SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

The 'Second Continental Congress' was a body of representatives appointed by the legislatures of thirteen British North American colonies which met from May 10, 1775, to March 1, 1781. It was the body which adopted the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. During the American Revolution, it acted as the ''de facto'' national government of the United States by raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making formal treaties.^[2]

Contents

History

Membership

Dates and places of sessions

See also

Notes

References

External links

History

Its predecessor the First Continental Congress had sent entreaties to the British King George III to stop the Intolerable Acts and had created the Articles of Association to establish a coordinated protest of the Intolerable Acts; in particular, a boycott had been placed on British goods. That First Congress provided that the Second Continental Congress would meet on May 10, 1775, to plan further responses if the British government had not repealed or modified the Intolerable Acts.
By the time the Second Continental Congress met, the American Revolutionary War had already started with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The Congress was to take charge of the war effort. For the first few months of the struggle, the rebels had carried on their struggle in an ad-hoc and uncoordinated manner. They had seized arsenals, driven out royal officials, and besieged the British army in the city of Boston. On June 14, 1775, Congress voted to create the Continental Army out of the militia units around Boston and quickly appointed Congressman George Washington of Virginia over John Hancock of Massachusetts as commanding general of the Continental Army.^[3] On July 6, 1775 Congress approved "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United Colonies of North-America, now met in Congress at Philadelphia, setting forth the causes and necessity of their taking up Arms."[1] On July 8, Congress extended the Olive Branch Petition to the Crown as a final attempt at reconciliation. King George III refused to receive it. Silas Deane was sent to France as a minister (ambassador) of the Congress. American ports were reopened in defiance of the Navigation Acts.
Although it had no explicit legal authority to govern ^[4], it assumed all the functions of a national government, such as appointing ambassadors, signing treaties, raising armies, appointing generals, obtaining loans from Europe, issuing paper money (called "Continentals"), and disbursing funds. The Congress had no authority to levy taxes, and was required to request money, supplies, and troops from the states to support the war effort. Individual states frequently ignored these requests. According to one historian, commenting on the source of the Congress' power:

"The appointment of the delegates to both these congresses was generally by popular conventions, though in some instances by state assemblies. But in neither case can the appointing body be considered the original depositary of the power by which the delegates acted; for the conventions were either self-appointed "committees of safety" or hastily assembled popular gatherings, including but a small fraction of the population to be represented, and the state assemblies had no right to surrender to another body one atom of the power which had been granted to them, or to create a new power which should govern the people without their will. The source of the powers of congress is to be sought solely in the acquiescence of the people, without which every congressional resolution, with or without the benediction of popular conventions or state legislatures, would have been a mere ''brutum fulmen''; and, as the congress unquestionably exercised national powers, operating over the whole country, the conclusion is inevitable that the will of the whole people is the source of national government in the United States, even from its first imperfect appearance in the second continental congress." ^[5]

Congress on May 10, 1776 passed a resolution recommending that any colony lacking a proper government should form such. On May 15 Congress adopted a preamble in which it advised throwing off oaths of allegiance and suppressing the authority of the Crown, while resting colonial governments on the authority of the people. That same day the Virginia Convention instructed its delegation in Philadelphia to propose a declaration of independence and formation of foreign alliances and a confederation. Without dissenting vote (although New York did abstain) the Congress accepted the Declaration of Independence on July 2. ^[6] On July 4 Congress ordered the document authenticated and printed.

Most importantly, in July 1776, they declared independence. The actual ordinance of independence, known as the Lee Resolution, passed on July 2, and the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4 and formally signed on August 2.
The Continental Congress was forced to flee Philadelphia at the end of September 1777, as British troops occupied the city. The Congress moved to York, Pennsylvania, and continued their work.
After more than a year of debate, on November 15, 1777, Congress passed and sent to the states for ratification the Articles of Confederation, the country's first written constitution. The issue was large states wanting a larger say, nullified by small states who feared tyranny. Jefferson's proposal for a Senate to represent the states and a House to represent the people was rejected (a similar proposal ''was'' adopted later in the United States Constitution). The small states won and each state had one vote.^[7] Congress urged the individual states to pass the Articles as quickly as possible, but it took three and a half years for all the states to ratify the Articles. In the meantime, the Second Continental Congress tried to lead the new country through the war with borrowed money and no taxing power. Finally, on March 1, 1781, the Articles of Confederation were ratified. The Second Continental Congress adjourned and the same delegates met the next day as the new Congress of the Confederation. It would be the Confederation Congress that would oversee the conclusion of the American Revolution.

