June 14, 1776 is when Congress adopted “the American continental army” after reaching a consensus position in The Committee of the Whole. This procedure and the desire for secrecy account for the sparseness of the official journal entries for the day. The record indicates only that Congress undertook to raise ten companies of riflemen, approved an enlistment form for them, and appointed a committee (including Washington and Schuyler) to draft rules and regulations for the government of the army. The delegates’ correspondence, diaries, and subsequent actions make it clear that they really did much more. They also accepted responsibility for the existing New England troops and forces requested for the defense of the various points in New York. The former were believed to total 10,000 men; the latter, both New Yorkers and Connecticut men, another 5,000.
At least some members of Congress assumed from the beginning that this force would be expanded. That expansion, in the form of increased troop ceilings at Boston, came very rapidly as better information arrived regarding the actual numbers of New England troops. By the third week in June delegates were referring to 15,000 at Boston. When on 19 June Congress requested the governments of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire to forward to Boston “such of the forces as are already embodied, towards their quotas of the troops agreed to be raised by the New England Colonies,” it gave a clear indication of its intent to adopt the regional army. Discussions the next day indicated that Congress was prepared to support a force at Boston twice the size of the British garrison, and that it was unwilling to order any existing units to be disbanded. By the first week in July delegates were referring to a total at Boston that was edging toward 20.000. Maximum strengths for the forces both in Massachusetts and New York were finally established on 21 and 22 July, when solid information was on hand. These were set, respectively, at 22,000 and 5,000 men, a total nearly double that envisioned on 14 June.
The “expert riflemen” authorized on 14 June were the first units raised directly as Continentals. Congress intended to have the ten companies serve as a light infantry force for the Boston siege. At the same time it symbolically extended military participation beyond New England by allocating 6 of the companies to Pennsylvania, 2 to Maryland, and 2 to Virginia. Each company would have a captain, 3 lieutenants, 4 sergeants, 4 corporals, a drummer (or horn player), and 68 privates. The enlistment period was set at one year, the norm for the earlier Provincials, a period that would expire on 1 July 1776.

In the United States, Flag Day is celebrated on June 14 to commemorate the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened that day by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777.
On May 30th, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day; it was not until August 3rd, 1949, that President Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14th of each year as National Flag Day, although it is not an official federal holiday.
The Fourth of July was traditionally celebrated as America’s birthday, but the idea of an annual day specifically celebrating the Flag is believed to have first originated in 1885. BJ Cigrand, a schoolteacher, arranged for the pupils in the Fredonia, Wisconsin Public School, District 6, to observe June 14 (the 108th anniversary of the official adoption of The Stars and Stripes) as ‘Flag Birthday’. In numerous magazines and newspaper articles and public addresses over the following years, Cigrand continued to enthusiastically advocate the observance of June 14 as ‘Flag Birthday’, or ‘Flag Day’.

With the adoption of Virginia’s Ordinance of Secession on May 23, the Second Wheeling Convention began on June 11 as decided at the First Convention. (The First Wheeling Convention was held on May 13 through May 15. Twenty-seven western Virginia counties were represented. Of the 429 delegates who attended, over one-third were from the area around Wheeling. )
The meeting was held in Washington Hall and later the Custom House. The first measures adopted at the Convention ruled that 88 delegates representing 32 counties were entitled to seats in the convention, though other delegates would be accepted later. Arthur I. Boreman was selected to serve as president, and he declared, “We are determined to live under a State Government in the United States of America and under the Constitution of the United States.”
On June 13, John Carlile introduced to the convention “A Declaration of the People of Virginia,” a document calling for the reorganization of the state government on the grounds that Virginia’s secession had in effect vacated all offices of the existing government. Carlile presented an ordinance for this purpose the next day, beginning the debate. Virtually all the delegates at the Convention recognized the differences between eastern and western Virginia as irreconcilable and supported some sort of separation; the disagreement was over how this separation should occur. Dennis Dorsey of Monongalia County called for permanent and decisive separation from eastern Virginia. Carlile, however, though he had called for a similar plan during the First Convention, persuaded the delegates that constitutional restrictions made it necessary for the formation of a loyal government of Virginia, whose legislature could then give permission for the creation of a new state. On June 19, delegates approved this plan unanimously.
The next day, June 20, officials were selected to fill the offices of the Virginia state government (usually called the Restored government of Virginia to avoid confusion with the government meeting in Richmond). Francis Pierpont of Marion County was elected governor. On June 25, the Convention adjourned until Aug. 6.

Written by George Mason (1725-1792), who Thomas Jefferson regarded as the “the wisest man of his generation,” the Virginia Declaration of Rights was adopted by the Virginia Constitutional Convention on June 12, 1776. Widely copied by the other colonies (by the end of 1776 five colonies had adopted declarations of rights; by 1783 every state had some form of a bill of rights), it became the basis of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution after Mason fought against ratification of the Constitution because it contained no bill of rights. The Declaration of Rights was also used by Thomas Jefferson for the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. The Marquis de Condorcet called the Virginia Declaration of Rights “the first Bill of Rights to merit the name.”

Five men were named to a committee on June 11, 1776 to draft a document explaining the grievances against Great Britain. This document would become the Declaration of Independence. The committee members were Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. However, Jefferson took on the task of actually writing the document. Franklin and the committee helped with revisions and then the entire Continental Congress went through and debated the document to refine it to the final copy that was officially adopted on July 4, 1776.
For an entertaining dramatization of this historic event, check out the musical, 1776. Here’s a clip: But Mr. Adams

On June 8, 1789, James Madison introduced his proposed amendments to the Constitution, which would eventually become known as the Bill of Rights. On September 25, 1789, the First Federal Congress of the United States proposed to the state legislatures twelve amendments to the Constitution.
The first two, concerning the number of constituents for each Representative and the compensation of Congressmen, were not ratified. The original second amendment proposed by the First Federal Congress dealt with the compensation of members of Congress. Although rejected at the time, it was eventually ratified on May 7, 1992, as the 27th amendment.
Articles three through twelve, known as the Bill of Rights, became the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution and contained guarantees of essential rights and liberties omitted in the crafting of the original document.