Resolutions were passed in every colony in which legislatures were convened, or delegates assembled in convention, manifesting different degrees of resentment, but concurring in the same great principles. All declared that the cause of Boston was the cause of British America; that the late acts respecting that devoted town were tyrannical and unconstitutional; that the opposition to this ministerial system of oppression ought to be universally and perseveringly maintained; that all intercourse with the parent state ought to be suspended, and domestic manufactures encouraged; and that a general congress should be formed for the purpose of uniting and guiding the councils, and directing the efforts, of North America. The committees of correspondence selected Philadelphia for the place, and the beginning of September as the time, for the meeting of this important council. [Sidenote: Congress assembles.] On the fourth of September, the delegates from eleven[234] provinces appeared at the place appointed; and, the next day, they assembled at Carpenter's Hall, when Peyton Randolph, late speaker of the house of Burgesses of Virginia, was unanimously chosen president. The respective credentials of the members were then read and approved; and this august assembly, having determined that each colony should have only one vote; that their deliberations should be conducted with closed doors; and that their proceedings, except such as they might determine to publish, should be kept inviolably secret; entered on the solemn and important duties assigned to them.[235] [Footnote 234: Those of North Carolina arrived on the fourteenth.] [Footnote 235: See note No. VII, at the end of the volume.] Committees were appointed to state the rights claimed by the colonies, which had been infringed by acts of parliament passed since the year 1763; to prepare a petition to the King, and addresses to the people of Great Britain, to the inhabitants of the province of Quebec, and to the twelve colonies represented in congress.