonies but believed that every opportunity should be exhausted to de-escalate the conflict before taking more radical action. They did not draft such a letter to the British Parliament as the colonists viewed the Parliament as the aggressor behind the recent Intolerable Acts. Lastly, not fully expecting the standoff in Massachusetts to explode into full-scale war, the Congress agreed to reconvene in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775.

Sam and John Adams from Massachusetts were present, as was John Dickinson from Pennsylvania. Virginia selected Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, and Patrick Henry. It took seven weeks for the country's future heroes to agree on a course of action.

A declaration of colonial rights was drafted and sent to London. Much of the debate revolved around defining the colonies' relationship with mother England. A plan introduced by Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania proposed an imperial union with Britain. Under this program, all acts of Parliament would have to be approved by an American assembly to take effect.  Such an arrangement, if accepted by London, might have postponed revolution. But the delegations voted against it — by one vote.

One decision by the Congress often overlooked in importance is its decision to reconvene in May 1775 if their grievances were not addressed. This is a major step in creating an ongoing intercolonial decision making body, unprecedented in colonial history.  When Parliament chose to ignore the Congress, they did indeed reconvene that next May, but by this time boycotts were no longer a major issue. Unfortunately, the Second Continental Congress would be grappling with choices caused by the spilling of blood at Lexington and Concord the previous month.

It was at Carpenters' Hall that America came together politically for the first time on a national level and where the seeds of participatory democracy were sown.