Continental Congress

In US history, the federal legislature of the original 13 states, acting as a provisional government before the American Revolution. It convened in Philadelphia from 1774 to 1789, when the US Constitution was adopted. The Second Continental Congress, convened in May 1775, was responsible for drawing up the Declaration of Independence (1776) and, in 1777, the Articles of Confederation.

The Congress authorized an army to resist the British and issued paper money to finance the war effort. It also oversaw the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention.

The Continental Congress was inspired by the advice and activities of Samuel Adams in the initial stages of the resistance of the colonies to the British prime minister George Grenville's Stamp Act 1765. It was intended as a federal body composed of states' representatives which should meet annually and whose functions were primarily to organize the best way of forcing ‘the British Parliament to come to proper terms’. Its first act was to address a petition to King George III promising loyalty in consideration of the redress of grievances.