Provincial Congress
The Provincial Congresses were extra-legal legislative bodies established in ten of the Thirteen Colonies early in the American Revolution. Some were referred to as congresses while others used different terms for a similar type body. These bodies were generally renamed or replaced with other bodies when the provinces declared themselves states.[1]
Overview
Committees of correspondence were formed as shadow governments in the Thirteen colonies prior to the American Revolution.[4] During the First Continental Congress (in 1774), committees of inspection were formed to enforce the Continental Association trade boycott with Britain in response to the British Parliament’s Intolerable Acts. By 1775, the committees had become counter-governments that gradually replaced royal authority and took control of local governments. Known as the Committees of Safety, they regulated the economy, politics, morality, and militia of their individual communities.[5] After the British Proclamation of Rebellion and the King’s speech before Parliament (27 October 1775)[6] the colonies moved towards independence.
In some colonies there were little or no changes to their assemblies until statehood. They had no need of a provisional legislative body since their governors did not dissolve or prevent the legislative assemblies from meeting. This was the case in the Charter colonies with more autonomy, such as Connecticut and Rhode Island, which elected colonial governors who were aligned with their assemblies. (Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull and Rhode Island Governor Nicholas Cooke served as both the last colonial governors and first state governors.) The Delaware Colony was a proprietary colony under Governor John Penn of the Province of Pennsylvania, which included the “Lower Counties of the Delaware", but it maintained a separate Delaware assembly. It was generally allowed more independence of action in their colonial assembly than in other colonies.
List of Provincial Congresses and Bodies
- Massachusetts Provincial Congress
- New York Provincial Congress
- Provincial Congress of New Jersey
- Pennsylvania Provincial Conference
- North Carolina Provincial Congress
See also
References
- ISBN 0316977403.
- ^ Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967); Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole, eds. A Companion to the American Revolution (2003)
- ISBN 9781584779285.
- ^ Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1904). "Committees of Correspondence". Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. 5.
- ^ Alan D. Watson, "The Committees of Safety and the Coming of the American Revolution in North Carolina, 1774–1776," North Carolina Historical Review, (1996) 73#2 pp 131–155
- ^ "King George III's Address to Parliament, October 27, 1775". The American Revolution, 1763-1783, First Shots of War, 1775, Library of Congress. Hall & Seller, Philadelphia. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
- ^ Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1904). "Committees of Safety". Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. 5.