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The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve colonies (not including
Georgia) that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the
American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts (also known as
Intolerable Acts by the Colonial Americans) by the British Parliament. The Intolerable Acts had
punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party.
The Congress was attended by 56 members appointed by the legislatures of twelve of the Thirteen
Colonies, the exception (Province of Georgia), which was hoping for British assistance with Indian
problems on its frontier. Congress met briefly to consider options, including an economic boycott of
British trade; rights and grievances; and petitioned King George III for redress of those grievances. The
Congress also called for another Continental Congress in the event that their petition was unsuccessful
in halting enforcement of the Intolerable Acts. Their appeal to the Crown had no effect, and so the
Second Continental Congress was convened the following year to organize the defense of the colonies
at the onset of the American Revolutionary War. The delegates also urged each colony to set up and
train its own militia.
The Second Continental Congress met on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after
warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. This Congress managed the colonial war effort,
and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of
Independence on July 4, 1776. By raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making
formal treaties, the Congress acted as the de facto national government of what became the United
States.[1]
Many of the same 56 delegates who attended the first meeting were in attendance at the second, and
the delegates appointed the same president (Peyton Randolph) and secretary (Charles Thomson).
Notable new arrivals included Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and John Hancock of Massachusetts.
Within two weeks, Randolph was summoned back to Virginia to preside over the House of Burgesses;
he was replaced in the Virginia delegation by Thomas Jefferson, who arrived several weeks later. Henry
Middleton was elected as president to replace Randolph, but he declined. Hancock was elected
president on May 24.
The Virginia Declaration of Rights is a document drafted in 1776 to proclaim the inherent rights of
men, including the right to rebel against "inadequate" government. It influenced a number of later
documents, including the United States Declaration of Independence (1776), the United States Bill of
Rights (1789), and the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789).