To President Woodrow Wilson for his three addresses "America First," "The Meaning of the Flag," and "Neutrality Proclamation." To Secretary Franklin K. Lane for his speech on "The Makers of the Flag." To William Jennings Bryan and his publishers, Funk and Wagnalls Company, New York and London, for extracts from his address on "The Patriotism of Peace." To Archbishop Ireland for extracts from his address on "The Duty and Value of Patriotism." To George L. Schuman and Company, publishers of _Modern Eloquence_, Chicago, for the following extracts and addresses: "Our Country," by William McKinley; "Our Reunited Country," by Clark Howell; "The Blue and the Gray," by Henry Cabot Lodge; "A Reminiscence of Gettysburg," by John B. Gordon; "The New South," by Henry W. Grady; and "The Hollander as an American," by Theodore Roosevelt. To A. C. Butters for the address on "Washington," by John W. Daniel, from _Modern Eloquence_ published by George L. Schuman and Company. To Henry Watterson, Louisville, Kentucky, for the extracts from his lecture on Abraham Lincoln. To E. Benjamin Andrews and to his publishers, Fords, Howard and Hulbert, for the extracts from his lecture on Robert E. Lee. To J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, for the poem by Thomas Buchanan Read, "The Rising in 1776." To Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, for the poem by Henry van Dyke, "America for Me," and also for the extract from the poem "Wanted," by J. G. Holland. To The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, for the poem by James Whitcomb Riley, "The Name of Old Glory." To Henry Holcomb Bennett for his poem entitled, "The Flag Goes By." To Christopher Sower Company, Philadelphia, for the poem by Edward Brooks, entitled "Be a Woman." The selections from the poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Bayard Taylor are used by permission of and special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers of the works of those authors. The thanks of the author are also extended to Nelson Warner, Katherine M. Cook, Mrs. L. R. Caldwell, Belvia Cuzzort, W. R. Hood, and Dr. Stephen B. Weeks of the Bureau of Education, for valuable assistance in the compilation of this work. THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS A DRAMATIZATION [Illustration: SIGNING THE DECLARATION] INTRODUCTION This dramatization of the Continental Congress portrays the spirit of the times during the period of the American Revolution. It deals principally with the debates for and against the Declaration of Independence; it is a summary of the grievances, struggles, sacrifices, and victories of the colonies from the enactment of the obnoxious Stamp Act by the British Parliament to the resignation of George Washington as commander-in-chief of the American army.