University of Virginia Library

III

When the Virginia Convention of 1776 met
there was but one subject for consideration—
the preservation of liberty. Without any preliminary
waste of time it at once settled down
to business.

Of other Conventions since that date we have
the debates—the methods and processes by
which the members arrived at their conclusions.

But not so as to this one. In the volume of its
proceedings all we find are the results told in
briefest minutes. And all related to the public
weal.

On the fifth day of their session the convention
directed that 1,300 men, consisting of
minute men and militia, be immediately raised
in the middle counties of Virginia, and formed
into two distinct battalions, to be sent to the
assistance of North Carolina. And on this
same day a "representation from the committee
of the County of Augusta," which embraced all
Western Virginia and Kentucky, was presented
to the convention, "setting forth the present
unhappy situation of the country, and from the
ministerial measures of vengeance now pursuing,
representing the necessity of making the confederacy
of the United Colonies the most perfect,
independent and lasting, and of framing
an equal, free and liberal government that may
bear the test of all future ages."

So we come to the great day of May 15, 1776.

The session was the most momentous which
had yet been held, for the real business of the
day was a Declaration of Independence.

Of what occurred during the debate we know
little. We only know, indeed, that Edmund
Pendleton, the President, drafted a resolution

instructing the Virginia delegates in Congress to
move that body to declare the colonies Free and
Independent States; that Patrick Henry drafted
another resolution to the same purpose, and that
Meriwether Smith drafted a third; that Thomas
Nelson, Jr., offered the resolution, said to have
been that drafted by Pendleton, thus becoming
the sponsor for it; that Patrick Henry seconded
and advocated it, and that while there was some
opposition to it from conservatives like Robert
Carter Nicholas, it was on the final vote of the
convention unanimously adopted.

"They are," says Grigsby, "in every view the
most important ever presented for the consideration
of a public body . . . they constitute
the first Declaration of Independence."

It bespeaks the greatness of the members of
that convention that even when its far-reaching
effect was recognized, no claim was set up by
the mover of that resolution to any special
honor. And not one historian has set forth the
authorship as it was. The resolution passed
into history—into Virginia's histories, for these
were the only histories that deigned even to
notice them, as Pendleton's resolution. But the
real author of a resolution is not the man who
writes it, but the man who offers it and carries
it through. He it is who must stand or fall by it.

Here is the minute, from the Journal: "When
Mr. President resumed the Chair, Mr. Cary
reported that the Committee had under their
consideration the state of the Colony and had
come to the following Resolutions thereupon;
which he read in his place, and afterwards delivered
in at the Clerk's table where the same
were again twice read and unanimously agreed
to; 112 members being present:

"Forasmuch as all the endeavors of the
United Colonies, by the most decent representations
and petitions to the King and Parliament
of Great Britain, to restore peace and security
to America under the British Government, and
a reunion with that people upon just and liberal
terms, instead of a redress of grievances, have
produced from an imperious and vindictive administration
increased insult, oppression and a
vigorous attempt to effect our total destruction.
By a late act all these colonies are declared to
be in rebellion, and out of the protection of the
British Crown, our properties subjected to
confiscation, our people, when captured, compelled
to join in the murder and plunder of
their relations and countrymen, and all former
rapine and oppression of Americans declared
legal and just. Fleets and armies are raised,
and the aid of foreign troops engaged to assist

these destructive purposes. The King's representative
in this Colony hath not only withheld
all the powers of government from operating
for our safety, but, having retired on board an
armed ship, is carrying on a piratical and savage
war against us, tempting our slaves by
every artifice to resort to him and training and
employing them against their masters. In this
state of extreme danger, we have no alternative
left but an abject submission to the will of these
overbearing tyrants, or a total separation from
the Crown and Government of Great Britain,
uniting and exerting the strength of all America
for defence, and forming alliances with foreign
powers for commerce and aid in War: Wherefore,
appealing to the Searcher of Hearts for
the sincerity of former declarations, expressing
our desire to preserve the connexion with that
Nation, and that we are driven from that inclination
by their wicked councils, and the
eternal laws of self-preservation;

"Resolved unanimously, that the Delegates
appointed to represent this Colony in General
Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable
body to declare the United Colonies
free and independent States, absolved from all
allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown
or Parliament of Great Britain; and that they

give the assent of this Colony to such declaration,
and to whatever measures may be thought
proper and necessary by the Congress for forming
foreign alliances, and a confederation of the
Colonies, at such time and in the manner, as
to them shall seem best: Provided, that the
power of forming government for, and the regulation
of the internal concerns of each Colony
be left to the respective Colonial legislatures.

