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Title: The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783
Author: Virginia State Dept. of Education
Release Date: September 22, 2009 [EBook #30058]
Language: English
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_The
Road
to
Independence:_
_Virginia
1763-1783_
HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND GEOGRAPHY SERVICE
DIVISION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION
STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
_Foreword_
Many of the fundamental principles of our nation's development are
rooted in the Colonial Period; therefore, this era deserves careful
attention in the public schools of Virginia. The spirit of freedom
engendered in the early days of the nation's history has remained the
hallmark of the nation. It has been maintained by commitment to
democratic traditions and values.
In the public schools of Virginia, various courses deal with American
history, and consideration and study is given to the Colonial Period
from kindergarten through grade twelve. The publication entitled, THE
ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE: VIRGINIA 1763-1783, offers teachers in the
secondary schools of Virginia a special challenge to select important
areas of emphasis for the period 1763-1783 that will provide an
improved perspective for students to see new meaning in familiar
events. The teacher should present the material in a broader context so
as to enable young Americans to comprehend the ideas, events, and
personalities of the period. It is hoped that this publication will
help to accomplish this goal.
W. E. Campbell
State Superintendent of
Public Instruction
_Table of Contents_
FOREWORD ii
INTRODUCTION iv
_The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783_
PART I:
1763: The Aftermath of Victory 1
The New Generation in Politics: Britain and Virginia 4
The Political Philosophy of Virginia, 1763 7
PART II:
The Road to Revolution, 1763-1775 14
The Grenville Program, 1763-1765 14
Western Lands Defense 15
A New Revenue Program 16
The Currency Act of 1764 17
Virginia and the Stamp Act, 1764 18
The Stamp Act Resolves, May 1765 20
The Stamp Act Crisis, 1765-1766 24
Repeal and the Declaratory Act, 1766 26
British Politics and the Townshend Act, 1766-1770 28
Virginia Politics, 1766-1768 29
The Townshend Act in Virginia, 1767-1771 30
The False Interlude, 1770-1773 31
The Road to Revolution, 1773-1774 32
The Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts 33
PART III:
From Revolution to Independence 35
The First Virginia Convention 35
Virginia and the First Continental Congress 38
Great Britain Stiffens 39
War 40
Independence 43
PART IV:
The Commonwealth of Virginia 46
Declaration of Rights 46
Declaration of Independence 48
The Virginia Constitution, June 29, 1776 49
The British-Americans: The Virginia Loyalists 52
The War at Home, 1776-1780 53
PART V:
The War for Independence 55
Virginians and the Continental Army, 1775-1779 55
The Indian Wars 57
George Rogers Clark and the Winning of the West 58
The War and Eastern Virginia, 1776-1779 60
Black Virginians in the Revolution 60
The British Move South, 1780-1781 62
The Invasion of Virginia, 1781 63
Yorktown, September-October, 1781 66
BIBLIOGRAPHY 68
APPENDIX
A Chronology of Selected Events in Virginia, 1763-1783 70
The Declaration of Independence 75
Suggestive Questions for Exploring Virginia's Role in the
Winning of Independence 77
Suggested Student Activities 79
_Introduction_
Virginia, the birthplace of our nation, played an important role in the
winning of American independence. Virginia, the largest and the most
influential of the 13 colonies, led the struggle for American
independence and has helped to formulate American ideals and to shape
our country's institutions.
This publication was prepared to assist teachers in developing topics
of study relating to the American Revolution and Virginia's role in the
winning of independence and to help students develop deeper
appreciation for the rich heritage that is theirs as citizens of the
Commonwealth. The Virginia tradition was created by responsible men and
women who believed in the inherent dignity of the individual, the role
of government as a servant of the people, the value of freedom,
justice, equality, and the concept of "rule of law." These ideals and
beliefs remain the hallmark of Virginia and the nation.
