Continental Congress - Second Continental Congress

Second Continental Congress

By the time the Second Continental Congress met on May 10, 1775 in Philadelphia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord had already begun in April, and while delegates were still making their way to Philadelphia, which marked the beginning of the American Revolutionary War.

John Hancock from Massachusetts was elected president of the assembly. Congress issued a petition entitled "The Declaration of Rights and Grievances" to King George III, the King of Great Britain. The Delegates adopted a strategy where the colonies would prepare for war while the Congress continued to pursue reconciliation. On July 8 the Congress adopted a petition to the king in the hopes that he would intervene in Parliament on behalf of the colonies. A former governor of Pennsylvania was chosen to carry another petition, approved in July 1775, to London and present it to the king himself but the king refused to see him. On August 23 he issued a proclamation declaring the colonies to be in a state of "open and avowed rebellion." Moderates in the Congress still hoped that the colonies could be reconciled with Great Britain, but a movement towards independence steadily gained ground. On June 17 the Battle of Bunker Hill energized the Patriots; Congress established the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief in June 1775. On July 4, 1776 Congress issued a Declaration of Independence, ending all American efforts at reconciliation. Congress designed a new government in the Articles of Confederation, which operated as the nation's constitution.