First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia

On September 5, 1774, delegates from twelve colonies gathered at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the First Continental Congress. Peyton Randolph presided, while leading figures such as George Washington, Patrick Henry, John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Jay, and Joseph Galloway debated how to answer the Coercive Acts imposed on Massachusetts. Georgia did not send delegates in 1774, but the other colonies used the Congress to coordinate a continental response to Parliament and the ministry of Lord North.

The Congress confronted the question whether the colonies remained merely separate provinces petitioning the Crown or had begun to act together as a political body defending common rights. Debates over Galloway's Plan of Union, Suffolk County's resolves, and the extent of nonimportation showed that Americans disagreed about method even when they agreed that Parliament had exceeded constitutional limits. By approving the Suffolk Resolves and denouncing the Coercive Acts, the Congress moved well beyond protest and toward organized resistance grounded in intercolonial cooperation.

The First Continental Congress produced the Continental Association in October 1774, creating enforcement committees throughout British America to police a boycott of British goods. It also laid the institutional foundation for the Second Continental Congress, which assumed continental authority in 1775 and eventually issued the Declaration of Independence.