Representatives to the Continental Congress (2025)

FAQs

Representatives to the Continental Congress? ›

The First Continental Congress included Patrick Henry, George Washington, John and Samuel Adams, John Jay, and John Dickinson. Meeting in secret session, the body rejected a plan for reconciling British authority with colonial freedom.

Jefferson arrives in Philadelphia as the youngest Virginia delegate to the second Continental Congress. Other Virginia delegates are George Washington, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Harrison, Richard Henry Lee, and Edmund Pendleton.

They formed a group called the Continental Congress. After months of debating and trying to resolve their differences with the English government and King George III, the leaders of the colonies decided to declare their independence in July 1776. Joseph Hewes, William Hooper, and John Penn represented North Carolina.

The Congress appointed George Washington as commander of the Continental Army, and authorized the raising of the army through conscription. On July 4, 1776, the Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, which for the first time asserted the colonies' intention to be fully independent of the mother country.

This First Continental Congress represented all the 13 colonies, except Georgia. It included some of the finest leaders in the land, including George Washington, Patrick Henry, John Adams, Samuel Adams, and John Jay. The group elected Peyton Randolph of Virginia as its president.

The First Continental Congress included Patrick Henry, George Washington, John and Samuel Adams, John Jay, and John Dickinson. Meeting in secret session, the body rejected a plan for reconciling British authority with colonial freedom.

The list of delegates included many prominent colonial leaders, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, and two future presidents of the United States, George Washington and John Adams. Delegates discussed boycotting British goods to establish the rights of Americans and planned for a Second Continental Congress.

Shortly afterward on the same day, the house chose four delegates to represent Georgia in the national congress. They were William Houstoun, Samuel Elbert, Edward Telfair, and Joseph Habersham. Houstoun was thus chosen a second time and was re-elected in 1785 and 1786.

Benjamin Franklin reinstated himself into public life in Philadelphia upon his return to America, and although he was re-elected to the Colonial Assembly in October of 1775, he resigned from the position in February of 1776 to concentrate as a delegate of the Second Continental Congress.

Who represented South Carolina at the Continental Congress? ›

Massachusetts delegates John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Cushing begin their journey to Philadelphia on 10 August, surveying the political landscape and meeting fellow delegates along their route. The Congress convenes on 5 September at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia.

The so-called “moderates,” including John Jay, James Duane, and Robert Morris, alongside John Dickinson, are ignored in their role in the revolution because of the attention paid only to the patriotic radicals, like Samuel and John Adams, and the loyalist supporters of Britain.

Altogether, 56 delegates attended, including George Washington, Patrick Henry, and John Adams. Other notable delegates included Samuel Adams from Massachusetts Bay and Joseph Galloway and John Dickinson from the Pennsylvania. Peyton Randolph of Virginia was its president.

During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress became America's de facto government. Over a period of 15 years, from 1774 to 1789, the Continental Congress underwent a profound evolution.

Declaration of Independence

The document was engrossed on parchment and, one by one, 56 representatives from all 13 colonies signed it.

The protests were based on a legal principle that the colonial legislatures only had the power to tax residents who had representatives in those legislatures. And even though some colonies had official agents to Parliament, like Benjamin Franklin, no colonies had sitting representatives in the British Parliament.

Explanation: Three ways colonial governments were representative can be summarized by: the House of Burgesses, the Mayflower Compact, and the First Continental Congress.

With its origin in the first meeting of the Virginia General Assembly at Jamestown in July 1619, the House of Burgesses was the first democratically-elected legislative body in the British American colonies.