The Second Continental Congress was a governing body made up of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that first convened on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It came together in the immediate aftermath of the first battles of the American Revolutionary War and served as the national government of the colonies for the duration of the conflict. Over its six years of operation, the Second Continental Congress created the Continental Army, appointed George Washington as its commander, issued the Declaration of Independence, managed foreign diplomacy, financed the war, and drafted the Articles of Confederation. It was, in every practical sense, the first government of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The American Revolution was the political and military struggle through which the Thirteen Colonies broke free from British rule and established the United States of America. Tensions between the colonies and Britain had been building for more than a decade over issues of taxation, trade restrictions, and the right of the colonists to govern themselves. When fighting broke out at Lexington and Concord in April of 1775, the colonies had no central government, no national army, and no formal way to coordinate a response. The Second Continental Congress stepped into that vacuum, taking on the task of governing a revolution while simultaneously trying to win a war against one of the most powerful empires in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Second Continental Congress grew directly out of the work of its predecessor. The First Continental Congress had met in Philadelphia from September 5 to October 26, 1774, bringing together delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies to respond to the Intolerable Acts, a series of punitive British laws passed after the Boston Tea Party. The First Congress issued a declaration of colonial rights, organized a boycott of British goods, and sent a petition to King George III asking him to address colonial grievances. It also agreed to reconvene in May of 1775 if Britain did not respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Britain did not respond. Instead, King George III opened Parliament in November of 1774 with a speech condemning Massachusetts and the colonists’ resistance. By the time the Second Congress was due to meet, the Revolutionary War had already begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Second Continental Congress opened on May 10, 1775, at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, the building now known as Independence Hall. Delegates from twelve colonies were present at the start, with Georgia joining later that summer. Many familiar faces returned from the First Congress, joined by important new figures including Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and John Hancock of Massachusetts, who took over as president of the Congress early on. Thomas Jefferson also joined the Virginia delegation and would soon play a central role in the Congress’s most important work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The atmosphere was tense. News of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and of the Battle of Bunker Hill in June of 1775, reached the delegates as they deliberated. Thousands of colonial militia were besieging British forces outside Boston, but they had no unified command, no standard organization, and no reliable source of supplies or pay. The Congress had to act quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the first and most important actions the Second Continental Congress took was the creation of a national military force. On June 14, 1775, Congress voted to establish the Continental Army, formally adopting the militia forces around Boston and authorizing the recruitment of additional troops from across the colonies. The following day, Congress unanimously voted to appoint George Washington of Virginia as Commander-in-Chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The choice of Washington was both practical and political. He had more military experience than almost any other delegate and was from Virginia, the largest and wealthiest colony. His appointment helped make the cause of Massachusetts the common cause of all the colonies. Washington accepted the position, announced he would serve without pay, and left for Boston shortly after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congress also moved quickly to fund the war effort. On June 22, 1775, it approved the release of one million dollars in paper money, known as Continental Currency. By the end of 1775, it had authorized six million dollars in bills of credit. The Continental Navy was established on October 13, 1775, to challenge British control of the seas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite preparing for war, many delegates were not yet ready to give up on peace. In July of 1775, Congress approved the Olive Branch Petition, addressed to King George III, affirming the colonies’ loyalty to the Crown and asking the king to stop the conflict before it went any further. The king refused to receive it. Before the petition even arrived in London, George III had already issued a proclamation on August 23, 1775, declaring the colonies to be in open rebellion. The failure of the Olive Branch Petition convinced many delegates who had hoped for reconciliation that independence was the only path forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several developments in early 1776 pushed the Congress decisively toward independence. In January of 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a pamphlet arguing plainly that independence from Britain was both justified and necessary. It became one of the most widely read political documents in American history and shifted public opinion significantly. In May of 1776, Congress passed a resolution recommending that each colony establish its own state government in place of its colonial structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On June 7, 1776, Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee formally proposed that the colonies declare themselves independent. Congress appointed a Committee of Five to draft a declaration: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson produced the main draft. On July 2, 1776, Congress voted to adopt Lee’s resolution, and on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was formally adopted. New York added its approval on July 15, making the vote unanimous across all thirteen colonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With independence declared, the Second Continental Congress took on the full responsibilities of a government at war. It managed the appointment of military officers, debated strategy with Washington, and worked to address the army’s chronic shortages of weapons, food, clothing, and men. It also had to navigate constant tensions between delegates who favored a strong central government and those who prioritized the independence of their individual states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congress had no power to levy taxes directly, meaning it could only request money from the states, which were often slow to contribute. The Continental Currency it issued steadily lost value as more bills were printed. The Congress also had to move locations multiple times to avoid British forces, fleeing Philadelphia for Baltimore in the winter of 1776, returning in the spring of 1777, then fleeing again to Lancaster and then York, Pennsylvania, when British troops occupied the city in September of 1777.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the most critical functions of the Congress was managing the new nation’s foreign relations. From early in the war, Congress recognized that outside help would be essential to defeating Britain. It established a Committee of Secret Correspondence in November of 1775 and dispatched Silas Deane to Paris as a secret agent to seek French support. Benjamin Franklin followed as the first official American representative to France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The diplomatic effort Congress directed ultimately secured the French alliance. When France formally recognized American independence and signed a Treaty of Alliance on February 6, 1778, it transformed the conflict into a global war that Britain could not win alone. Congress also maintained relations with Spain and the Dutch Republic, both of which provided varying degrees of support to the American cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout the war, Congress worked on a more permanent framework for government. The Articles of Confederation were passed by Congress on November 15, 1777, and sent to the states for ratification. They established the United States as a confederation of sovereign states, with a central Congress that could declare war and sign treaties but could not levy taxes or compel states to act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ratification took years. Maryland refused to sign until states with large western land claims agreed to give them up to the national government. Maryland finally ratified on March 1, 1781, bringing the Articles into force. At that point, the Second Continental Congress formally became the Congress of the Confederation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Second Continental Congress was the government that made the American Revolution succeed. Working without reliable legal authority, without stable funding, and without the power to compel anyone, it held thirteen very different colonies together in a common cause, built and sustained an army, secured a vital foreign alliance, and produced some of the most important political documents in history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776, remains one of the foundational texts of modern democratic thought. The experience gained by its members in governing under pressure shaped the thinking of the men who later drafted the Constitution. In a very real sense, the United States was born in the debates and decisions of the Second Continental Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Second Continental Congress was the governing body of the American colonies during the Revolutionary War, convening in Philadelphia in May of 1775 and producing the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Army, and the Articles of Confederation. This article details the history and significance of the Second Continental Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[161,15],"class_list":["post-11695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-revolution","tag-american-revolution","tag-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11695"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11769,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11695\/revisions\/11769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}