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.
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