The Impact of the First Continental Congress and the Local Committees of Safety

Abstract

Convening in Philadelphia in September and October 1774 as an advisory council for the colonies, the First Continental Congress considered action for recovery of rights forfeited under Parliament’s repressive Coercive Acts. It eventually became the central government for the provinces, however fragmentary its powers. The creation of the Continental Association by the Congress was intended to regularise procedures against dissidents in the colonies by establishing local Committees of Safety in every county, city, and town.’ Committees were to be elected by persons able to vote for assemblymen in each province.² Complaints considered by the committees were to be heard and if an accused person were found guilty the details were to be published in the local newspaper. Pauline Maier has noted that provincial conventions and local committees were allowed to establish additional regulations for executing judicial procedures.³ Persons alleged to be Loyalists or enemies of America were ‘to be complained of unto the Committee of the District or Town in which such person or persons reside’.⁴