<P> In addition to their slowness, the lack of coercive power in the Continental Congress was harshly criticized by James Madison when arguing for the need of a Federal Constitution . His comment in Vices of the Political System of April 1787 set the conventional wisdom on the historical legacy of the institution for centuries to come: </P> <P> A sanction is essential to the idea of law, as coercion is to that of Government . The federal system being destitute of both, wants the great vital principles of a Political Cons (ti) tution . Under the form of such a Constitution, it is in fact nothing more than a treaty of amity of commerce and of alliance, between so many independent and Sovereign States . From what cause could so fatal an omission have happened in the Articles of Confederation? From a mistaken confidence that the justice, the good faith, the honor, the sound policy, of the several legislative assemblies would render superfluous any appeal to the ordinary motives by which the laws secure the obedience of individuals: a confidence which does honor to the enthusiastic virtue of the compilers, as much as the inexperience of the crisis apologizes for their errors . </P> <P> Many commentators take for granted that the leaderless, weak, slow, and small - committee driven, Continental Congress was a failure, largely because after the end of the war the Articles of Confederation no longer suited the needs of a peacetime nation, and the Congress itself, following Madison's recommendations, called for its revision and replacement . Some also suggest that the Congress was inhibited by the formation of contentious partisan alignments based on regional differences . Others claim that Congress was less ideological than event driven . Others note that the Congress was successful in that the American people "came to accept Congress as their legitimate institution of Government", but the "rather poor governmental record" of the Congress forced the constitutional convention of 1787 . </P> <P> Political scientists Calvin Jillson and Rick Wilson in the 1980s accepted the conventional interpretation on the weakness of the Congress due to the lack of coercive power . They explored the role of leadership, or rather the lack of it, in the Continental Congress . Going beyond even Madison's harsh critique, they used the "analytical stance of what has come to be called the new institutionalism" to demonstrate that "the norms, rules, and institutional structures of the Continental Congress" were equally to blame "for the institution's eventual failure", and that the "institutional structure worked against, rather than with, the delegates in tackling the crucial issues of the day ." </P>

What was the first and second continental congress and what came out of them