Important objectives of this publication are:
To emphasize the study of Virginia history during the period from 1763
to 1783 when the state exerted influential leadership and wisdom in the
winning of American independence;
To develop a deeper understanding of the meaning of freedom and basic
principles and traditions which have nourished and sustained the
American way of life;
To further the students' understanding of individual rights and
responsibilities in a free society;
To further acquaint students with their heritage of freedom and the
importance of perpetuating democratic traditions; and
To further students' understanding of the concept of self-government
and the American way of life.
It is hoped that this publication will assist in achieving these
objectives.
N. P. Bradner, Director
Division of Secondary Education
State Department of Education
Mrs. Jerri Button, Supervisor
History, Government, and
Geography Service
State Department of Education
Thomas A. Elliott, Assistant
Supervisor
History, Government, and
Geography Service
State Department of Education
Clyde J. Haddock, Assistant
Supervisor
History, Government, and
Geography Service
State Department of Education
James C. Page, Assistant Supervisor
History, Government, and Geography Service
State Department of Education
Dr. D. Alan Williams, Consultant
THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE: VIRGINIA 1763-1783
Professor of History
University of Virginia
_The Road to Independence:_
_Virginia 1763-1783_
Part I:
1763: The Aftermath of Victory
[Sidenote: "_He has refused to assent to laws the most wholesome and
necessary for the public good...._"]
Virginia in 1763 appeared to stand on the edge of a new era of
greatness. The Peace of Paris signed that year confirmed the total
victory of the British in North America during the long French and
Indian War (1754-1763). Virginia's natural enemies were subdued: the
French were driven from Canada, the Forks of the Ohio, the Illinois
Country, and Louisiana; the Spanish were forced to give up Florida; and
the Indians, now without any allies, were defeated or banished beyond
the Appalachians. Virginians were free to continue their remarkable
growth of the past 40 years during which they had left the Tidewater,
pushed up the James, Rappahannock, Appomattox, and Potomac river
basins, and joined thousands of Scotch-Irish and Germans pushing
southward out of Pennsylvania into the Valley of Virginia. Although
they were halted temporarily in 1755 when Braddock's disastrous defeat
in Pennsylvania and the massacre of frontier pioneer James Patton at
Draper's Meadow (Blacksburg) encouraged the Indians to resist the white
man's advance, Virginians eagerly eyed the lands in southwestern
Virginia along the Holston, Clinch, and French Lick Rivers and those
that lay beyond the mountains along the Ohio. This territory, from
which was carved the states of Kentucky and West Virginia, made
Virginia, even without considering her strong claim to all the lands
north of the Ohio, the largest of the American colonies.
Following the end of the French and Indian war, Virginians expected to
recapture the economic prosperity that had been interrupted by the
conflict. In 1763, they were the most affluent and the most populous
white colonists. There were at least 350,000 settlers, including
140,000 slaves, in Virginia. Pennsylvania, the next largest colony, had
200,000 residents. If the past was any indication, the numbers of
Virginians surely would multiply. In 1720 there were 88,000 colonists
in Virginia, 26,000 of whom were black. The years between 1720 and 1750
had been very fruitful ones and were to be remembered as "the Golden
Age" of Colonial Virginia. Virginia and Maryland were ideal colonies
for the British. The Chesapeake colonies produced a raw material
(tobacco) which the British sold to European customers, and they bought
vast quantities of finished products from craftsmen and manufacturers
in the mother country. These were years when the English mercantile
system worked well. There was lax enforcement of the Navigation Acts,
liberal credit from English and Scots merchants, generous land grants
from the crown, a minimum of interference in Virginia's government, and
peace within the empire. Both mother country and colony were happy with
the arrangement. With peace would come a renewal of those "good old
days." Or so Virginians thought. But it was not to be so.
It is never possible to return to the status quo ante bellum. It would
not be possible for Great Britain to do it in 1763. The British ended
the Seven Years War (the French and Indian War 1756 became a general
world war) as the dominant country in Europe, triumphant over France in
India, the West Indies, and North America, and owners of Spanish
Florida. Yet victory had its price and its problems. The wars had to be
paid for; a policy for governing the new territories had to be
formulated; the Indian tribes beyond the Appalachians had to be
pacified and protected; and Britain had to remain "at the ready" to
defend her newly-won position of power.
