The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that
started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare
in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress,
which met between September 5, 1774 and October 25, 1774, also in Philadelphia. The second
Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence,
adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. By raising armies,
directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making formal treaties, the Congress acted
as the de facto national government of what became the United States.
When the Second Continental Congress came together on May 10, 1775 it was, in effect,
a reconvening of the First Continental Congress. Many of the same 56 delegates who attended
the first meeting were in attendance at the second, and the delegates appointed the same
president and secretary. Notable new arrivals included Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania
and John Hancock of Massachusetts. Within two weeks, Randolph was summoned back to Virginia
to preside over the House of Burgesses; he was replaced in the Virginia delegation by
Thomas Jefferson, who arrived several weeks later. Henry Middleton was elected as president
to replace Randolph, but he declined. Hancock was elected president on May 24.
Delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies were present when the Second Continental Congress
convened. Georgia had not participated in the First Continental Congress and did not
initially send delegates to the Second Continental Congress. 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. On July 4, 1775, revolutionary Georgians held 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.
History Its predecessor, the First Continental Congress,
had sent entreaties to the British King George III to stop the Coercive Acts and had created
the Continental Association to establish a coordinated protest of the Coercive 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if the British government had not repealed or modified the Coercive Acts.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 Patriots 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,
the Congress voted to create the Continental Army out of the militia units around Boston
and quickly appointed Congressman George Washington of Virginia as commanding general of the Continental
Army. On July 6, 1775 Congress approved a Declaration of Causes outlining the rationale
and necessity for taking up arms in the Thirteen Colonies." On July 8, Congress extended the
Olive Branch Petition to the British Crown as a final attempt at reconciliation. However,
it was received too late to do any good. Silas Deane was sent to France as a minister of
the Congress. American ports were reopened in defiance of the British Navigation Acts.
Although it had no explicit legal authority to govern, 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, 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 depository 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..
Cyclopædia of Political Science. New York: Maynard, Merrill, and Co., 1899.
Congress was moving towards declaring independence from the British Empire in 1776, but many
delegates lacked the authority from their home governments to take such an action. Advocates
of independence in Congress moved to have reluctant colonial governments revise instructions
to their delegations, or even replace those governments which would not authorize independence.
On May 10, 1776, Congress passed a resolution recommending that any colony lacking a proper
government should form such. On May 15 Congress adopted a more radical preamble to this resolution,
drafted by John Adams, in which it advised throwing off oaths of allegiance and suppressing
the authority of the Crown in any colonial government that still derived its authority
from the Crown. That same day the Virginia Convention instructed its delegation in Philadelphia
to propose a resolution that called for a declaration of independence, the formation
of foreign alliances, and a confederation of the states. The resolution of independence
was delayed for several weeks as revolutionaries consolidated support for independence in their
home governments.
The records of the Continental Congress confirm that the need for a declaration of independence
was intimately linked with the demands of international relations. On June 7, 1776,
Richard Henry Lee tabled a resolution before the Continental Congress declaring the colonies
independent. He also urged Congress to resolve "to take the most effectual measures for forming
foreign Alliances" and to prepare a plan of confederation for the newly independent states.
Lee argued that independence was the only way to ensure a foreign alliance, since no
European monarchs would deal with America if they remained Britain's colonists. American
leaders had rejected the divine right of kings in the New World, but recognized the necessity
of proving their credibility in the Old World. Congress would formally adopt the resolution
of independence, but only after creating three overlapping committees to draft the Declaration,
a Model Treaty, and the Articles of Confederation. The Declaration announced the states' entry
into the international system; the model treaty was designed to establish amity and commerce
with other states; and the Articles of Confederation, which established "a firm league" among the
thirteen free and independent states; together these constituted an international agreement
to set up central institutions for the conduct of vital domestic and foreign affairs.
Congress finally approved the resolution of independence on July 2, 1776. Congress next
turned its attention to a formal explanation of this decision, the United States Declaration
of Independence, which was approved on July 4 and published soon thereafter.
The Congress moved from Philadelphia to Baltimore in the winter of 1776 to avoid capture by
British forces, who were advancing on Philadelphia. As the largest building in then forty-seven
year old Baltimore Town, Henry Fite's tavern provided a comfortable location of sufficient
size for Congress to meet; its site at the western edge of town was beyond easy reach
of the British Royal Navy's ships should they try to sail up the Harbor and the Patapsco
River to shell the town. The Continental Congress was again 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 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. The small states won and each state had one vote. 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. Of the then thirteen states,
the State Legislature of Virginia was the first to ratify the Articles, on December
16, 1777, and the State Legislature of Maryland became the last to do so, on February 2, 1781.
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 signed by delegates of Maryland at a meeting of the Second Continental
Congress, which then declared the Articles ratified. On the next day, the same congressional
delegates met as the new Congress of the Confederation. As historian Edmund Burnett wrote, "There
was no new organization of any kind, not even the election of a new President." The congress
still called itself the Continental Congress. It would be the Confederation Congress that
would oversee the conclusion of the American Revolution.
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, Lancaster, Pennsylvania September 30, 1777 – June 27, 1778, York,
Pennsylvania July 2, 1778 – March 1, 1781, Philadelphia
See also History of the United States
Timeline of United States revolutionary history List of delegates to the Continental Congress
Presidents of the Continental Congress Notes
References Burnett, Edward Cody. The Continental Congress.
New York: Norton. Fowler, William M., Jr.. The Baron of Beacon
Hill: A Biography of John Hancock. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-27619-5.
Further reading 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. ISBN 0-7425-2069-2 Francis D. Cogliano, Revolutionary America,
1763-1815: A Political History. London: 2000. ISBN 0-415-18057-0
Worthington C. Ford, et al. ed. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789. online
edition Henderson, H. James [1974]. Party Politics
in the Continental Congress. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-8191-6525-5.
Peter Force, ed. American Archives 9 vol 1837-1853, major compilation of documents 1774-1776.
online edition Kruman, Marc W. Between Authority and Liberty:
State Constitution Making in Revolutionary America. U. of North Carolina Pr., 1997. ISBN
0-8078-4797-6 Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making
the Declaration of Independence Miller, John C. Triumph of Freedom, 1775-1783
ISBN 0-313-20779-8 Montross, Lynn [1950]. The Reluctant Rebels;
the Story of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789. Barnes & Noble. ISBN 0-389-03973-X.
Rakove, Jack N. The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental
Congress. Knopf, 1979. ISBN 0-8018-2864-3 External links
Full text of Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789
Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789 Interactive Flash Version of John Trumbull's
"Declaration of Independence"