vincial congresses" held in several of the colonies at about the
same time. The thirteen colonies were indeed but a narrow strip on the
edge of a vast and in large part unexplored continent, but the word
"continental" was convenient for distinguishing between the whole
confederacy and its several members.

[Sidenote: The several states were never at any time sovereign
states.]
[Sidenote: The Articles of Confederation]
The Continental Congress began to exercise a certain amount of
directive authority from the time of its first meeting in 1774. Such
authority as it had arose simply from the fact that it represented an
agreement on the part of the several governments to pursue a certain
line of policy. It was a diplomatic and executive, but scarcely yet a
legislative body. Nevertheless it was the visible symbol of a kind of
union between the states. There never was a time when any one of the
original states exercised singly the full powers of sovereignty. Not
one of them was ever a small sovereign state like Denmark or Portugal.
As they acted together under the common direction of the British
government in 1759, the year of Quebec, so they acted together under
the common direction of that revolutionary body, the Continental
Congress, in 1775, the year of Bunker Hill. In that year a
"continental army" was organized in the name of the "United Colonies."
In the following year, when independence was declared, it was done
by the concerted action of all the colonies; and at the same time a
committee was appointed by Congress to draw up a written constitution.
This constitution, known as the "Articles or Confederation," was
submitted to Congress in the autumn of 1777, and was sent to the
several states to be ratified. A unanimous ratification was necessary,
and it was not until March 1781, that unanimity was secured and the
articles adopted.

Meanwhile the Revolutionary War had advanced into its last stages,
having been carried on from the outset under the general direction
of the Continental Congress. When reading about this period of our
history, the student must be careful not to be misled by the name
"congress" into reasoning as if there were any resemblance whatever
between that body and the congress which was created by our Federal
Constitution. The Continental Congress was not the parent of our
Federal Congress; the former died without offspring, and the latter
had a very different origin, as we shall soon see. The form