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United States in Congress Assembled
Great Seal of the United States (1782)
Type
Type	Unicameral
Term limits	3 years in 6-year period
History
Established	March 1, 1781
Disbanded	March 3, 1789
Preceded by	Second Continental Congress
Succeeded by	United States Congress
Leadership
President of Congress	Samuel Huntington (first) Cyrus Griffin (last)
Secretary	Charles Thomson
Structure
Seats	Variable, ~50
Committees	Committee of the States
Committees	Committee of the Whole
Length of term	1 year
Salary	None
Elections
Voting system	Legislature of the variousstates
Last election	1788
Meeting place
Pennsylvania State House (present-dayIndependence Hall), Philadelphia (first) City Hall (present-dayFederal Hall) New York City (last)
Constitution
Articles of Confederation
Footnotes
Though there were about 50 members of the Congress at any given time, each state delegation voteden bloc, with each state having a single vote.

This article is part ofa series on the
United States Continental Congress
Independence Hall inPhiladelphia
Predecessors
Albany Congress Stamp Act Congress
First Continental Congress
Declaration and Resolves Continental Association Petition to the King
Second Continental Congress
United Colonies Olive Branch Petition Committee of Secret Correspondence Necessity of Taking Up Arms Lee Resolution Declaration of Independence Model Treaty Franco-American Treaty Articles of Confederation Perpetual Union Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture
Congress of the Confederation
Bank of North America Land Ordinance of 1784 /of 1785 Northwest Ordinance of 1787
Members
List of delegates Presidents of the Continental Congress Secretary of Foreign Affairs Superintendent of Finance Secretary at War Board of War Marine Committee Secretary of the Continental Congress
Related
Journals of the Continental Congress Carpenters' Hall Independence Hall Henry Fite House Nassau Hall Maryland State House French Arms Tavern Federal Hall
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TheCongress of the Confederation, or theConfederation Congress, formally referred to as theUnited States in Congress Assembled, was the governing body of theUnited States from March 1, 1781, until March 3, 1789, during theConfederation period. Aunicameral body withlegislative andexecutive function, it was composed of delegates appointed by the legislatures of the thirteenstates. Each state delegation had one vote. The Congress was created by theArticles of Confederation and Perpetual Union upon its ratification in 1781, formally replacing theSecond Continental Congress.

The Congress continued to refer to itself as theContinental Congress throughout its eight-year history. Modern historians, however, separate it from the two earlier congresses, which operated under slightly different rules and procedures until the end of theRevolutionary War.^[1] Membership of the Second Continental Congress automatically carried over to the Congress of the Confederation, andCharles Thomson, secretary of the Second Continental Congress, continued in that capacity in the Congress of the Confederation.

The Congress of the Confederation was succeeded by theCongress of the United States as provided for in the newConstitution of the United States, drafted on September 17, 1787, inPhiladelphia, ratified by each of the states, and adopted by the Congress in 1788.^[2]

On March 1, 1781, theArticles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were signed by delegates ofMaryland at a meeting of theSecond Continental Congress inPhiladelphia, which then declared the Articles ratified. As historian Edmund Burnett wrote, "There was no new organization of any kind, not even the election of a new President." The Congress still called itself the Continental Congress. Nevertheless, despite its being generally the same exact governing body, with some changes in membership over the years as delegates came and went individually according to their own personal reasons and upon instructions of their state governments, some modern historians would later refer to theContinental Congress after the ratification of the Articles as the Congress of the Confederation or the Confederation Congress.