Neither France, nor Spain, was about to give in easily. The French,
particularly, were awaiting the chance to challenge the British. For
that reason, the Peace of Paris was only a truce in a series of wars
which began in the 1740's and did not end until the defeat of Napoleon
in 1814. The eager French support of the American Revolution was based
on more than the attraction of young aristocrats like Lafayette to the
republican ideals of a war for independence. French self-interest and
revenge also were heavily involved.
The foremost task facing Britain was meeting the costs of victory. To
gain and maintain the new empire cost great sums of money which the
crown knew it could not extract from British taxpayers already
overburdened with levies on land, imports, exports, windows, carriages,
deeds, newspapers, advertisements, cards and dice, and a hundred other
items of daily use. The land tax, for instance, was 20 percent of land
value. These were taxes parliament had levied on residents in Great
Britain but not on the colonists. Many taxes had been in effect since
an earlier war in the 1740's (King George's War). With the national
debt at a staggering £146,000,000, much of it the result of defending
interests in the New World, and several million pounds owed to American
colonies as reimbursement for maintaining troops during the war,
British taxpayers, rich and poor alike, expected relief. In fact, these
war debts forced parliament to impose additional taxes in 1763,
including a much-despised excise tax on cider. It is hardly surprising
to find most Britons agreed that in the future the Americans should be
responsible for those expenses directly attributable to maintaining the
empire in America. That future costs were to be shared seemed
politically expedient and the reasonable thing to do. Every ministry
which came to power in Britain after 1763 understood this as a national
mandate it could not ignore.
The French and Indian War produced a rather curious and very
significant by-product: the English literally rediscovered America and
Virginia. Since the late 17th Century there had been very little
personal contact between Englishmen in authority and the colony. From
1710 to 1750, the years when all was running so well, the only contact
Virginia had with English government was through her royal governor.
Most of the other royal officials in Virginia were Virginians, not
Englishmen. And, as events turned out, even the royal governors were a
thin line of communication. Governor Alexander Spotswood (1710-1722)
became a Virginia planter rather than go home to Britain; Governor Hugh
Drysdale (1722-1726) died in Williamsburg; and Governor William Gooch
(1727-1749) served in the colony for 22 years without once visiting
England. Moreover, fewer young Virginians were going to England for
their schooling, preferring to attend the College of William and Mary
or the recently opened College of New Jersey (Princeton). There were,
of course, London and Bristol tobacco merchants who knew Virginia well,
but the great increase in Virginia wealth after 1720 was partially
obscured from Englishmen because it was the Scots merchants, not the
English, who came to control much of the Chesapeake tobacco trade.
English politicians and citizens alike had a very incomplete
understanding of the great strides made by Virginia. They still thought
of Virginians as provincials, struggling in the wilderness, or as
impoverished Scots, Irish, and Germans living in the back-country.
Hundreds of English military officers, many of whom would achieve
positions of political influence in the 1760's and 1770's, were
surprised to find Virginia and other American colonies to be
economically prosperous, socially mature, and attractive places in
which to live. Englishman after Englishman wrote about Virginians who
lived in a style befitting English country gentry and London merchants.
Over and over again they noted the near absence of poverty, even on the
frontier. Their discoveries matched English political needs. Not only
was it necessary for the Americans to assume a greater share of the
financial burdens, Englishmen now knew they could do it.
These Englishmen also made another major discovery--the colonies were
violating the English constitution. They had grown independent of the
crown and the mother country. They paid little attention to
parliamentary laws and the Navigation Acts; they smuggled extensively
and bribed customs officials; and they traded with the enemy in
wartime. They had developed political practices which conflicted with
the constitution as the British knew it. Legislatures ignored the
king's instructions, often refused to support the war efforts until
they had forced concessions from the governors, and had taken royal and
executive prerogatives unto themselves. Worse yet, royal governors like
Robert Dinwiddie and Francis Fauquier yielded to the demands of the
House of Burgesses and accepted laws explicitly contrary to their royal
instructions. What these Englishmen discovered was the collapse of the
imperial system as set forth in the creation of the Board of Trade in
1696. In its place there had been substituted, quite unnoticed by
British officials, the House of Burgesses which thought of itself as a
miniature House of Commons.[1]
[1] An excellent summary of the ways in which the Virginia
burgesses and their counterparts in North and South Carolina and
Georgia quietly gained the upper hand by mid-century, see Jack P.
