Continental Congress

Prior to 1774 all 13 colonies were governed by independent legislatures. As dissatisfaction with British rule grew in the early 1770s, the legislative bodies appointed local Committees of Correspondence to provide leadership and help the colonies work together. Although the Committees of Correspondence communicated with one another, they didn't work together as a unit. Each viewed itself as separate and distinct from the others.

This attitude changed with the Coercive Acts of 1774. Although most of the new laws punished Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party, every colony was impacted by Parliament's order to house British soldiers in unoccupied buildings. Many colonists felt this was unfair. The Committees of Correspondence arranged for a meeting of representatives from all colonies to discuss how they should respond to the new laws. A representative is also known as a delegate.

Fifty-six delegates from all colonies except Georgia met in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 5, 1774, as the First Continental Congress. George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, John Adams, Samuel Adams, and John Jay were there, as was Peyton Randolph, president of the congress. Very few people in this congregation had any interest in the colonies becoming an independent country. They wanted to air their grievances, or complaints, to King George III and Parliament and secure the same rights afforded to other subjects of the British Crown. Colonial legislator and British loyalist Joseph Galloway put forth "a plan of a proposed Union between Great Britain and the Colonies," which came to be known as the Galloway Plan. As part of the Galloway Plan, King George would appoint a president general to oversee the colonies, and the colonial legislature would adopt duties similar to Great Britain's House of Commons. The plan was dismissed by the Continental Congress.

Two major documents were produced during the First Continental Congress's session. The first, now called the Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, was a response to the Coercive Acts. It listed the colonists' objections to Parliament's punitive laws as well as other legislation they found unfair. It also detailed colonists' rights, such as "life, liberty, and property," the ability to participate in a legislative body, and trial by a jury of American peers.

The second document, the Articles of Association, was an agreement by the 12 colonies to boycott the import of British goods until the Coercive Acts were repealed. It also outlined how colonies would work together to resist the efforts of Great Britain.

The First Continental Congress ended on October 26, 1774, with an agreement to reconvene in May 1775 to discuss Great Britain's response to its demands.

The battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, changed the priorities of the Continental Congress. It reconvened as the Second Continental Congress on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia and remained in session until the end of the American Revolution. American blood had been shed at the hands of British soldiers. The army meant to protect citizens of the British Empire—which the colonists were—had turned against them. The first order of business was to figure out what to do with the 16,000 volunteers from various New England militias still surrounding Boston. It was agreed the best course of action would be to form a real army that provided its soldiers basic necessities, such as food, shelter, and weapons, as well as actual training. George Washington, one of the few delegates with military experience, agreed to command the newly minted Continental Army, the first official army of the American colonies.

The official formation of an American army makes it seem like the Second Continental Congress, which now included a representative from Georgia, was initially set on separating the colonies from Great Britain, but this wasn't the case. The congress was split into three different factions. The conservatives, led by John Dickinson, wanted the colonies' relationship with Great Britain to return to the way it was prior to 1763, when Great Britain began restricting the colonists' rights to claim new land. The radicals, supported by Samuel Adams and John Adams, wanted complete independence from Great Britain. But the majority of the congress agreed with the moderates, led by Thomas Jefferson. The moderates wanted to remain within the British Empire out of loyalty to King George III, but they disapproved of Parliament's authority over the colonies. Parliament was the enemy, not the monarchy.