Academy1770 to 1775: From Boston to the Continental Army
First Continental Congress
This lesson takes 13 minutes.
Objectives
- Date the convening: 5 September 1774, at Philadelphia
- Date the endorsement of the Suffolk Resolves: 17 September 1774
- Date the Declaration and Resolves of 14 October and the Association of 20 October
- Date the adjournment: 26 October 1774, with a plan to meet again if needed
Lesson
The First Continental Congress convened at Philadelphia on 5 September 1774. Twelve colonies sent delegates. Georgia did not.
The meeting had no army and no power to tax. It had a petition, a boycott, and a calendar.
On 17 September 1774 the Congress endorsed the Suffolk Resolves, which had come from a Massachusetts county convention. Those resolves treated the Coercive Acts as void and urged the colony to arm and to stop paying taxes into the royal treasury.
On 14 October 1774 Congress adopted a Declaration and Resolves. It listed rights the delegates said they held, and it listed the statutes they wanted repealed, including the Coercive Acts.
On 20 October 1774 Congress adopted the Continental Association. The Association was a boycott: non-importation, non-consumption, and, if relief did not come, non-exportation. Local committees were to watch compliance.
Congress adjourned on 26 October 1774. It agreed to meet again in May 1775 if the grievances were still open. The journal of that session is the Library of Congress scan of the Journals of the Continental Congress, volume 1.