Document · October 30, 1776
Congressional resolutions on enlistment and land bounties
congressional military resolutions · Continental Congress
Read in context
This was not a single enlistment form but a continuing policy problem. In October 1776 Congress rejected Maryland’s attempt to substitute ten dollars for a promised one-hundred-acre bounty, warned that soldiers might withhold enlistment until equal terms were offered, and insisted that continental promises bound the states.
Why it matters
The army was a negotiated institution. Soldiers weighed terms, families and local communities absorbed their absence, officers used discipline and inducement, states supplied quotas, and Congress promised resources it did not fully control. “During the war” was a political achievement, not merely a patriotic mood.
Selected passage
The faith, which this house, by virtue of the power with which they were vested, has plighted, must be obligatory upon their constituents.
Provenance and locator
The resolution is in the Journals of the Continental Congress, volume 6, October 30, 1776, printed pages 912–913. Fischer and Royster supply contrasting analytical contexts for recruiting, coercion, military community, and later memory; they do not substitute for the congressional record.