The Congress of the Confederation opened in the last stages of theAmerican Revolution. Combat ended in October 1781, with the surrender of the British after theSiege and Battle of Yorktown. The British, however continued to occupy New York City, while the American delegates in Paris, named by the Congress, negotiated the terms of peace withGreat Britain.^[3] Based on preliminary articles with the British negotiators made on November 30, 1782, and approved by the "Congress of the Confederation" on April 15, 1783, theTreaty of Paris was further signed on September 3, 1783, and ratified by the Confederation Congress then sitting at theMaryland State House inAnnapolis on January 14, 1784. This formally ended theAmerican Revolutionary War betweenGreat Britain and thethirteen former colonies, which onJuly 4, 1776, had declared independence. In December 1783,General George Washington, commander-in-chief of theContinental Army, journeyed to Annapolis after saying farewell to his officers (atFraunces Tavern) and men who had just reoccupiedNew York City after the departingBritish Army. On December 23, at theMaryland State House, where the Congress met in the Old Senate Chamber, he addressed the civilian leaders and delegates of Congress andreturned to them the signed commission they had voted him back in June 1775, at the beginning of the conflict. With that simple gesture of acknowledging the first civilian power over the military, he took his leave and returned by horseback the next day to his home and family atMount Vernon near the colonial river port city on thePotomac River atAlexandria inVirginia.

Congress had little power, and without the external threat of a war against the British, it became quite difficult to get enough delegates to meet to form a quorum. Nonetheless, the Congress still managed to pass important laws, most notably theNorthwest Ordinance of 1787.

The country incurred a massive debt as a result of the War of Independence. In 1784, the total Confederation debt was nearly $40 million. Of that sum, $8 million was owed to the French and Dutch. Of the domestic debt, government bonds, known as loan-office certificates, composed $11.5 million, certificates on interest indebtedness $3.1 million, and continental certificates $16.7 million.

The certificates were non-interest bearing notes issued for supplies purchased or impressed, and to pay soldiers and officers. To pay the interest and principal of the debt, Congress had twice proposed an amendment to the Articles granting them the power to lay a 5% duty on imports, but amendments to the Articles required the consent of all thirteen states: the 1781 impost plan had been rejected by Rhode Island and Virginia, while the revised plan, discussed in 1783, was rejected by New York.

Without revenue, except for meager voluntary state requisitions, Congress could not even pay the interest on its outstanding debt. The states, meanwhile, regularly failed or refused to meet the requisitions requested of them by Congress.^[4]

To that end, in September 1786, after resolving a series of disputes regarding their common border along the Potomac River, delegates of Maryland andVirginia called for a larger assembly to discuss various situations and governing problems to meet inAnnapolis, Maryland, the Maryland state capital. TheAnnapolis Convention in 1786 which included additional state representatives who joined the sessions, first attempted to look into improving the earlier original Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. There were enough problems to bear further discussion and deliberation that the Convention called for a wider meeting to recommend changes and meet the next year in the late Spring of 1787 inPhiladelphia.

The Confederation Congress itself endorsed this and issued invitations for the states to send delegates. After meeting in secret all summer in theOld Pennsylvania State House, which by then was renamedIndependence Hall, from the famous actions of there eleven years earlier. ThePhiladelphia Convention, under the presidency of formerGeneral George Washington, issued a proposed newConstitution for the United States to replace the 1776–1778 Articles. The Confederation Congress received and submitted the new Constitution document to the states, and the Constitution was later ratified by enough states (nine were required) to become operative in June 1788. On September 13, 1788, the Confederation Congress set the date for choosing the new electors in theElectoral College that was set up for choosing aPresident as January 7, 1789, the date for the Electors to vote for the President as on February 4, 1789, and the date for the Constitution to become operative as March 4, 1789, when the newCongress of the United States should convene.^[5]

The Congress of the Confederation continued to conduct business for another month after setting the various dates. On October 10, 1788, Congress formed a quorum for the last time; afterward, although delegates would occasionally appear, there were never enough to officially conduct business. The last meeting of the Continental Congress was held March 2, 1789, two days before the new Constitutional government took over; only one member was present at said meeting,Philip Pell, an ardentAnti-Federalist and opponent of the Constitution, who was accompanied by the Congressional secretary. Pell oversaw the meeting and adjourned the Congresssine die.

