Leadership and Coordination in Legislatures: The "President" of the First American Congress: 1774-1789

We analyze the viability of the office of President of Congress as a source of leadership in the Continental and Confederation Congresses.1 Our primary interest is in institutionally grounded, as opposed to and separate from charismatic or personal, bases for leadership. We show that virtually every institutional support for leadership power recognized to be at work in the modern Congress was absent in the Continental Congresses. We trace the origins of these limitations on leadership power and potential to a series of decisions taken during 1774 and 1775 and substantially maintained and even elaborated over the fifteen-year history of the Congress. The result was that even though the institution was awash in "leaders," men like Virginia's Peyton Randolph, Massachusetts' John Hancock, and New York's John Jay, stable and effective "leadership" from the office of President of Congress proved to be impossible.