What was the most important outcome of the Continental Congress?

The Continental Congress was the governing body by which the American colonial governments coordinated their resistance to British rule during the first two years of the American Revolution. The Congress balanced the interests of the different colonies and also established itself as the official colonial liaison to Great Britain. As the war progressed, the Congress became the effective national government of the country, and, as such, conducted diplomacy on behalf of the new United States.

In 1774, the British Parliament passed a series of laws collectively known as the Intolerable Acts, with the intent to suppress unrest in colonial Boston by closing the port and placing it under martial law. In response, colonial protestors led by a group called the Sons of Liberty issued a call for a boycott. Merchant communities were reluctant to participate in such a boycott unless there were mutually agreed upon terms and a means to enforce the boycott’s provisions. Spurred by local pressure groups, colonial legislatures empowered delegates to attend a Continental Congress which would set terms for a boycott. The colony of Connecticut was the first to respond.

The Congress first met in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, with delegates from each of the 13 colonies except Georgia. On October 20, the Congress adopted the Articles of Association, which stated that if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed by December 1, 1774, a boycott of British goods would begin in the colonies. The Articles also outlined plans for an embargo on exports if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed before September 10, 1775.

On October 21, the delegates approved separate statements for the people of Great Britain and the North American colonies, explaining the colonial position, and on October 26 a similar address was approved for the people of Quebec.

Furthermore, on October 26, the delegates drafted a formal petition outlining the colonists' grievances for British King George III. Many delegates were skeptical about changing the king’s attitude towards the colonies, but believed that every opportunity should be exhausted to de-escalate the conflict before taking more radical action. They did not draft such a letter to the British Parliament as the colonists viewed the Parliament as the aggressor behind the recent Intolerable Acts. Lastly, not fully expecting the standoff in Massachusetts to explode into full-scale war, the Congress agreed to reconvene in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775.

By the time Congress met again, war was already underway, and thus the delegates to the Second Continental Congress formed the Continental Army and dispatched George Washington to Massachusetts as its commander. Meanwhile, Congress drafted the Olive Branch Petition, which attempted to suggest means of resolving disputes between the colonies and Great Britain. Congress sent the petition to King George III on July 8, but he refused to receive it.

As British authority crumbled in the colonies, the Continental Congress effectively took over as the de facto national government, thereby exceeding the initial authority granted to it by the individual colonial governments. However, the local groups that had formed to enforce the colonial boycott continued to support the Congress. The Second Congress continued to meet until March 1, 1781, when the Articles of Confederation that established a new national government for the United States took effect.

As the de facto national government, the Continental Congress assumed the role of negotiating diplomatic agreements with foreign nations. The British Parliament banned trade with the colonies and authorized the seizure of colonial vessels on December 23. These actions served to further erode the positions of anti-independence moderates in Congress and bolster those of pro-independence leaders. On April 6, 1776, Congress responded to Parliament's actions by opening American ports to all foreign ships except British vessels. Reports from American agent Arthur Lee in London also served to support the revolutionary cause. Lee’s reports suggested that France was interested in assisting the colonies in their fight against Great Britain.

With a peaceful resolution increasingly unlikely in 1775, Congress began to explore other diplomatic channels and dispatched congressional delegate Silas Deane to France in April of 1776.

Deane succeeded in securing informal French support by May. By then, Congress was increasingly conducting international diplomacy and had drafted the Model Treaty with which it hoped to seek alliances with Spain and France. On July 4, 1776 the Congress took the important step of formally declaring the colonies’ independence from Great Britain. In September, Congress adopted the Model Treaty, and then sent commissioners to France to negotiate a formal alliance. They entered into a a formal alliance with France in 1778. Congress eventually sent diplomats to other European powers to encourage support for the American cause and to secure loans for the money-strapped war effort.

Congress and the British government made further attempts to reconcile, but negotiations failed when Congress refused to revoke the Declaration of Independence, both in a meeting on September 11, 1776, with British Admiral Richard Howe, and when a peace delegation from Parliament arrived in Philadelphia in 1778. Instead, Congress spelled out terms for peace on August 14, 1779, which demanded British withdrawal, American independence, and navigation rights on the Mississippi River. The next month Congress appointed John Adams to negotiate such terms with England, but British officials were evasive.

Formal peace negotiations would have to wait until after the Confederation Congress took over the reins of government on March 1, 1781, following American victories at Yorktown that resulted in British willingness to end the war.

