George Washington and the Continental Congress
George Washington (middle) surrounded by members of the Continental Congress, lithograph by Currier & Ives, c. 1876.
Continental Congress
American history
Continental Congress, in the period of the American Revolution, the body of delegates who spoke and acted collectively for the people of the colony-states that later became the United States of America. The term most specifically refers to the bodies that met in 1774 and 1775–81 and respectively designated as the First Continental Congress and the Second Continental Congress. In the spring of 1774 the British Parliament’s passage of the Intolerable (Coercive) Acts, including the...