Membership

The colonies convening at the Second Continental Congress were:

★ Province of New Hampshire

★ Province of Massachusetts

★ Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

★ Connecticut Colony

★ Province of New York

★ Province of New Jersey

★ Province of Pennsylvania

★ Lower Colonies on Delaware^[8]

★ Province of Maryland

★ Colony and Dominion of Virginia

★ Province of North Carolina

★ Province of South Carolina

★ Province of Georgia
Georgia had not participated in the First Continental Congress and did not send delegates to the Second Continental Congress on May 10, 1775. On May 13, 1775, Lyman Hall was admitted as a delegate from the Parish of St. John's in the Colony of Georgia, ''not'' as a delegate from the colony itself.^[9] On July 4, 1775, Georgia began a provincial congress to decide how to respond to the American Revolution, and that congress decided on July 8 to send delegates to the Continental Congress. They arrived on July 20.^[10]

Dates and places of sessions

★ May 10, 1775 – December 12, 1776, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

★ December 20, 1776 – March 4, 1777, Baltimore, Maryland

★ March 5, 1777 – September 18, 1777, Philadelphia

★ September 27, 1777 (one day only), Lancaster, Pennsylvania

★ September 30, 1777 – June 27, 1778, York, Pennsylvania

★ July 2, 1778 – March 1, 1781, Philadelphia

See also

★ History of the United States (1776-1789)

★ List of Continental Congress Delegates

★ President of the Continental Congress

★ Articles of Confederation

★ Timeline of United States revolutionary history (1760-1789)

Notes

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References

★ Adams, Willi Paul. ''The First American Constitutions: Republican Ideology and the Making of the State Constitutions in the Revolutionary Era.'' U. of North Carolina Press, 1980. 351 pp. ISBN 0742520692

★ Bancroft, George. ''History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American continent.'' (1854-78), vol 4-10 online edition

★ The Continental Congress, , Edmund C., Burnett, Greenwood Publishing, 1975, ISBN 0-8371-8386-3

★ Francis D. Cogliano, ''Revolutionary America, 1763-1815: A Political History.'' London: 2000. ISBN 0415180570

★ Worthington C. Ford, et al. ed. ''Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789.'' (34 vol., 1904–1937) online edition

★ Party Politics in the Continental Congress, , H. James, Henderson, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, ISBN 0-8191-6525-5

★ Peter Force, ed. ''American Archives'' 9 vol 1837-1853, major compilation of documents 1774-1776. online edition

★ James J. Kirschke. ''Gouverneur Morris: Author, Statesman, and Man of the World'' (2005) ISBN 031224195X

★ Kruman, Marc W. ''Between Authority and Liberty: State Constitution Making in Revolutionary America.'' U. of North Carolina Pr., 1997. ISBN 0807847976

★ Maier, Pauline. ''American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence'' (1998)

★ Miller, John C. ''Triumph of Freedom, 1775-1783'' (1948) ISBN 0313207798

★ The Reluctant Rebels; the Story of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, , Lynn, Montross, Barnes & Noble, 1970, ISBN 0-389-03973-X

★ Rakove, Jack N. ''The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress.'' Knopf, 1979. ISBN 0801828643

★ Winton U. Solberg. ''The Federal Convention and the Formation of the Union of the American States.'' (Liberal Arts Press. 1958.)

External links

★ “The Continental Congress - History, Declaration and Resolves, Resolutions and Recommendations” from Americans.net

★ Full text of ''Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789''

★ HeinOnline

★ Interactive Flash Version of John Trumbull's "Declaration of Independence"