Greene, Quest for Power (University of North Carolina Press,
1963).
Once the British made the discovery about these constitutional changes
they quite understandably believed such conditions could not be
ignored. Quite understandably, the Virginians were not willing to give
up rights and privileges which they believed were theirs, or the
semiautonomy they had enjoyed the previous 30 years.
The New Generation in Politics: Britain and Virginia
There came to power in the 1760's an entirely new political leadership
in England. The most important change was the kingship itself. George
II, who had come to the throne in 1727, died in 1760 and was succeeded
by his grandson, George III. Unlike his grandfather and his
great-grandfather, George I (1715-1727), both of whom were essentially
Hanoverians, George III "gloried in the name of Briton" and believed it
was essential for the king to be his own "prime" minister and for the
king to be active in managing the crown's political affairs in
parliament. Unlike the first two Georges, the third George could not
achieve the political stability which Robert Walpole and the Duke of
Newcastle had imposed on parliament from 1720 to 1754. It is well known
that George had a congenital disease which pushed him into periods of
apparent insanity during his long reign (he died in 1820). Present day
medical scholars now believe that this illness was perhaps porphyria or
some type of metabolic illness, which could now be treated and
controlled by diet and medication. Such illness does not appear to have
been a major factor in his actions prior to the Revolution, the first
significant attack not occurring until 1788. Instead, the stolid and
often plodding king tended to rely upon men like the unimaginative Lord
Bute or his somewhat stodgy wife, Charlotte of Mecklenberg (for whom
two Virginia counties and the town of Charlottesville are named.) The
breakdown of the once-powerful Whig political coalition also added to
the king's problems.
About the time George ascended the throne, the English Whigs who had
dominated English politics since 1720 fell victim to their own
excesses. Walpole and Newcastle had controlled and directed parliament
and the ministry through the "judicious" use of patronage and
government contracts and contacts. Nevertheless they had done so with a
consistent governmental program in mind and in a period of peace. By
the 1760's the Whigs had deteriorated into factions quarreling over
patronage, spoils, and contracts, not policy. They became thoroughly
corrupt and interested in power primarily for personal gain.
Consequently, the king could not find anyone whom he could trust who
could also provide leadership and hold together a coalition capable of
doing his business in the House of Commons. He tried Whigs George
Grenville (1763-1765), Lord Rockingham (1765-1766), Lord Chatham, the
former William Pitt (1766-1768), and the Duke of Grafton (1768-1770).
Finally, in 1770, he turned to Lord North and the Tories. North held on
until 1782.
What these frequent changes suggest is that at the height of the
American crisis in the 1760's, when the real seeds of the Revolution
were being sown, the instability of the British parliamentary
government precluded a consistent and rational approach to American
problems. Lacking internal cohesion, the English government could not
meet the threat of external division. It also means that the colonists,
especially the Virginians, saw parliament as being thoroughly corrupt
and the king surrounded by what even the mild-mannered Edmund Pendleton
called "a rotten, wicked administration". Not until the eve of
independence in 1776 were Virginians to think of George as a tyrant and
despot. In fact, he was neither. He was a dedicated man of limited
abilities in an age demanding greatness if the separation of the
American colonies from the empire was to have been prevented. Perhaps
even greatness could not have prevented what some have come to believe
was inevitable. (For a sympathetic study, see King George III, by John
Brooke, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1972).
Leadership also changed dramatically in Virginia in the 1760's. This
was partially due to changing economic conditions. Prosperity did not
return as rapidly as expected. The long war probably masked a basic
flaw in the Virginia economy which Virginians believed they had
solved--they were too reliant on tobacco. The great Virginia fortunes
of the mid-18th Century were built on extensive credit from Britain,
the efficient operation of the mercantile system, the initiative and
enterprise of Scots merchants who had succeeded in marketing in Europe
nearly all the tobacco produced by the new planters in the Piedmont and
Northern Neck, and by the prudence of the planters themselves.
