Continental Congress

And in the War of the Revolution the shilling of the Continental Congress hadn’t been worth, in the British phrase, a Continental damn.

Pat Frank -- Alas, Babylon

The Continental Congress met for the first time in Philadelphia in 1774.

Laurie Halse Anderson -- Fever, 1793

Local prejudices, said Hamilton, were to be forgotten on the Senate floor, else it would simply be a repetition of the Continental Congress where "the first question has been ’how will such a measure affect my constituents and …. my re-election.’ "

John F. Kennedy -- Profiles in Courage

He was a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson -- Selected Essays

"I’ve got about as much of a plan as the Continental Congress had in 1775," Tyler said.

John Ringo -- Live Free or Die

John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress, was thirty-nine, John Adams, forty, Thomas Jefferson, thirty-two, younger even than the young Rhode Island general.

David G. McCullough -- 1776

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"It is not in the pages of history, perhaps, to furnish a case like ours," Washington informed John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress.

David McCullough -- John Adams

But to win the Germans over, the Continental Congress printed German translations of some of its deliberations, including the Articles of Confederation, and German Americans did support the Revolution.

Robert MacNeil and William Crane -- Do You Speak American?

In 1782 Gouverneur Morris proposed to the Continental Congress that the coins of the republic be called, in ascending order, /unit/, /penny-bill/, /dollar/ and /crown/.

Henry L. Mencken -- The American Language

He himself had had years of political experience in the Virginia legislature and as a member of the Continental Congress.

David G. McCullough -- 1776

"What in the name of Common Sense are you gentlemen of the Continental Congress about?" demanded a constituent writing from Massachusetts.

David McCullough -- John Adams

THE ROUTE JOHN ADAMS and his young companion would take to Philadelphia that January of 1776 was the same as he had traveled to the First Continental Congress in the summer of 1774.

David McCullough -- John Adams

By the time he returned for the Second Continental Congress, in late spring 1775, a month after Lexington and Concord, Philadelphia had become the capital of a revolution.

David McCullough -- John Adams

Mifflin, a wealthy young Philadelphia merchant who served with Adams in the Continental Congress, had been one of the first to welcome Adams on his arrival in Philadelphia.

David McCullough -- John Adams

One of his strongest admirers and mentors was Samuel Ward of Rhode Island, a delegate to the Continental Congress, who was also the uncle of Nathanael’s wife Katherine and presumably used his influence.

David G. McCullough -- 1776

"This day the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies Free and Independent States," recorded a young artist newly established in Philadelphia, Charles Willson Peale, exuberant over the news.

David McCullough -- John Adams

This Witherspoon brought a Scotch hatred of the English with him, and at once became a leader of the party of independence; he signed the Declaration to the tune of much rhetoric, and was the only clergyman to sit in the Continental Congress.

Henry L. Mencken -- The American Language

A Connecticut delegate to the Continental Congress, Eliphalet Dyer, who had heartily joined in the unanimous decision to make Washington the commander-in-chief, judged him to be no "harum scarum" fellow.

David G. McCullough -- 1776

-LETTER FROM JOHN HANCOCK, PRESIDENT OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, TO GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON

Laurie Halse Anderson -- Chains

As he wrote to his friend Samuel Ward at the Continental Congress, the prospect was deeply disturbing, "when you consider how raw and undisciplined the troops are in general, and what war-like preparations are going on [in] England."

David G. McCullough -- 1776

Sullivan, a lawyer and politician in his mid-forties, had served with Washington in the Continental Congress, and Spencer, who was older even than Israel Putnam (his troops referred to him as "Granny"), would play almost no part.

David G. McCullough -- 1776

The Continental Congress had appointed George Washington to lead "the army of the United Colonies," but in correspondence with the general, the President of Congress, John Hancock, referred to it only as "the troops under your command."

David G. McCullough -- 1776

In 1774, Adams was chosen by the legislature as one of five delegates to the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia, and with all Massachusetts on the verge of rebellion, he removed Abigail and the children again to Braintree, where they would remain.

David McCullough -- John Adams

Fourteen years earlier, it had been Adams who called on the Continental Congress to make the tall Virginian commander-in-chief of the army.

David McCullough -- John Adams

Many with whom he had served in the Continental Congress had passed from the scene—some, like Benjamin Rush, were retired from public life; others deceased.

David McCullough -- John Adams

In all the surviving record of official and private papers pertaining to the Continental Congress, there is only one member or eyewitness to events in Philadelphia in 1776 who wrote disparagingly of John Adams, and that was Adams writing long years afterward.

David McCullough -- John Adams

When, in September, an emissary from the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, Richard Penn, arrived in London with an "Olive Branch Petition" in hand, expressing loyalty to the Crown and requesting, in effect, that the King find a way to reconciliation, George III refused to have anything to do with it.

David G. McCullough -- 1776

In less than a year’s time, as a delegate to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, he had emerged as one of the most "sensible and forcible" figures in the whole patriot cause, the "Great and Common Cause," his influence exceeding even that of his better-known kinsman, the ardent Boston patriot Samuel Adams.

David McCullough -- John Adams

The delegate to the first Continental Congress, preparing to depart for Philadelphia, felt "unalterable anxiety"; the envoy sailing for France wrote of "great diffidence in myself."

David McCullough -- John Adams

I N PHILADELPHIA, the same day as the British landing on Staten Island, July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress, in a momentous decision, voted to "dissolve the connection" with Great Britain.

David G. McCullough -- 1776

Now he stood at Washington’s side as Washington, his right hand on the Bible, repeated the oath of office as read by Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York, who had also been a member of the Continental Congress.

David McCullough -- John Adams

It was abandoning Philadelphia for the first time since convening there for the First Continental Congress in 1774.

David G. McCullough -- 1776

Wolcott, the youngest at thirty-seven, was the son of the Oliver Wolcott with whom Adams had served in the Continental Congress.

David McCullough -- John Adams

At a stroke the Continental Congress had made the Glorious Cause of America more glorious still, for all the world to know, and also to give every citizen soldier at this critical juncture something still larger and more compelling for which to fight.

David G. McCullough -- 1776

IT HAD BEEN NINE YEARS since the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia, eight years since Lexington and Concord, seven since the Declaration of Independence, and more than three years since John Adams had last left home in the role of peacemaker.

David McCullough -- John Adams

All one saw looking across from New York, as Washington frequently did, was the steep face of the bluff rising above the river and crowned now by the beginnings of Fort Stirling, and to the right, also on the brow of the bluff, the country house of Philip Livingston, a wealthy New York importer and delegate to the Continental Congress.

David G. McCullough -- 1776