Second Continental Congress

Portrait by Artist to Come


QUICK FACTS

           

ITINERANT CONGRESS

The Second Continental Congress, and then Confederation Congress (following ratification of the Articles of Confederation on 1-Mar-1781), convened at these locations:

Location Begin Date End Date
Philadelphia, PA 10-May-1775 12-Dec-1776
Baltimore, MD 20-Dec-1776 27-Feb-1777
Philadelphia, PA 4-Mar-1777 18-Sept-1777
Lancaster, PA 27-Sep-1777 27-Sep-1777
York, PA 30-Sep-1777 27-Jun-1778
Philadelphia, PA 2-Jul-1778 21-Jun-1783
Princeton, NJ 30-Jun-1783 4-Nov-1783
Annapolis, MD 26-Nov-1783 19-Aug-1784
Trenton, NJ 1-Nov-1784 24-Dec-1784
New York, NY 11-Jan 1785 2-Mar-1789

LINKS
CONTENTS

     

Portrait to come. See: Wikipedia.

I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living; that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. This, with its echo of the Declaration (self-evident) was Jefferson at his most terse. Except for the phrase in usufruct — a legalism meaning the right to use property for a certain time — Jefferson’s words could be chiseled in stone, or shouted on the hustings.

Richard Brookhiser
James Madison (2011)