Such a favorable balance of economic factors did not exist in the
1760's. The European market could not absorb continued annual increases
in the good, cheap tobacco Virginia produced. Prices fell. With an
oversupply of tobacco in the warehouses, English and Scots merchants
limited further credit extensions and called for repayment of
long-outstanding loans. Within Virginia the centers of tobacco
production shifted from the older, worn-out Tidewater lands to the
newer, richer soils along the Fall Line, on the Piedmont, and in the
Northern Neck. A few men like George Washington switched from tobacco
to wheat, corn, barley, and rye. Most Tidewater planters did not
realize fully what was happening to them, presuming at first that they
were just in another swing of the unpredictable tobacco business cycle,
and were not caught in a situation which would be permanent. Eventually
the total debt of Virginians, most of it owned by Tidewater planters,
to Scots and English merchant houses reached £2,000,000, equalling the
total private debts of the other 12 colonies.
One other economic factor was apparent to many Virginians--they were
living beyond their means, building fine houses, furnishing them with
exquisite taste, wearing the latest fashions, riding in expensive
carriages, and occasionally over-extending themselves at the gaming
tables and race courses. Although these personal extravagances added to
the debt structure, they would not have been so significant if they had
not been accompanied by a lack of business ability among some of the
younger Tidewater planters. The sons did not seem to have inherited the
same business acumen and hard-driving business instincts of their
fathers and grandfathers. Having grown up in a period of affluence,
they were eternally optimistic that it would continue, that their
setbacks were temporary, and their social positions were secure. Like
men everywhere when their private world begins to break down, they
tended to strike out at those closest to them--the merchants who
extended the credit, the tobacco buyers who would not pay top prices,
and the politicians in power. It was not the best of times for London
to be asking some Virginians to pay new and quite different taxes.
Had the opposition to taxes been led mainly by those who faced bleak
economic futures or the loss of once-powerful positions and declining
family status, one could agree with those who say that the reaction of
Virginians to the Currency, Sugar, Stamp, or Tea Acts was primarily
economic. However, there were many other rising young leaders, families
which had managed their estates, and men who lived within their means,
paid attention to their debts, and resisted credit extensions until
their tobacco was harvested and cured. They also took violent exception
to crown and parliamentary solutions to imperial problems. The growing
personal indebtedness caused Virginians to rethink their economic ties
to the empire, it did not cause them to seek independence in order to
avoid paying their bills.[2]
[2] For differing views of the debt situation see Lawrence H.
Gipson, The Coming of the Revolution (Harper and Row: New
York, 1954), 40-54, and Emory G. Evans, "Planter Indebtedness and
the Coming of the Revolution in Virginia," William and Mary
Quarterly, 3rd. series, XIX (1962), 511-33. Evans holds an
anti-debt position.
Political leadership changed during the 18th Century from the council
to the House of Burgesses and from a few great families to a
broad-based gentry. In the early 18th Century several great families
directed Virginia politics. Mostly members of the Governor's Council,
they not only won power and wealth for themselves, they challenged the
power of the royal governors and managed to defeat or neutralize
several strong-willed governors, including Governor Francis Nicholson
(1698-1705) and Governor Alexander Spotswood. They even converted
Spotswood into a Virginia planter. The council reached its height of
power in the 1720's and then lost its influence as the great planters
passed on. Robert "King" Carter died in 1732, Commissary James Blair in
1743, William Byrd II in 1744, Thomas Lee in 1750, and Lewis Burwell in
1751. Only Thomas Lee successfully passed on his political position to
his heir, Richard Henry Lee. Unlike his father, Lee achieved his power
in the House of Burgesses.
