The Dubious Achivement of the First Continental Congress

The Dubious Achievement of the 1st Continental Congress traces the events that led to the convening of the 1st Continental Congress in September 1774 and introduces the people who masterminded the patriotic movement. Its focus then shifts to the issue that divided the Congress: Sam Adams and his cousin John wanted a “bill of rights” which recognized the Law of Nature as a source of colonial right. Why? Because they believed that the natural “right to revolution” allowed American colonials to abolish England’s tyrannical “over-subordinate” government and replace it with an independent American government. Joseph Galloway and his loyalist supporters, perceiving the Adams’s objective, rejected their Natural Law claim on grounds the book also explains. The final segment of the story recounts how John Adams failed to win this debate on the floor of the Congress and how Secretary of the Congress Charles Thomson inserted his orphan declaration of rights into the congressional record after the Congress adjourned. The book concludes by remembering that two years later, Thomas Jefferson invoked the unheralded right to revolution in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence.

Read the introduction and index of topics and illustrations online at:

http://www.commonwealthbooks.org/1stContinentalCongress.html