II.

Second Congress

Before adjourning on October 26, 1774, the First Continental Congress summoned a second Congress to assemble in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, if the king failed to respond favorably to its petition. When the Second Continental Congress convened on the appointed date, the battles of Lexington and Concord had recently taken place in Massachusetts, and militiamen were besieging the British occupying force within Boston.

The delegates, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, were elected in part by colonial assemblies and in part by the provincial congresses that had sprung up to replace those rebellious legislatures dissolved by royal governors. The Congress had no basis in law and its delegates were uncertain about their functions. The crisis, however, compelled them to form committees and to assume governmental duties, essentially executive in character, that had previously been exercised by the king. The Congress thus commissioned Washington to organize a continental army and assume responsibility for the siege of Boston. It formulated regulations for the conduct of trade; issued paper money; and sent emissaries abroad to negotiate with foreign powers for financial, diplomatic, and military assistance. Most of the delegates, including Washington, still hoped for reconciliation with Britain, but by the end of 1775 this possibility had faded. In August the British monarch had issued a proclamation 'for suppressing rebellion and sedition' in the colonies and in September had hired 20,000 Hessian mercenaries to be sent to America.

The radicals in Congress remained unable to convince a majority of their colleagues that independence was their only alternative until the spring of 1776, when Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense created such massive support for the break with Britain that conservative delegates could no longer resist. After voting in May to instruct the colonies to form their own governments and to suppress all vestiges of royal authority, the Congress began debating a resolution in favor of independence. It approved the resolution on July 2, 1776, and on July 4 it adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted mainly by Jefferson.