The Fairfax Resolves were a set of
resolutions adopted by a committee in
Fairfax County
Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria, Virginia, Alexandria and ...
in the
colony of Virginia
The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colonial empire, English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertG ...
on July 18, 1774, in the early stages of the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
. Written at the behest of
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
and others, they were authored primarily by
George Mason
George Mason (October 7, 1792) was an American planter, politician, Founding Father, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of the three delegates present who refused to sign the Constitution. His writings, including s ...
. The resolutions rejected the
British Parliament's claim of supreme authority over the
American colonies. More than thirty counties in Virginia passed similar resolutions in 1774, "but the Fairfax Resolves were the most detailed, the most influential, and the most radical."
Background and drafting
After Parliament passed the
Coercive Acts
The Intolerable Acts were a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest of the Tea Act, a tax measure ...
, also known as the
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest of the Tea Act, a tax measur ...
, to punish
for the
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell t ...
, the Virginia
House of Burgesses
The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia. With the creation of the House of Burgesses in 1642, the General Assembly, which had been established ...
proclaimed that June 1, 1774, would be a day of "fasting, humiliation, and prayer" as a show of solidarity with Boston. In response,
Lord Dunmore
Earl of Dunmore is a title in the Peerage of Scotland.
History
The title was created in 1686 for Lord Charles Murray, second son of John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl. He was made Lord Murray of Blair, Moulin and Tillimet (or Tullimet) and V ...
, the royal governor of Virginia, dissolved the House of Burgesses. The burgesses reconvened at the
Raleigh Tavern
The Raleigh Tavern was a tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia, and was one of the largest taverns in colonial Virginia. It gained some fame in the pre-American Revolutionary War Colony of Virginia as a gathering place for legislators after several R ...
on May 27 and called for Virginia's counties to elect delegates to a
special convention to meet in August.
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
and Charles Broadwater were elected as Fairfax County's representatives to the convention.
On July 5, 1774, Washington and others from Fairfax County met in
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Downto ...
, to appoint a committee to draft a statement that would, as Washington described it, "define our Constitutional Rights." The statement would also formally serve as instructions to Fairfax County's delegates to the Virginia Convention. The committee wrote a draft that was, in all likelihood, primarily the work of George Mason. Mason and Washington met at Washington's
Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States George Washington and his wife, Martha. The estate is on ...
home on July 17, and perhaps revised the resolutions. The following day in Alexandria, the Fairfax Resolves were endorsed in a meeting of
freeholders chaired by Washington.
Text summary and effect
In the Resolves, the freeholders expressed a desire to remain subjects of the British Empire, but they insisted that "we will use every means which Heaven hath given us to prevent our becoming its slaves."
The short document provided the following:
* a concise summary of American constitutional concerns on such issues as taxation, representation, judicial power, military matters and the colonial economy
* a proposal for the creation of a nonimportation effort to be levied against British goods
* a call for a general congress of the colonies to convene for the purpose of preserving the Americans' rights as Englishmen
* a condemnation of the practice of importing slaves as a "wicked, cruel, and unnatural trade"; its termination was urged
The Resolves directed Washington and Broadwater to present the resolutions to the Virginia Convention.
The Fairfax Resolves, like the many other similar resolutions passed in county meetings throughout the colonies, summarized the feelings of many colonists in mid-1774 — a conviction that their constitutional rights were being violated by British policies. The Resolves also marked a step forward in inter-colonial cooperation as more Americans began to realize that a threat against one colony was a threat against all. Finally, political rivalries in Virginia were muted to some degree, allowing such figures as Washington and Mason to work productively with the more radical
Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736June 6, 1799) was an American attorney, planter, politician and orator known for declaring to the Second Virginia Convention (1775): " Give me liberty, or give me death!" A Founding Father, he served as the first an ...
,
Richard Henry Lee
Richard Henry Lee (January 20, 1732June 19, 1794) was an American statesman and Founding Father from Virginia, best known for the June 1776 Lee Resolution, the motion in the Second Continental Congress calling for the colonies' independence from ...
and others.
The non-importation protest called for in the Resolves influenced, with some modifications, the
Virginia Association The Virginia Association was a series of non-importation agreements adopted by Virginians in 1769 as a way of speeding economic recovery and opposing the Townshend Acts. Drafted by George Mason and passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses in May 1 ...
, which in turn provided the pattern for the
Continental Association
The Continental Association, also known as the Articles of Association or simply the Association, was an agreement among the American colonies adopted by the First Continental Congress on October 20, 1774. It called for a trade boycott against ...
.
[Ammerman, ''Common Cause'', 86.]
Signatories
* Robert Adam
* Charles Alexander
* Philip Alexander
* Charles Broadwater
* William Brown
*
John Carlyle
* Martin Cockburne
* Townsend Dade, Jr.
* John Dalton
* George Gilpton
* Henry Gunnell
*
Robert Hanson Harrison
* William Hartshorne
* James Kirk
*
Thomas Lewis
*
George Mason
George Mason (October 7, 1792) was an American planter, politician, Founding Father, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of the three delegates present who refused to sign the Constitution. His writings, including s ...
* Lee Massey
* Edward Payne
* William Payne
* Thomas Pollard
* William Ramsay
* William Rumney
* Thomas Triplett
*
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
, Esq.
* John West
References
Further reading
* Ammerman, David. ''In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774.'' New York: Norton, 1974.
* Broadwater, Jeff. ''George Mason: Forgotten Founder''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
*
External links
Text of the Fairfax Resolves presented online by the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
Press Books Division
Manuscript images of the Fairfax Resolves Library of Congress
{{Virginia during the American Revolutionary War
1774 in the Thirteen Colonies
Documents of the American Revolution
Fairfax County, Virginia
George Mason
George Washington
Virginia in the American Revolution
1774 in Virginia
1774 documents