Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in May 1775, three weeks after the shooting started, and governed a war for six years without any authority to do so. It had no constitutional standing whatever. It was a meeting of delegates chosen by provincial conventions that were themselves extra-legal, and it proceeded to raise an army, print money, appoint a commander, negotiate treaties and declare independence. Its first substantial act was to adopt the militia besieging Boston as a Continental Army and to give it to George Washington, who came to the sessions in uniform, which nobody thought accidental. The choice was political as much as military: a Virginian commanding a New England army made the war continental rather than regional. It then sent the Olive Branch Petition to George III in July asking for reconciliation, and issued a declaration on the causes of taking up arms the following day, which is a fair indication of how divided it was. The king declared the colonies in rebellion without reading the petition. Common Sense appeared in January 1776 and sold enormously, and the Congress moved through the spring — opening the ports, authorising new state constitutions — until Lee's resolution of 7 June and the Declaration on 4 July. It fled Philadelphia twice when the British approached. It fought the war on requisitions the states ignored, which is the defect the Articles of Confederation then wrote into law. The Congress also had no capital, no courts and no way to compel a state to do anything, and it won a war against the strongest power in the world. The lesson the framers took from it in 1787 was that this had been luck.
- Year: 1775 CE
- Category: Political
