Talk:President of the Continental Congress

First President?

The "History Channel" and Isaac Asimov in his history book gives John Hanson as the First President of the United States although qualified as "in Congress Assembled".

There has also apparently been a campaign to remove George Washington from the greenback as first president and replace this with a portrait of John Hanson.

At the time of of the Congressional Presidents and the American War of Independence, It was General George Washington so who was funding his army? This has to have been a proper Congress headed by a President.

However these details are interpreted, George Washington is certainly the first Constitutional President but not the first PresidentAT Kunene (talk) 10:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

This is covered in the article. The claim that Hanson was the "first President of the United States" is a historical old wives' tale that began with Hanson's grandson, and has been periodically revived by amateur historians over the years. The Internet has given it new life: see the Snopes article. Once upon a time, Wikipedia articles used some of the amateur history websites as sources, but we've mostly managed to upgrade to reliable sources over the years. —Kevin Myers 06:29, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

AT Kunene, you are repeating the previous mistake of assuming that 'President of Congress' equals 'President of the United States'. The Constitution created the office of 'President of the United States' in 1789. There was no equivalent office before the Constitution. WCCasey (talk) 06:07, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Consensus needed

This article assumes that 'Continental Congress' is an appropriate umbrella term for the First and Second Continental Congresses plus the Congress of the Confederation. To me, that seems wrong. Opinions, editors? Also, the list of Presidents lacks entries before March 1781, which is the date of ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The first Continental Congress convened in 1774. Are there missing names? WCCasey (talk) 22:55, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Good question. "Continental Congress" is the umbrella term that modern reliable sources use to describe the First and Second Continental Congresses plus the Congress of the Confederation. At one time, this was apparently not the case, as historian Edward Burnett explained in The Continental Congress in 1941: "Many historians have drawn a distinction between the Continental Congress and the Congress of the Confederation, applying the first name to the period before the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, the later to the subsequent period." (p. viii) Burnett decided to ignore this distinction, since the Congress was essentially unchanged after the ratification of the Articles, and use the term "Continental Congress" as a umbrella term. Scholars since that time have followed his lead. Rakove's scholarly history, and Montross's popular history, for example, use the term "Continental Congress" as an umbrella term. I am not aware of any modern scholarly history that makes the old distinction. —Kevin Myers 01:38, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, even more to the point for this article, Jennings Sanders's 1930 book, The Presidency of the Continental Congress, 1774–89, uses the umbrella term, as you can see by the title. He covers all 14 individuals who held the office. Unlike some later amateur historians who tried to promote John Hanson (or others) as the "first President of the United States", Sanders made no distinction between Presidents who held office under the Articles of Confederation, and those who didn't. The ratification of the Articles didn't create a new office; it gave formal sanction to the existing one. —Kevin Myers 03:29, 2 May 2011 (UTC)