List of delegates to the Continental Congress

List of delegates to the Continental Congress

The Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution. The "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress" lists 343 men who attended the Continental Congress, along with another 90 who were elected as delegates but never served. ["Biographical Directory of the United States Congress", 40–44.] The Congress met from 1774 to 1789 in three incarnations.

The First Continental Congress, which met briefly in Philadelphia in 1774, consisted of 56 delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies that would become the United States. [Burnett, "Continental Congress", 32.] Convened in response to the Coercive Acts passed by the British Parliament in 1774, the delegates organized an economic boycott of Great Britain in protest and petitioned the king for a redress of grievances.

By the time the Second Continental Congress met in 1775, shooting in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) had begun. Moderates in the Congress still hoped that the colonies could be reconciled with Great Britain, but a movement towards independence steadily gained ground. Congress established the Continental Army (June 1775), coordinated the war effort, issued a Declaration of Independence in July 1776, and designed a new government in the Articles of Confederation, which were ratified in 1781.

The ratification of the Articles of Confederation gave the Congress a new name: the Congress of the Confederation, which met from 1781 to 1789. The Confederation Congress helped guide the United States through the final stages of the war, but in peacetime the Congress declined in importance. Under the Articles, the Confederation Congress had little power to compel the individual states to comply with its decisions. Increasingly, delegates elected to the Congress declined to serve, the leading men in each state preferred to serve in state government, and the Congress had difficulty establishing a quorum. When the Articles were replaced by the United States Constitution, the Confederation Congress was superseded by the United States Congress.

__TOC__

Delegates who attended

The following table shows the names of the delegates who at some point attended the Continental Congress. Because a delegate did not necessarily take his seat in Congress in the same year that he was elected, nor did he necessarily stay for the duration of his term, there are slight discrepancies in the sources regarding the years of service for some delegates. Only those years that the delegate actually attended Congress are shown on the table. All data is from the "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress", except where entries been corrected using more detailed sources, particularly the "American National Biography".

The table also indicates (with an X) which delegates signed the Articles of Association (1774), the United States Declaration of Independence (1776), the Articles of Confederation (1778–1781), and the United States Constitution (1787). The first three documents were created by Congress, and so all signers were necessarily delegates; the United States Constitution was signed at a special convention outside of Congress, and its signatories were not all current or former members of Congress.

John Dickinson has two entries on the table because he served as a delegate from both Pennsylvania and Delaware. The person who most frequently attended Congress was not a delegate: he was Charles Thomson, who served as secretary throughout Congress' existence.

Elected but did not attend

This table shows those who were elected as delegates to the Continental Congress but never attended a session. All data is from the "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress".

Notes

References

*"American National Biography".
*"Biographical Directory of the United States Congress". Washington D. C., 1989.
*Burnett, Edward Cody. "The Continental Congress". New York: Norton, 1941.
*"Dictionary of American Biography".
*Purcell, L. Edward. "Who Was Who in the American Revolution". New York: Facts on File, 1993. ISBN 0-8160-2107-4.

External links

* [http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/cdocuments/hd108-222/delegates.pdf List of delegates] from the "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress"


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Continental Congress — Continental Congress …   Wikipedia

  • President of the Continental Congress — The President of the Continental Congress was the presiding officer of the Continental Congress, the convention of delegates that emerged as the first national government of the United States during the American Revolution. The president was a… …   Wikipedia

  • First Continental Congress — The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen British North American colonies that met on September 5, 1774, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. Called in response to the… …   Wikipedia

  • Continental Congress 2009 — Based on the premises that America is experiencing a Constitutional Crisis[1] that is devastating to individual freedoms and liberties, and that in order to achieve meaningful reform, activists must go beyond Tea Parties, beyond elections and… …   Wikipedia

  • Founding Fathers of the United States — The Committee of Five presenting their draft of the Declaration of Independence to the Congress on June 28, 1776. Painting by John Trumbull. Trumbull s painting can also be found on the back of the U.S. $2 bill.[1] …   Wikipedia

  • List of counties in Georgia (U.S. state) — The U.S. state of Georgia is divided into 159 counties. Under the Georgia State Constitution, all of its counties are granted home rule to deal with issues that are purely local in nature. Four consolidated city counties have been established in… …   Wikipedia

  • The United States of America —     The United States of America     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► The United States of America     BOUNDARIES AND AREA     On the east the boundary is formed by the St. Croix River and an arbitrary line to the St. John, and on the north by the… …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • Congress of the Confederation — The Articles of Confederation Type …   Wikipedia

  • List of United States political families (B) — The following is an alphabetical list of political families in the United States whose last name begins with B.The Babcocks and Weeks*Joseph Weeks (1773 1845), Clerk of Richmond, New Hampshire 1802 1822; New Hampshire State Representative 1807… …   Wikipedia

  • The Irish (in Countries Other Than Ireland) —     The Irish (in countries other than Ireland)     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► The Irish (in countries other than Ireland)     I. IN THE UNITED STATES     Who were the first Irish to land on the American continent and the time of their arrival are …   Catholic encyclopedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”