First Continental Congress (1774): The Colonies Unite in Protest

The First Continental Congress was a meeting of 56 delegates from twelve British colonies in North America, held at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia from 5 September to 26 October 1774. Called in response to the Intolerable Acts, it was the first time most of the colonies acted together against British policy. It did not seek independence, but it created the habits and institutions of united resistance that led there.

Background

In the spring of 1774 Parliament punished Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party by closing Boston’s port and curbing the colony’s elected government. Leaders in other colonies feared that if Massachusetts could be treated this way, so could they.

Calls for a general meeting came from several directions during May and June 1774, including Providence, New York, Philadelphia and the members of Virginia’s dissolved House of Burgesses. Committees of correspondence, which had linked patriot leaders across the colonies since 1772–73, helped spread the idea. Over the summer, colonial assemblies or improvised conventions chose delegates, and Philadelphia, the largest and most central city, was agreed as the venue.

Delegates and procedure

Every colony except Georgia was represented. The delegates included many men who would later lead the Revolution: John and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, George Washington, Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, John Jay of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, author of the influential “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania”, joined in October.

On 5 September the delegates chose to meet in Carpenters’ Hall, the newly built guild hall of Philadelphia’s builders, rather than the State House favoured by the conservative Pennsylvania speaker Joseph Galloway. They elected Peyton Randolph of Virginia as president and Charles Thomson as secretary, and agreed to keep their debates secret.

The most contested procedural question was voting. Large colonies such as Virginia wanted influence in proportion to population or wealth, but there were no reliable figures. The Congress decided that each colony would have one vote, a rule that later carried over into the Articles of Confederation. During this debate, according to John Adams’s notes, Patrick Henry declared that the distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders were no more, and that he was “not a Virginian, but an American.”

The Suffolk Resolves

On 16 September the silversmith Paul Revere arrived from Boston with the Suffolk Resolves, adopted a week earlier by a convention of towns in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and largely drafted by Dr Joseph Warren. They declared the Coercive Acts unconstitutional, urged Massachusetts to set up its own government, called for a boycott of British goods and advised towns to arm their militia for defence.

On 17 September the Congress endorsed the resolves. This was a radical step, because it put the weight of all the colonies behind Massachusetts’ defiance. It signalled to Britain that punishing one colony would mean confronting them all.

The Galloway Plan

The conservative wing of the Congress tried to find a constitutional compromise. On 28 September Joseph Galloway proposed a Plan of Union under which the colonies would have a common legislature, a “Grand Council”, alongside Parliament, with a president-general appointed by the Crown, and with each body able to veto measures affecting America.

The plan was debated and narrowly set aside, by six colonies to five, and later the Congress voted to remove all reference to it from its journals. Galloway eventually became a loyalist and left for Britain. The episode showed how divided the delegates still were between reconciliation and resistance.

The Declaration and Resolves and the Continental Association

On 14 October the Congress adopted the Declaration and Resolves, a statement of colonial rights. It claimed for colonists the rights to “life, liberty, and property”, the protection of English common law and the right to legislate for themselves through their own assemblies, while accepting Parliament’s regulation of external trade. It listed the laws passed since 1763 that it considered violations of those rights.

On 20 October the delegates signed the Continental Association, the Congress’s most important practical measure. Colonists pledged to stop importing goods from Britain and Ireland from 1 December 1774, to stop consuming British goods including East India Company tea, and, if the grievances were not settled, to stop exporting to Britain from 10 September 1775. The Association also committed to ending the import of enslaved people. Committees elected in every county, city and town were to enforce the boycott and publicly name those who broke it.

Finally, the Congress approved addresses to the people of Great Britain, to the colonists and to the inhabitants of Quebec, and a petition to King George III asking him to remedy their grievances. On 26 October it dissolved, agreeing to meet again on 10 May 1775 if the situation had not improved.

Key people

Peyton Randolph, speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, presided for most of the session. When he returned to Virginia in late October, Henry Middleton of South Carolina was elected president for the final days. Charles Thomson, a Philadelphia merchant and patriot leader, served as secretary, a post he would keep through every Continental Congress until 1789.

The Massachusetts delegates, including John Adams and Samuel Adams, were careful not to appear too radical, knowing that many delegates from the middle and southern colonies distrusted New England. John Jay of New York drafted the address to the people of Great Britain, and John Dickinson wrote the final petition to the King and the address to the inhabitants of Quebec. Joseph Galloway led the conservatives who still hoped for a constitutional settlement. George Washington said little in debate but impressed other delegates with his calm and his reputation as a soldier.

The boycott the delegates designed proved remarkably effective. Exports from England to the colonies are usually estimated to have fallen from about £2.6 million in 1774 to roughly £200,000 in 1775, a drop of more than 90 per cent.

Consequences

The petition and addresses brought no change in British policy. George III told his ministers that the New England governments were in a state of rebellion and that blows must decide whether they were to be subject to Britain or independent. In practice, the local committees set up to enforce the Association became a parallel government in many places, taking authority away from royal officials.

By the time the Second Continental Congress met in May 1775, fighting had already broken out at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. That Congress would raise the Continental Army and, in July 1776, adopt the Declaration of Independence.

Timeline

• 1774, 31 March: The Boston Port Act begins the Coercive Acts.
• 1774, 5 September: The Congress opens at Carpenters’ Hall and elects Peyton Randolph president.
• 1774, 17 September: The Congress endorses the Suffolk Resolves.
• 1774, 28 September: Joseph Galloway proposes his Plan of Union.
• 1774, 14 October: The Declaration and Resolves are adopted.
• 1774, 20 October: Delegates sign the Continental Association.
• 1774, 26 October: The petition to the King is approved and the Congress adjourns.
• 1775, 10 May: The Second Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia.

Why it matters

The First Continental Congress turned twelve separate colonies into a political coalition for the first time. Its boycott and committee network gave Americans practical experience of acting together, and its gatherings laid the foundation for the national government that would declare independence two years later.