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At a Bold Meeting 250 Years Ago, the Continental Congress Set America in Motion
Smithsonian Magazine ^ | September/October 2024 | Alexis Coe

Posted on 08/31/2024 12:47:28 AM PDT by thecodont

“I feel myself unequal to this business” confessed John Adams, of the “grand scene open before me—a Congress.” In the fall of 1774, Adams and 55 other delegates journeyed all manner of distances by foot, horseback and carriage to Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress. Before now, few of “the wisest men upon the continent,” as Adams described the delegates in his diary, had ever left their colonies or collaborated with one another, but there was power in numbers—or, at least, they had seen there was weakness without them.

In March 1774, British Parliament punished the Massachusetts colony for the Boston Tea Party with the Coercive Acts, which closed the Port of Boston, reduced Massachusetts’ powers of self-government, provided for quartering troops in the Colonies and permitted royal officers accused of crimes to be tried in England. In so doing, these measures stirred sympathy for Massachusetts, and the other colonies sent aid, including desperately needed food, and planned, for the first time, to consider a coordinated response, at great risk to all...

[...]

The First Continental Congress is sometimes forgotten, given the enormous consequence of the Second. But this fall, its 250th anniversary offers Americans important lessons about how the U.S. took its first steps into existence—and how different those steps were from what we might imagine. A frisson of royalism has remained with us, always, from the widespread obsession with the fairytale of John F. Kennedy’s Camelot, to just about any marriage, coronation, funeral or scandal out of Buckingham Palace. In this, at least, we are the true heirs to our colonial forebears. The majority of British subjects in North America did not pine for liberty, or exhibit a general disdain for royal pomp, or loathe the monarchy, until the very last minute—if at all.

(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: americanrevolution; continentalcongress; georgeiii; godsgravesglyphs; theframers; therevolution
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To: Texas Fossil
Those oral history events still survive, not hear say.

You don't get any more "hearsay" than oral histories passed down through multiple generations. That's about as unreliable as it gets.

If you want reliable, read things that were written by the very people who lived through those events. That way, you are getting it in the words chosen by the people who actually were there, written in their own hand so you know it hasn't been changed or distorted by subsequent listeners.

That still isn't perfect, because individuals have their own perspective and viewpoints that may not reflect fairly what actually happened. It's like pulling a random 70 year old off the street 40 years from now and asking them about Trump. Exactly who that person is would make a huge difference in terms of what you are likely to hear.

21 posted on 08/31/2024 10:41:39 AM PDT by Bruce Campbells Chin ( )
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To: Texas Fossil
The Author is a Leftie working for a Leftist think tank, but pretending they are bi partisan.

Yep. “Alexis Coe is the New York Times bestselling author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington.”

ANYTHING from the NYT is leftist agenda-driven.

22 posted on 08/31/2024 10:50:19 AM PDT by The Truth Will Make You Free ( )
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To: The Truth Will Make You Free

Have you read her book?

The left can make anything almost pure seem evil.

George Washington was more than just another founding father.

Look at the publications she worked for. That is how I concluded she was leftist.


23 posted on 08/31/2024 5:41:12 PM PDT by Texas Fossil (Texas is not about where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind and Attitude.)
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To: meyer

“the world plunges into 1000 years of darkness”

Yes. Or into a huge conflict.

I understand. The Presidency is not a beauty pageant. It requires wisdom and integrity.

The left cannot build anything, they only know how to destroy things.


24 posted on 08/31/2024 5:45:47 PM PDT by Texas Fossil (Texas is not about where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind and Attitude.)
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To: Texas Fossil; linMcHlp

Now that civics classes and history classes are rarely taught properly in high school and college, the lefty revisionists try to omit the role of the Sons of Liberty and Samuel Adams , as well as Francis Marion and his guerilla warfare against the terror perpetrated by Tarleton and Cornwallis in the Carolinas.

Both men were no Saints, but they yearned for freedom.And they both risked their lives, liberty and estates to preserve it.They were both followed by hundreds of patriots of like mind.

Then we have the pamphleteers who also underwent risk from publicizing revolutionary articles distributed freely.Very few of the are studied today in school. Of them all, “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine should be read by everyone today.

https://americainclass.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Common-Sense-Full-Text.pdf


25 posted on 08/31/2024 6:21:17 PM PDT by Candor7 (Ask not for whom the Trump Trolls,He trolls for thee!),<img src="" width=500</img><a href="">tag</a>)
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin

Academics are the worst to distort history. Those who survived great calamities, know far better.

You don’t know anything about me. My family has owned/operated farms in this county since 1889, prior to that in Texas from the Republic of Texas. WWII vets taught me to hunt, fish, work and told me about people I never knew.

Prior to Texas some of my ancestors came from SC to GA and to NE AL. They experienced events that were seldom talked about in public for a reason.

When I graduated from College in 1970, I was burned out of reading stuff I did not have an interest in. In 1976 I found a copy of The Bodyguard of Lies, by Anthony Cave Brown. It was published right after the freedom of information act unsealed a lot of WWII events and methods. I spent 9 years reading everything I could find that related.

I got my first Amateur Radio License (advanced) in 1976, my Extra in 1985, my GROL Commercial in 2000. This fit right in place for understanding some things we did with RF and electronics. I was living in NM at the time, among lots of great Electronic Tech, Engineers, Physicists. Had family in the weapon’s business.

So, I don’t make up history. I try to understand it. It still continues today. I am 76.


26 posted on 09/01/2024 5:31:42 AM PDT by Texas Fossil (Texas is not about where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind and Attitude.)
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To: Texas Fossil

I have not read her book. But I did do a non-FR thing. I read the entire article and found that at the very end.


27 posted on 09/01/2024 2:51:33 PM PDT by The Truth Will Make You Free ( )
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