What was the First Continental Congress?

To Begin the World Over Again 9.1 – Declarations of Independence What was the First Continental Congress?

Writing to his son William in 1773, Benjamin Franklin outlined his own view of the relationship between the colonies and the mother country:

From a long and thorough consideration of the subject, I am indeed of opinion, that the parliament has no right to make any law whatever, binding on the colonies. That the king, and not the king, lords, and commons collectively, is their sovereign…

A young Thomas Jefferson went into much more detail in his 1774 A Summary View of the Rights of British America, in which he laid out an erudite political philosophy for the British Empire that would preserve the rights of its various parts. Let’s go to the classroom for just a moment and explore his ideas.

University Classroom: A Summary View of the Rights of British America

Carpenter’s Hall, Philadelphia – In 1774, this building hosted the First Continental Congress.

Jefferson’s Summary View was prepared in part for the Virginia delegates to the First Continental Congress. Committees of correspondence throughout the colonies had, by the summer of 1774, determined that a joint gathering must take place in order to discuss proper (and, hopefully, collective) action in the face of the British challenge to their rights as freeborn Englishmen. Fifty-five delegates were thus assembled in Philadelphia by early September, representing each of the colonies except Georgia; though that colony had sent no delegates, it nevertheless officially pledged to support the Congress’s decisions. Sam Adams was there, as was his less radical cousin, John. Ben Franklin ally Joseph Galloway attended as a Pennsylvania representative. Patrick Henry came, along with Richard Henry Lee and George Washington, from Virginia. Noted South Carolinian patriot Christopher Gadsden was present as well. This was a meeting of American luminaries perhaps unlike any before.

But that didn’t mean that agreement would come easy. While moderates (like Galloway) argued prudence and restraint, Sam Adams pressed for a showdown. After much back-and-forth, the radicals won the day, and the First Continental Congress adopted the Suffolk Resolves, a document delivered from Massachusetts to the Congress in Philadelphia by the fast-riding Paul Revere. This declaration, originally drafted by Suffolk County, Massachusetts, called for

a general boycott of all British imports;
a limiting of American exports to Britain;
the nullification (i.e. ignoring) of the “Intolerable Acts”;
the resignation of officials appointed under the Massachusetts Government Act;
non-payment of taxes until the aforementioned Act was repealed;
the formation of a separate, free colonial government for Massachusetts as long as the “Intolerable Acts” remained in effect; and
the raising of militias in all American colonies.

The Suffolk Resolves were decidedly revolutionary. Back in Britain, Burke rightly recognized them as a step toward American independence. By adopting the Resolves, the First Continental Congress was stamping inter-colonial approval onto the rebellion in Massachusetts. Non-importation, previously formed locally, was now established by the Congress under the name “Continental Association” (or, simply, “the Association”) as a pan-American movement—one that included an enforcement arm organized into “Committees of Inspection.” These last met with every merchant and shopkeeper in the colonies, plus tens of thousands of consumers, to convince them to join the boycott. Those who failed to cooperate were shunned or otherwise openly reviled; some were even forced to make public apologies.

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To Begin the World Over Again

What was the First Continental Congress?

University Classroom: A Summary View of the Rights of British America

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