The Continental Congress was presided over by apresident (referred to in many official records asPresident of the United States in Congress Assembled), who was a member of Congress elected by the other delegates to serve as a neutraldiscussion moderator during meetings. Elected to anon-renewable one-year term, this person also chaired theCommittee of the States when Congress was in recess and performed other administrative functions. He was not, however, an executive in the way the laterPresident of the United States is a chief executive since all of the functions he executed were under the direct control of Congress.^[6] There were ten presidents of Congress under the Articles. The first,Samuel Huntington, had been serving as president of the Continental Congress since September 28, 1779.

The Second Continental Congress was meeting at the Old Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall), in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the time the Articles of Confederationentered into force on March 1, 1781, but left after ananti-government protest by several hundred soldiers of theContinental Army inJune 1783. Congress moved its meeting site successively toPrinceton, New Jersey;Annapolis, Maryland;Trenton, New Jersey, and then in January 1785New York City, which remained theseat of government for several years.^[7]

First Congress
March 2, 1781[a] –   November 3, 1781	Pennsylvania State House,Philadelphia,Pennsylvania
President:Samuel Huntington[b] (until July 10, 1781)            Thomas McKean (from July 10, 1781)

Second Congress
November 5, 1781 –   November 2, 1782	Pennsylvania State House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
President:John Hanson

Third Congress
November 4, 1782 –   November 1, 1783	Pennsylvania State House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (until June 21, 1783)
	Nassau Hall,Princeton, New Jersey (from June 30, 1783)
President:Elias Boudinot

Fourth Congress
November 3, 1783 –   June 3, 1784	Nassau Hall, Princeton, New Jersey (until November 4, 1783)
	Maryland State House,Annapolis, Maryland (from November 26, 1783)
President:Thomas Mifflin

Fifth Congress
November 1, 1784 –   November 6, 1785	French Arms Tavern,Trenton, New Jersey (until December 24, 1784)
	City Hall,New York,New York (from January 11, 1785)
President:Richard Henry Lee (from November 30, 1784)

Sixth Congress
November 7, 1785 –   November 2, 1786	City Hall, New York, New York
President:John Hancock (from November 23, 1785, until June 5, 1786)            Nathaniel Gorham (from June 6, 1786)

Seventh Congress
November 6, 1786 –   November 4, 1787	City Hall, New York, New York
President:Arthur St. Clair (from February 2, 1787)

Eighth Congress
November 5, 1787 –   October 31, 1788	City Hall, New York, New York (until October 6, 1788)
	Walter Livingston House, New York, New York (from October 8, 1788)
President:Cyrus Griffin (from January 22, 1788)

Ninth Congress
November 3, 1788[c] –   March 3, 1789[d]	Walter Livingston House, New York, New York
President:Cyrus Griffin (de jure, until November 15, 1788)            vacant (from November 15, 1788)[e]

• Committee of the States
• Founding Fathers of the United States
• History of the United States (1776–1789)
• List of delegates to the Continental Congress

• Burnett, Edmund C. (1975).The Continental Congress. Greenwood Publishing.ISBN 0-8371-8386-3.
• Henderson, H. James (1987).Party Politics in the Continental Congress. Boston: Rowman & Littlefield.ISBN 0-8191-6525-5.
• Jensen, Merrill (1950).New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation, 1781–1789. New York: Knopf.
• McLaughlin, Andrew C. (1935).A Constitutional History of the United States. Appleton-Century-Crofts.ISBN 978-1-931313-31-5.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Montross, Lynn (1970).The Reluctant Rebels; the Story of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789. New York: Barnes & Noble.ISBN 0-389-03973-X.
• Morris, Richard B. (1987).The Forging of the Union, 1781–1789. New York: Harper & Row.ISBN 0-06-091424-6.
• Morris, Richard B. (1956). "The Confederation Period and the American Historian".William and Mary Quarterly.13 (2):139–156.doi:10.2307/1920529.JSTOR 1920529.
• Rakove, Jack N. (1979).The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress. New York: Knopf.ISBN 0-394-42370-4.

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