When 56 delegates from 12 colonies met at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia in September 1774, few of them wanted independence. This episode explores the First Continental Congress as a tense negotiation between conservatives seeking reconciliation with Britain and radicals demanding a firm stand on colonial rights.

We examine why the Intolerable Acts pushed the colonies together, why Georgia stayed home, and how the radicals defeated and then struck Joseph Galloway’s Plan of Union from the record. Then we unpack the Suffolk Resolves, the Continental Association and its local enforcement committees, a planned halt to the importation of enslaved people, and a 97 percent drop in British imports.

• How Samuel Adams used an opening prayer to bridge colonial divides
• Why Galloway’s Plan of Union was a major what-if of the Revolution
• How committees of observation enforced the boycott in towns across the colonies
• Why the Continental Association included a ban on importing enslaved people
• How the Congress laid the groundwork for the Second Continental Congress