The Continental Congress served as the governing body of the 13 American colonies and later the United States of America during the American Revolution. The First Continental Congress in 1774 coordinated the patriot colonists’ resistance to increasingly harsh and restrictive British rule. Meeting from 1775 to 1781, the Second Continental Congress took the momentous step of declaring America’s independence from Britain in 1776, and in 1781, oversaw the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, under which the nation would be governed until the adoption of the U.S. Constitution in 1779.

• Short Description: From 1774 to 1788, governed the 13 British American colonies during the American Revolution. Along with issuing the Declaration of Independence, adopted the Articles of Confederation, the predecessor of the U.S. Constitution.
• Key Players/Participants: America’s Founding Fathers, including George Washington, John Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and Samuel Adams.
• Event Start Date: September 5, 1774
• Event End Date: June 21, 1788
• Other Significant Dates: May 10, 1775—American Revolution begins; July 4, 1776—Declaration of Independence issued; March 1, 1781—Articles of Confederation adopted; September 3, 1783—Treaty of Paris ends American Revolution; June 21, 1788—U.S. Constitution takes effect.

On July 10, 1754, representatives from seven of the thirteen British American Colonies adopted the Albany Plan of Union. Formulated by Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia, the Albany Plan became the first official proposal that the colonies form an independent governing confederation.

In March 1765, the British Parliament enacted the Stamp Act requiring that almost all documents produced in the colonies be printed only on paper made in London and carrying an embossed British revenue stamp. Seeing this as a direct tax imposed on them by the British government without their approval, the American colonists objected to the Stamp Act as unfair taxation without representation. Angered by the tax, colonial merchants imposed a strict trade embargo on all British imports to remain in effect until Britain repealed the Stamp Act. In October 1765, delegates from nine colonies, assembled as the Stamp Act Congress, sent a Declaration of Rights and Grievances to Parliament. As requested by British companies hurt by the colonial embargo, King George III ordered the Stamp Act repealed in March 1766.

Barely a year later, in 1767, Parliament enacted the Townshend Acts imposing more taxes on the American colonies to help Britain pay its massive debt from its Seven Years War with France. Colonial resentment over these taxes triggered the Boston Massacre of 1770. In December 1773, the Tea Act, granting the British-owned East India Company the exclusive right to ship tea to North America led to the Boston Tea Party. In 1774, the British Parliament punished the colonists by enacting the Intolerable Acts, a series of laws that left Boston Harbor cut off from outside trade by a British naval blockade. In response, the colonial resistance group the Sons of Liberty called for another boycott of British goods unless the Intolerable Acts were repealed. Pressured by merchants who feared another boycott, the colonial legislatures called for a Continental Congress to work out the terms of the boycott and further deal with America’s rapidly deteriorating relations with Britain.

The First Continental Congress was held from September 5 to October 26, 1774, at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In this brief meeting, delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies tried to resolve their differences with Britain over the Intolerable Acts through diplomacy rather than warfare. Only Georgia, which still needed British military protection from Indian raids, failed to attend. A total of 56 delegates participated in the meeting, including eventual Founding Fathers George Washington, John Adams, Patrick Henry, and Samuel Adams.

While all of the colonies agreed on the need to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the Intolerable Acts and other cases of taxation without representation, there was less agreement on how to best accomplish this. While most delegates favored remaining loyal to Great Britain, they also agreed that the colonies should be treated more fairly by King George and Parliament. Some delegates refused to consider taking any action beyond seeking a legislative resolution. Others favored pursuing total independence from Great Britain.

After extensive debate, delegates voted to issue a Declaration of Rights, which expressed the colonies’ continued loyalty to the British Crown while also demanding voting representation in Parliament.

In London, King George III opened Parliament on November 30, 1774, by delivering a scathing speech denouncing the colonies for failing to respect the rule of the Crown. Parliament, already considering the colonies to be in a state of rebellion, refused to take any action on their Declaration of Rights. It was now clear that the Continental Congress needed to meet again.

On May 10, 1775, less than a month after the Battles of Lexington and Concord marked the start of the American Revolution, the Second Continental Congress convened at Pennsylvania’s State House. Though still professing its loyalty to the British Crown, it created the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, with George Washington as its first commander. In July, it issued a Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, written by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, whose 1767 “Letters from a Farmer of Pennsylvania” had helped sway Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson to favor independence. “If the Parliament may lawfully deprive New York of any of her rights,” Dickinson wrote of Parliament’s dissolution of New York’s legislature, “it may deprive any or all the other colonies of their rights…”

In its final effort to avoid further warfare, Congress sent King George III the Olive Branch Petition seeking his assistance in resolving the colonies’ differences over abusive taxation with Parliament. As he had done in 1774, King George refused to consider the colonists’ appeal. America’s break from British rule had become inevitable.