"Resolved unanimously, That a Committee
be appointed to prepare a Declaration of
Rights, and such a plan of government as will
be most likely to maintain peace and order in
this Colony, and secure substantial and equal
liberty to the people."

Thus, the act of instruction became the act
of the whole convention. And, becoming such,
it was the first Declaration of Independence by
a State on this continent. The hour had
struck; a new star had risen in the firmament
of Nations.

The account contained in the Virginia Gazette
of May 17, shows the enthusiasm with which the
passage of the resolution was hailed by the people
of the old town of Williamsburg. The British
flag was immediately struck on the capitol of
the colony where it had flown continuously since
April, 1607, and "the Union flag of the American

States" was run up on the capitol of Virginia,
thus making Virginia the first State to fly the
Union flag. The soldiery "were paraded in
Waller's Grove before Brigadier-General Lewis,
attended by the gentlemen of the Committee of
Safety, the members of the General Convention,
the inhabitants of this City, etc. The
resolutions being read aloud to the army, the
following toasts were given, each of them
accompanied by a discharge of the artillery
and small arms, and the acclamation of all
present:

"1. The American Independent States.

"2. The Grand Congress of the United
States, and their respective legislatures.

"3. General Washington, and victory to the
American arms.

"The evening," says the Virginia Gazette,
"concluded with illuminations and other demonstrations
of joy, every one seeming pleased that
the domination of Great Britain was now at an
end, so wickedly and tyrannically exercised for
these twelve or thirteen years past, notwithstanding
our repeated prayers and remonstrances
for redress."

The mover of the resolution for Independence,
Thomas Nelson, Jr., was a delegate in Congress,
and, having carried it through the convention,

he set out immediately for Philadelphia
with the resolution in his pocket. There all
eyes were turned on Virginia, which was taking
the lead now in the Revolution.

On the 7th of June her delegate, Richard
Henry Lee, in obedience to the resolution,
offered in Congress a resolution in almost the
words of his instruction.

The story is known how it was debated
through the following three or four weeks;
how Lee returned to Virginia partly because of
his wife's illness, but partly because of the
urging of George Mason and others who wished
him to help frame the Virginia constitution; how
Jefferson was appointed on the committee to
draft the Declaration of Independence, and how
by the committee the drafting was assigned to
him. It is known also how Benjamin Harrison,
as chairman of the Committee of the
Whole, received and transmitted the Declaration
to the Congress, whose president was
John Hancock, now that Peyton Randolph was
no more.

To show the importance of this action of the
Virginia convention at this time it is only necessary
to recall that on the 15th of May, the very
day when the convention adopted the resolution
declaring for Independence, and ordered a new

plan of government to be drafted, a resolution
entered into by Congress for suppressing the exercise
of all powers derived from the Crown,
had shown, as Mr. Jefferson states in his memoir,
by the ferment into which it had thrown the middle
colonies (Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania,
the Jerseys and New York) that the people
of those colonies had not yet accommodated their
minds to a separation from the mother country.
That some of them had expressly forbidden
their delegates to consent to such a
declaration, and others had given no instructions
and consequently no powers to give such
consent.

This argument was employed by Wilson,
Robert R. Livingston, Rutledge, Dickinson and
others against the Virginia resolution which
Richard Henry Lee moved in Congress on June
7th. And even as late as the first of July, when
in Committee of the Whole House, the consideration
of the original motion made by the
delegates of Virginia after being debated through
the day was carried in the affirmative by the
votes of New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland,
Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, South
Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it, the
two members from Delaware who were present

were divided, and the delegates from New York,
though they declared themselves for it, were
acting under instructions given them a twelvemonth
before, and asked leave to withdraw
from the question.

The determination of the question was then,
on the request of Mr. Edward Rutledge of South
Carolina, put off to the next day, as he stated
his belief that his colleagues, though they disapproved
of the resolution, would join in it for
the sake of unanimity. And on the second of
July, the question whether the House would
agree to the Virginia resolution was carried,
South Carolina concurring in the vote, as did
Pennsylvania and Delaware. On the same days
the actual declaration, its matter and form, as
Mr. Jefferson states, was taken up, but it was
on the Fourth of July that it was decided, and
was signed by every member present except Mr.
Dickinson, though the delegates from New
York did not sign until the fifteenth of July,
authority not having been given them by their
convention until the ninth, five days after the
general signature. The convention of Pennsylvania,
learning that it had been signed only by
a majority of their delegates, named a new delegation
on the 20th, leaving out Mr. Dickinson,
and the entire delegation then signed.