ven colonies were
represented in this congress. Observe the word "congress." If it
had been a legislative body it would more likely have been called
a "parliament." But of course it was nothing of the sort. It was a
diplomatic body, composed of delegates representing state governments,
like European congresses,--like the Congress of Berlin, for example,
which tried to adjust the Eastern Question in 1878. Eleven years after
the Albany Congress, upon the news that parliament had passed the
Stamp Act, a congress of nine colonies assembled at New York in
October, 1765, to take action thereon.

[Footnote 1: Franklin's plan was afterward submitted to the several
legislatures of the colonies, and was everywhere rejected because the
need for union was nowhere strongly felt by the people.]

[Sidenote: Committees of Correspondence (1772-75).]
Nine years elapsed without another congress. Meanwhile the political
excitement, with occasional lulls, went on increasing, and some sort
of cooperation between the colonial governments became habitual. In
1768, after parliament had passed the Townshend revenue acts, there
was no congress, but Massachusetts sent a circular letter to the other
colonies, inviting them to cooperate in measures of resistance, and
the other colonies responded favourably. In 1772, as we have seen,
committees of correspondence between the towns of Massachusetts acted
as a sort of provisional government for the commonwealth. In 1773
Dabney Carr, of Virginia, enlarged upon this idea, and committees of
correspondence were forthwith instituted between the several colonies.
Thus the habit of acting in concert began to be formed. In 1774,
after parliament had passed an act overthrowing the government of
Massachusetts, along with other offensive measures, a congress
assembled in September at Philadelphia, the city most centrally
situated as well as the largest. If the remonstrances adopted at this
congress had been heeded by the British government, and peace had
followed, this congress would probably have been as temporary an
affair as its predecessors; people would probably have waited until
overtaken by some other emergency. But inasmuch as war followed,
the congress assembled again in May, 1775, and thereafter became
practically a permanent institution until it died of old age with the
year 1788.

[Sidenote: Continental Congress (1774-1789).]
This congress was called "continental" to distinguish it from the
"pro