The First Continental Congress

250 years ago, the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. It didn't do any major new thing, but it marked a trend that was already pushing America toward independence.

This continues my series marking the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution.  Previously was the Boston Tea Party, on 16 December 1773.  Notable events will start happening faster as the series continues.

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Two hundred and fifty years ago this Thursday - 5 September 1774 - the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia.  This could be called the first predecessor of the United States Congress, with delegates from twelve of what would become the thirteen states.¹  The war wouldn't start until the next year; even the Congress itself still acknowledged the British king's authority.  But, despite this, it ended up pushing America toward independence.

The opening of the First Continental Congress, as engraved by Henry Sadd, c. 1860

This Congress wasn't a legislature.  Its "powers were but ill defined, and [its] acts were largely tentative," says the Library of Congress's preface to its journal.  Several grandiose plans to redesign the relationship between the colonies and Britain were proposed, but none of them were ratified - largely because the delegates didn't agree on which principles to establish it on.

Still, it was the only assembly at the time to have representatives from most of the colonies in what would become the United States.  What's more, they were usually official representatives chosen by the colonial legislatures to represent their colony regarding their common concerns about Britain infringing on their rights.  There were a few exceptions - the Georgia and New York colonial assemblies, dominated by Tories (loyalists), hadn't sent anyone; but delegates from the New York City Committees of Correspondence.  

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As the Congress met, most Americans still considered themselves Englishmen.  Only a few, like John Adams and Joseph Warren of Massachusetts, wanted independence.  The argument of the Patriots - the "Sons of Liberty," as they called themselves at the time - was that the British government was infringing on their rights as Englishmen.

The main issue was that the British Parliament had been imposing taxes on the colonies, without their consent.  It was a longstanding principle of English law that the king couldn't impose taxes himself; they needed to be approved by the people's representatives in Parliament.  The colonists argued that - just like Englishmen had the right to only be taxed by their own Parliament - the same principle meant that people in the American colonies should have the right to only be taxed by their own assemblies.

The first such tax was the Stamp Act (1765); the Sons of Liberty had formed as loose local groups to protest it, advocate boycotting British goods in protest, and harass anyone who'd volunteered to sell stamps.  Quickly, they became extremely popular and started informally coordinating with each other.  By 1766, the Tory Thomas Hutchinson already said "The authority of every colony is in the hands of the sons of liberty."

Also in 1766, the protests and boycotts caused the British Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act.  But, they replaced it with the Townsend Acts (1767) imposing other taxes - as well as a Declaratory Act (1766) declaring that they had full legislative power over the entire Empire.  Finally after further protests, the Townshend Acts were repealed (1770) except for a tax on tea.

To build on their success - and keep up the fight for their principle - the Sons of Liberty persisted in boycotting tea.  They also started forming "Committees of Correspondence" to share news and propaganda and strategy with each other.

Things seemed to quiet down for the next three years, despite the continued boycott on tea - but then on 16 December 1773, tensions exploded again in the Boston Tea Party.  The Sons of Liberty had now gone beyond their boycott campaign.  This excited great sympathy for Boston in the other colonies, but they needed that sympathy since Britain responded by closing the port of Boston and sending General Thomas Gage as the new governor of Massachusetts, as well as making it easier to quarter troops in other colonies as well.

The Sons of Liberty had stepped beyond the boycott to direct action, and Britain had responded by punishing the whole colony of Massachusetts - and threatening other colonies.  Quickly, the Committees of Correspondence grew, to help keep colonies informed of the latest news.  But also, the Sons of Liberty decided to call a "Continental Congress":  a mass meeting ("congress") of Patriots from throughout all the British colonies on the continent.

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Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, where the First Continental Congress met

History usually mentions the First Continental Congress in passing.  It's usually remembered only implicitly, with the name of its successor, the Second Continental Congress which wrote the Declaration of Independence, implying there must have been a First one.  Its meeting place, Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, is a historical landmark, but largely ignored in favor of Independence Hall down the street where the Second Continental Congress met.²  This's fitting.

