President of The Continental Congress - Decline

Decline

Congress, and its presidency, declined in importance with the end of the American Revolutionary War. Increasingly, delegates elected to the Congress declined to serve, the leading men in each state preferred to serve in state government, and the Congress had difficulty establishing a quorum. President Hanson wanted to resign, but his departure would have left Congress without a quorum to select a successor, and so he stayed on. President Thomas Mifflin found it difficult to convince the states to send enough delegates to Congress to ratify the 1783 Treaty of Paris. For six weeks in 1784, President Richard Henry Lee did not come to Congress, but instead instructed secretary Charles Thomson to forward any papers that needed his signature. John Hancock was elected to a second term in 1785, even though he was not then in Congress; he never took his seat, citing poor health, though he may have been uninterested in the position. When Nathaniel Gorham resigned in November 1786, it was months before enough members were present in Congress to elect a new president. The ratification of the new United States Constitution in June 1788 reduced the Confederation Congress to the status of a caretaker government. Cyrus Griffin, the final president of Congress, resigned in November 1788 after only two delegates showed up for the new session of Congress.