Even after nearly a year of warfare with Britain, both the Continental Congress and the colonists it represented remained split on the question of independence. In January 1776, British immigrant Thomas Paine published “Common Sense,” a historic pamphlet presenting a persuasive argument for independence. “There is something absurd,” wrote Paine, “in supposing a Continent to be perpetually governed by an island...” At the same time, the war itself was convincing more colonists to favor independence. By the spring of 1776, the colonial governments began giving their delegates in Congress permission to vote for independence. On June 7, the Virginia delegation submitted a formal proposal for independence. Congress voted to appoint a committee of five delegates, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, to draft a provisional declaration of independence.

Written mostly by Thomas Jefferson, the draft declaration eloquently charged Britain’s King George and Parliament of conspiring to deprive the American colonists of the natural rights of all people, such as “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” After making several revisions, including the removal of Jefferson’s condemnation of African slavement, the Continental Congress voted to approve the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

Officially declaring independence allowed Congress to forge a military alliance with Britain’s oldest and most powerful enemy, France. Proving essential to winning the Revolution, securing the help of France represented a key success of the Continental Congress.

However, Congress continued to struggle with adequately supplying the Continental Army. With no power to collect taxes to pay for the war, Congress relied on contributions from the colonies, which tended to spend their revenues on their own needs. As the war debt grew, the paper currency issued by Congress soon became worthless.

Hoping to establish the powers needed to effectively wage the war—mainly the power to levy taxes—Congress adopted the constitution-like Articles of Confederation in 1777. Ratified and taking effect on March 1, 1781, the Articles of Confederation restructured the former colonies as 13 sovereign states, each having equal representation in Congress regardless of their population.

The Articles bestowed great power on the states. All acts of the Congress had to be approved by a vote held in each state, and Congress was given little power to enforce the laws it passed. Though Congress elected John Hanson of Maryland as the first “President of the United States in Congress Assembled,” it ceded most executive powers, including control of the U.S. military, to General George Washington.

The Continental Congress achieved its greatest success on September 3, 1783, when delegates Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams negotiated the Treaty of Paris, officially ending the Revolutionary War. Along with independence from Britain, the Treaty gave the United States the ownership and control of the territory east of the Mississippi River and south of Canada. On November 25, 1783, Congress oversaw the departure of the last British troops from the United States.

The first years of peace following the Revolutionary War exposed the inherent weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. Lacking overarching governmental powers, the Continental Congress was unable to adequately deal with a growing series of economic crises, interstate disputes, and domestic insurrections such as Shays’ Rebellion of 1786.

As the now independent and expanding nation’s problems mounted, so did the peoples’ demand for constitutional reform. Their demand was addressed on May 14, 1787, when the Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While the Convention’s original goal had been simply to revise the Articles of Confederation, the delegates soon realized that the Articles should be abandoned and replaced by a new system of government based on the power-sharing concept of federalism. On May 30, the delegates approved a resolution declaring in part, “...that a national government ought to be established consisting of a supreme Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary.” With that, work began on a new constitution. On September 17, 1787, delegates approved a final draft of the Constitution of the United States to be sent to the states for ratification. After the new Constitution took effect on June 21, 1788, the Continental Congress was adjourned forever and replaced by the U.S. Congress, much as it exists today.

While it had proven ineffective during peace, the Continental Congress had succeeded in steering the United State through the Revolutionary War to win its greatest and most precious possession—independence.

• “Continental Congress, 1774–1781.” U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/continental-congress.
• Jillson, Calvin; Wilson, Rick. “Congressional dynamics: structure, coordination, and choice in the first American Congress, 1774–1789.” Stanford University Press, 1994, ISBN-10: 0804722935.
• “U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 – 1875.” Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=lldg&fileName=001/lldg001.db&recNum=18.
• “Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention.” U.S. National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/360.html.
• Jensen, Merrill. “The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1774–1781.” University of Wisconsin Press, 1959, ISBN 978-0-299-00204-6.
• Wiencek, Henry. “The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson.” Smithsonian Magazine, October 2012, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dark-side-of-thomas-jefferson-35976004/.