The First Continental Congress didn't do much of note in itself.  It sent a petition to the king (which he roundly ignored), and ratified the boycott of British goods (which had already begun).  This wasn't the first petition (colonies had been sending repeated petitions ever since the Stamp Act), and it wasn't the first boycott either (the Stamp Act had been repealed thanks to a boycott).  But, it was an incrementally stronger step in both those cases:  this was the first petition sent by an assembly of twelve colonies, and the first boycott of all British goods rather than just some or most.

Also, it urged each colony to appoint committees to enforce the boycott.  Again, this wasn't new; local Sons of Liberty had frequently harassed merchants who'd violated previous boycotts.  But again, this was now happening on a new scale, loosely coordinated across the colonies.  This would be very important to the boycott's success; a previous Boston effort to boycott British goods in 1768 had failed because other colonies hadn't agreed, and Boston merchants were unwilling to risk losing their trade to those other colonies.  What's more, the universal embargo and these enforcement committees brought every prominent community - in some regions, every community - into the patriotic effort.

These Committees of Inspection were the one concrete result of the Congress.  Most importers who might be breaking it were merchants, so it was usually easy to see if they were breaking it by advertising British goods.  But still, these Committees started taking on the powers of a government by inspecting people without their consent.  Sometimes the colonial legislature gave them those rights, but sometimes the committees took them for themselves.

More importantly, the Continental Congress voted to meet again the next year if American grievances hadn't yet been addressed.  This last vote announced that American unity wouldn't be an occasional thing; it would continue as long as it was needed.  The Continental Congress did indeed meet again, and that Second Congress would continue sitting throughout the Revolution until established as a regular government under the Articles of Confederation.  Recognizing this lineage, Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address stated that it was the First Continental Congress that formed the Union of the United States.

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The First Continental Congress commemorated on the walls of the US Capitol

But perhaps even more significant than that was how, in the First Continental Congress, delegates from all twelve colonies met each other in person.  Patriot leaders had already been communicating by the Committees of Correspondence, which had been set up in every colony over the last few years.  Without those Committees, Congress wouldn't have met.  Indeed, the one concrete result of the Continental Congress was a strengthening of these Committees, as the new Committees of Inspection to enforce the boycott were closely entwined with them.  

But, without Congress, mere written correspondence wouldn't have started binding Patriot leaders so closely together.  The Founding Fathers entered the First Continental Congress with wildly divergent ideas.  Some of them (like Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania³) wanted an American Parliament to sit in conjunction with the British Parliament; others (like Roger Sherman of Connecticut⁴) denied Parliament's authority altogether but recognized the King's reign.  Very few if any supported independence yet, but all supported further asserting their rights against Britain.

But, as events developed, asserting their rights would shortly lead to independence.  General Gage, as the royal governor of Massachusetts, had already dissolved their colonial legislature for appointing representatives to the First Continental Congress. While it was still meeting (it met through October 26th), he brought more British troops to Boston, and the people of Massachusetts responded by convening a new "Provincial Congress" to serve as its legislature without royal sanction.⁵  Eight months later - as the Second Continental Congress was convening - British troops and Massachusetts militia fired on each other at Lexington, starting the Revolutionary War.  The Second Continental Congress would be a war government.

The First Continental Congress wasn't that.  Abraham Lincoln wasn't exactly wrong in stating that it started America's union, but it did this by providing a definite mark to a trend that was already real and increasing.  Without introducing any single significantly new thing, the First Continental Congress further fanned the flames that would soon burst into independence.  

1. The preceding Albany Convention of 1754 included seven colonies, none south of Maryland; the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 included nine colonies.  Both of them were one-time bodies.

2. Indeed, when I visited Philadelphia, I spent all day at Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the complex around them; and only walked by Carpenter's Hall after it had closed for the day.

3. Galloway would become a Tory, opposing the Declaration of Independence and fleeing to the British army after it was signed.  He would live out his life in exile in England.

4. Sherman would become the only person to sign the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution.  He would present the "Grand Compromise" at the Constitutional Convention, proposing the bicameral Congress we have today.

5. I’ll be writing about this in the next post in my American Revolution series, in October.