Independence Hall - Declaration of Independence and Second Continental Congress

Declaration of Independence and Second Continental Congress

Main article: Second Continental Congress See also: American Revolutionary War #Saratoga and Philadelphia

From May 10, 1775 to 1783, the Pennsylvania State House served as the principal meeting place of the Second Continental Congress, a body of representatives from each of the thirteen British North American colonies.

On June 14, 1775, delegates of the Continental Congress nominated George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House. The Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin to be the first Postmaster General of what would later become the United States Post Office Department on July 26.

The United States Declaration of Independence was approved there on July 4, 1776, and the Declaration was read aloud to the public in the area now known as Independence Square. This document unified the colonies in North America who declared themselves independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain and explained their justifications for doing so. These historic events are celebrated annually with a national holiday for U.S. Independence Day.

The Congress continued to meet there until December 12, 1776, after which the Congress evacuated Philadelphia. During the British occupation of Philadelphia, the Continental Congress met in Baltimore, Maryland (December 20, 1776 to February 27, 1777). The Congress returned to Philadelphia from March 4, 1777 to September 18, 1777.

In September 1777, the British Army again arrived to occupy Philadelphia, once again forcing the Continental Congress to abandon the State House. It then met in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for one day (September 27, 1777) and in York, Pennsylvania, for nine months (September 30, 1777 to June 27, 1778), where the Articles of Confederation were approved in November 1777. The Second Continental Congress again returned to Independence Hall, for its final meetings, from July 2, 1778 to March 1, 1781.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation initially met in Independence Hall, from March 1, 1781 to June 21, 1783. However, as a result of the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, Congress again moved from Philadelphia in June 1783 to Princeton, New Jersey, and eventually to other cities.

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Famous quotes containing the words declaration of independence, declaration of, declaration, independence and/or congress:

    “I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “It is an axiom in political science that unless a people are educated and enlightened it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty or the capacity for self-government.”
    —Texas Declaration of Independence (March 2, 1836)

    “[The Declaration of Independence] meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.”
    —Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

    “To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty.”
    —Edmund Burke (1729–1797)

    “I date the end of the old republic and the birth of the empire to the invention, in the late thirties, of air conditioning. Before air conditioning, Washington was deserted from mid-June to September.... But after air conditioning and the Second World War arrived, more or less at the same time, Congress sits and sits while the presidents—or at least their staffs—never stop making mischief.”
    —Gore Vidal (b. 1925)