The First Continental Congress: Fifth Grade Social Studies
In September 1774, fifty-six delegates from twelve colonies convened in Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, forming the First Continental Congress to unite against British tyranny and defend American liberty.
The Gathering of the Continent
In the late summer of 1774, the dusty post roads leading into Philadelphia were crowded with horse-drawn carriages and weary travelers carrying the most prominent statesmen in North America. In response to the British military occupation of Boston and the passage of the Intolerable Acts, the committees of correspondence had issued a call for an unprecedented assembly: a Continental Congress. On September 5, 1774, fifty-six delegates representing twelve British colonies walked into the red-brick building of Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia. (Only Georgia, locked in frontier warfare with Creek nations and dependent on British troops, did not attend). For the first time in history, political leaders from widely diverse colonies sat together in the same room to forge a common destiny.
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| DELEGATES AT THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS |
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| Colony Represented | Prominent Leaders | Political Stance / Strategy |
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| Massachusetts | John Adams & | Radical / Militant; demanded |
| | Samuel Adams | complete economic boycott & |
| | | preparation for armed defense |
| Virginia | George Washington,| Bold / Unifying; pledged armed |
| | Patrick Henry, | solidarity with Boston; |
| | Richard Henry Lee | "I am not a Virginian, but an |
| | | American!" (Patrick Henry) |
| Pennsylvania | Joseph Galloway & | Moderate / Conservative; |
| | John Dickinson | sought reconciliation; drafted |
| | | compromise Plan of Union |
| New York | John Jay & | Conservative merchants; feared |
| | James Duane | economic chaos and full war |
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Carpenters' Hall: A Symbolic Choice
Rather than meeting in the grand Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall), which was the seat of the royal provincial government, the delegates chose to convene in Carpenters' Hall, a meetinghouse built and owned by the city's trade guild of master carpenters and builders. The choice was deeply symbolic: it signaled that this congress belonged to the people and working craftsmen of America, free from the shadow of royal oversight.
The Great Political Debate: Radicals Versus Conservatives
When the Congress opened, the delegates were deeply divided over how to respond to King George III and Parliament.
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| THE TWO COMPETING FACTIONS IN CONGRESS |
| |
| [ THE MODERATES / CONSERVATIVES ] |
| - Led by Joseph Galloway (PA) and John Jay (NY). |
| - Believed Parliament had acted unwisely, but feared mob violence. |
| - Galloway's Plan of Union: Proposed a shared Anglo-American grand |
| parliament with mutual veto power over taxes. |
| - Defeated by a narrow vote of 6 colonies to 5 colonies! |
| |
| [ THE RADICALS / PATRIOTS ] |
| - Led by John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Patrick Henry. |
| - Insisted on complete rejection of Intolerable Acts. |
| - Endorsed the Suffolk Resolves; organized economic warfare. |
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The Suffolk Resolves: Defying the Intolerable Acts
On September 17, 1774, express rider Paul Revere galloped into Philadelphia, having ridden six days straight from Massachusetts with saddlebags containing the Suffolk Resolves, drafted by Dr. Joseph Warren. The Continental Congress boldly endorsed the resolves, which proclaimed:
- The Intolerable Acts were unconstitutional, null, and void!
- Massachusetts should form its own independent provincial government to collect taxes.
- The people of Massachusetts should arm themselves and form citizen militias to drill weekly for defense.
- Colonists should withhold all tax payments to royal collectors until the laws were repealed.
The Historic Actions of the First Congress
Working together over seven intense weeks, the delegates forged four historic measures that laid the framework for the future United States:
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| THE FOUR PILLARS OF THE FIRST CONGRESS |
| |
| 1. THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS AND GRIEVANCES: Affirmed that colonists |
| were entitled to life, liberty, and property by natural law, the |
| British constitution, and their ancestral charters. Denied the |
| right of Parliament to tax the colonies in any case whatsoever. |
| 2. THE CONTINENTAL ASSOCIATION: An iron-clad economic boycott; banned |
| all imports of British goods after Dec 1774, and banned all exports |
| of American goods to Britain after Sept 1775! |
| 3. LOCAL COMMITTEES OF INSPECTION: Ordered every town and county to |
| elect local committees to inspect merchant ledgers and publish the |
| names of any boycott-breaking traitors in local newspapers. |
| 4. PETITION TO THE KING: A respectful, loyal petition to King George |
| pleading for the redress of colonial grievances and peaceful reform.|
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A Promise to Reassemble
Before adjourning on October 26, 1774, the delegates agreed to meet again on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia if the British government failed to repeal the Intolerable Acts. By the time that date arrived, the fields of Lexington and Concord would already be soaked in blood.
Exercises and Solutions
Exercise 1: Analyzing the Significance of Patrick Henry's Declaration of Continental Identity. During the opening debates of the First Continental Congress in September 1774, Patrick Henry proclaimed: "The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American!" Explain the historical significance of this declaration, analyzing how the Congress helped forge an entirely new national identity.
Solution 1: Patrick Henry's proclamation at the First Continental Congress marked a historic psychological turning point in the emergence of an American national consciousness. Prior to September 1774, the thirteen British colonies possessed virtually no shared sense of unified nationhood; colonists were fiercely provincial, viewing themselves primarily as Virginians, Pennsylvanians, or Massachusetts men whose primary allegiance lay with their local provincial legislatures and the British Crown. Inter-colonial rivalries over border boundaries, religious practices, and trading rights had divided the colonies for generations. When Patrick Henry stood in Carpenters' Hall and declared that regional distinctions were no more, he was articulating a revolutionary truth: that the shared experience of British military tyranny had forged a common destiny. The First Continental Congress brought leaders who had never met—gentlemen planters from the Chesapeake and Puritan merchants from Boston—together around the same table. As they prayed together, dined together in Philadelphia taverns, and debated the fundamental principles of human rights, their provincial prejudices melted away. By establishing the Continental Association to enforce economic boycotts across all twelve colonies, the Congress acted for the first time as a de facto national government, giving birth to a unified American identity.
Exercise 2: Evaluating the Constitutional Weapon of the Continental Association. Explain how the Continental Association established by the First Continental Congress functioned as an early national government, and describe the role played by local Committees of Inspection in enforcing compliance.
Solution 2: The Continental Association was a sweeping, legally organized economic treaty adopted on October 20, 1774, that established the First Continental Congress as an active governing body. Rather than relying on voluntary, uncoordinated local boycotts, the Association created a uniform, continent-wide commercial embargo: it strictly banned the importation, purchase, and consumption of all British goods, Irish linens, and slave-produced Caribbean molasses starting December 1, 1774, and established a complete embargo on American agricultural exports to Great Britain starting September 10, 1775. To enforce this continental law, Congress mandated the creation of elected "Committees of Inspection" in every city, county, and township across twelve colonies. These grassroots committees acted as revolutionary local courts: committee members inspected merchant shipping manifests, checked store inventories, regulated consumer prices to prevent wartime profiteering, and publicly exposed any merchant caught selling boycotted British goods. Violators were labeled "enemies of American liberty" in printed broadsides, ostracized by neighbors, and subjected to public boycotts. By mobilizing thousands of ordinary citizens across hundreds of communities into an organized enforcement network answerable to Congress rather than to royal governors, the Continental Association effectively replaced royal authority and established the operational machinery of American self-government.