[Sidenote:  The several states were never at any time sovereign states.] [Sidenote:  The Articles of Confederation] The Continental Congress began to exercise a certain amount of directive authority from the time of its first meeting in 1774.  Such authority as it had arose simply from the fact that it represented an agreement on the part of the several governments to pursue a certain line of policy.  It was a diplomatic and executive, but scarcely yet a legislative body.  Nevertheless it was the visible symbol of a kind of union between the states.  There never was a time when any one of the original states exercised singly the full powers of sovereignty.  Not one of them was ever a small sovereign state like Denmark or Portugal.  As they acted together under the common direction of the British government in 1759, the year of Quebec, so they acted together under the common direction of that revolutionary body, the Continental Congress, in 1775, the year of Bunker Hill.  In that year a “continental army” was organized in the name of the “United Colonies.”  In the following year, when independence was declared, it was done by the concerted action of all the colonies; and at the same time a committee was appointed by Congress to draw up a written constitution.  This constitution, known as the “Articles or Confederation,” was submitted to Congress in the autumn of 1777, and was sent to the several states to be ratified.  A unanimous ratification was necessary, and it was not until March 1781, that unanimity was secured and the articles adopted.

Meanwhile the Revolutionary War had advanced into its last stages, having been carried on from the outset under the general direction of the Continental Congress.  When reading about this period of our history, the student must be careful not to be misled by the name “congress” into reasoning as if there were any resemblance whatever between that body and the congress which was created by our Federal Constitution.  The Continental Congress was not the parent of our Federal Congress; the former died without offspring, and the latter had a very different origin, as we shall soon see.  The former simply bequeathed to the latter a name, that was all.

[Sidenote:  Nature and powers of the Continental Congress] The Continental Congress was an assembly of delegates from the thirteen states, which from 1774 to 1783 held its sessions at Philadelphia.[2] It owned no federal property, not even the house in which it assembled, and after it had been turned out of doors by a mob of drunken soldiers in June, 1783, it flitted about from place to place, sitting now at Trenton, now at Annapolis, and finally at New York.[3] Each state sent to it as many delegates as it chose, though after the adoption of the articles no state could send less than two or more than seven.  Each state had one vote, and it took nine votes, or two thirds of the whole, to carry any measure of importance.  One of the delegates was chosen president or chairman