First Continental Congress
In 1733, Parliament passed the Molasses Act, which aimed at regulating trade within the British Empire. However, lax enforcement encouraged smuggling. Decades later, after the French and Indian War (known as the Seven Years War in Europe) ended in 1763, the Molasses Act was replaced with the Sugar Act in 1764.
The Sugar Act's purpose was to replenish the treasury after the very expensive French and Indian War. The tax acts continued with the passage of the Stamp Act and the Townsend Acts. The passage of these acts and the resistance by the colonists led to protests such as the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party.
After the Boston Tea Party and hoping to make an example out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, better known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts. These acts were meant to punish the colonies, specifically Boston. They included the closure of Boston's port to commerce until the East India Company was fully compensated for the destroyed tea, the appointment of a military governor for Massachusetts, the replacement of the colony's elected council with an appointed one, and the provision that all royal officials accused of a crime could be tried in England or another colony rather than in Massachusetts. Watching the punishment Parliament was inflicting on Boston, the other colonies realized something had to be done; if Massachusetts lost its liberties, they all would.
In late June 1774, Connecticut became the first colony to officially dispatch delegates to a meeting to discuss the terms of a potential boycott. The legislatures of twelve of the Thirteen Colonies followed suit, sending delegates to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The only colony not to do so was Georgia, which was threatened by a Creek Native American uprising on its frontier and did not want to risk losing British military protection by sending delegates to Philadelphia.
The 56 delegates of what would become known as the First Continental Congress convened in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia on September 5th, 1774, with their primary agenda to coordinate a response to the Intolerable Acts. For the last decade, the American colonies and Parliament in Great Britain had been in disagreement over the limits of each other's authority. Parliament insisted it had the authority to tax Americans. The Americans, on the other hand, claimed that such attempts by Parliament violated their rights to self-taxation and representative government.
Among those 56 delegates were men who were soon to distinguish themselves as Founding Fathers of the United States: Massachusetts had sent Sam Adams and his cousin John Adams, as well as Thomas Cushing and Robert Treat Paine; from Virginia came George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee; New York's representatives included John Jay and James Duane. Other notable delegates included John Dickinson and Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania, Silas Deane of Connecticut, Samuel Chase of Maryland, and John and Edward Rutledge of South Carolina. Even then, the sheer amount of talent and passion concentrated in Carpenter's Hall was apparent. John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that "the magnanimity and public spirit which I see here make me blush for the sordid, venal herd which I have seen in my own Province."
One of the Congress's first major acts was to approve the Suffolk Resolves. These resolves had been written by Dr. Joseph Warren and had been adopted by Suffolk County, Massachusetts, on September 9th, 1774. The Suffolk Resolves condemned the "murderous" Intolerable Acts as wholly unconstitutional and called for the people of Massachusetts to band together in resistance. The Suffolk document urged citizens to disobey the Intolerable Acts and to refuse to pay taxes until the acts were repealed. It also insisted on a boycott of British imports and the raising of a Massachusetts militia to protect the colony's rights. The resolves were delivered to Carpenter's Hall on September 17th by Paul Revere, and they were immediately approved by the Congress as a gesture of solidarity towards Massachusetts.
Having demonstrated that the colonies stood behind Massachusetts, the Congress next turned to its primary task: hammering out the terms of a boycott of British imports. After weeks of negotiations, Congress decided that non-exportation would only go into effect if the Intolerable Acts had not been repealed by September 10th, 1775. The boycott was effective, as imports from Britain dropped 97% in 1775 compared to the previous year.
While assembled, the delegates drafted a 'Petition to the King', in which they explained their grievances to King George III of Great Britain. At the time, George III was seen as misled rather than tyrannical, and several colonists held out hope that the king could still understand their plight. The delegates also wrote addresses to the people of Great Britain, the Thirteen Colonies, and Quebec, explaining their position.
On October 26th, 1774, the First Continental Congress dissolved itself after sitting for nearly two months. With its approval of the Suffolk Resolves, it had shown its support for Massachusetts, and with the Continental Association, it had acted against the Intolerable Acts. It had affirmed its allegiance to the British Crown by sending a petition of grievances to the king while at the same time denying the authority of Parliament by refusing to send it a similar petition. Finally, the Congress had explained the colonial plight to the people of Great Britain, America, and Quebec and had asked Britain's other North American colonies to join its struggle. The Congress disbanded with the understanding that if the situation did not improve, it would reconvene in 1775. However, before they could reconvene, the Battles of Lexington and Concord would take place on April 19th,1775.
When the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia on May 10th,1775, it did not just have the Intolerable Acts to deal with but a rapidly escalating armed conflict. The Second Congress would act as the provisional American government during the American Revolutionary War; its major actions included the appointment of George Washington to the command of the Continental Army, the approval of the American Declaration of Independence, and the drafting of the Articles of Confederation. However, the success of the Second Congress certainly depended on that of the First, which demonstrated that the colonies could work together and unite in their defiance of Parliament.
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Image source: Architect of the Capitol; Allyn Cox Mural in oil on Canvas 1973-1974 Great Experiment Hall Cox Corridors, Public Domain.