Elias Boudinot elected President of Congress

Background. The Congress of the Confederation, formally the United States in Congress Assembled, was the governing body of the United States from March 1, 1781, until March 3, 1789. Created by the Articles of Confederation upon ratification in 1781, it formally replaced the Second Continental Congress, though historians note there was no new organization and the body continued to call itself the Continental Congress.

The Presidency of Congress and the Candidate. The Continental Congress was presided over by a president, officially styled President of the United States in Congress Assembled, elected by fellow delegates as a neutral discussion moderator. Elias Boudinot, a New Jersey delegate who had returned to Congress in 1781 for a term through 1783, had previously served during the Revolutionary War as an intelligence officer and prisoner-of-war commissary under General Washington.

Significance of the Term. Boudinot's presidency spanned the final years of the war. During his term he signed the Preliminary Articles of Peace on April 15, 1783, and when Congress was forced to leave Philadelphia in 1783, he moved its meetings to Nassau Hall at the College of New Jersey in Princeton.