The day of the House of Burgesses had come. Its leader was John
Robinson, of King and Queen County, whose father and uncle had been
councilors. From the day in 1738 when he became Speaker of the House
and Treasurer of Virginia until his death in 1766, Robinson quietly and
efficiently built the power and influence of the burgesses. He took as
his watchword the promise of his predecessor as speaker, Sir John
Randolph, to the burgesses:
The Honour of the House of Burgesses hath of late been raised
higher than can be observed in former Times; and I am persuaded you
will not suffer it to be lessened under your Management.
I will be watchful of your Privileges, without which we should be
no more than a dead Body; and advertise you of every Incident that
may have the least tendency to destroy or diminish them...[3]
[3] Journal of House of Burgesses, 5 August 1736.
Robinson never flagged in his devotion to protecting and advancing the
privileges of the house.
Robinson correctly understood the times. By the 1730's the number of
affluent families numbered well over 100 and could no longer be
effectively represented by the 12-member council. Many burgesses not
only were as wealthy as councilors, they were their social equals.
Quite commonly they were their brothers or nephews. As the burgesses
gained the ascendancy over the council, the house became, in the words
of Carl Bridenbaugh, "the tobacco gentry club". There sat the new
generation of Randolphs, Harrisons, Nelsons, Robinsons, and Lees.
There developed around Robinson and his cousin, Attorney-General Peyton
Randolph, a group of like-minded gentry known in Virginia politics as
the "Robinson-Randolph Clique." Mostly planters and burgesses from the
James and York river basins, they included a few of their heirs who had
built substantial plantations on the Piedmont. Their principal rivals
had been northern Tidewater and Northern Neck planters led by Councilor
Thomas Lee and then by Richard Henry Lee. Although these rival gentry
groups might compete for choice lands in western Virginia and the Ohio
Valley and for royal offices and positions of influence, they did not
differ in political philosophy. Nor did they deny house leadership to
men with talent. Unlike their counterparts in the House of Commons they
did not differ on matters of English policy--political and economic
decisions were to be made in Virginia by Virginians and not by royal
governors, the Board of Trade, the crown, or the English Parliament.
Above all it was not to be made by parliament. They were the parliament
for Virginia.
In the 1760's three new groups joined the prevailing Robinson-Randolph
leadership. The first was the generation born in the 1730's and 1740's
which would reach maturity in the 1760's and be waiting to enter the
"tobacco club" as a matter of birth. The second was a generation of men
who had achieved wealth and influence, mainly in the Piedmont, whose
fathers and brothers had not been in the first rank of planter gentry.
The third was a new element--burgesses from recently established
frontier counties who had the ambition, drive, and determination to
make good which were characteristics of the late 17th Century founders
of the great families. Rarely did these men want to overturn the
prevailing political leadership, they wanted to join it. The declining
fortunes of the Tidewater planters and the crises of the 1760's
accelerated the rise to power of all three of these new elements in the
House of Burgesses.
The Political Philosophy of Virginia, 1763
From that moment on September 2, 1774, when the Virginians appeared at
the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, and John Adams recorded
in his diary, "The gentlemen from Virginia appear to be the most
spirited and consistent of any", until Chief Justice John Marshall died
in 1835, Americans marveled at the quality, quantity, and political
brilliance of this generation of revolutionary Virginians. And we have
marveled since. It was not just the towering national figures like
Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison, James Monroe, and John Marshall, or the great state
leaders like Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland, George Wythe, or Edmund
Pendleton who astounded contemporaries. It was the fact that they knew
of other men in Virginia as capable--Thomas Nelson, Jr., Benjamin
Harrison, Severn Eyre, Francis Lightfoot Lee, John Page, John Blair,
Jr., Robert Carter Nicholas, or Dr. Thomas Walker.
The key to the political sagacity of these revolutionary Virginians is
found in the willingness of an elite group of planter gentry to serve
government and to serve it well and in the acceptance of their
leadership by the rest of the Virginians. It is found in the
enlightened attitudes these leaders had about their responsibilities as
officeholders to the people. It is found in the day-to-day operations
of government in the county and the General Assembly not just in the
great crises of the Stamp Act, the Coercive Acts, and Lexington and
Concord. Liberty and freedom do not spring full-blown into life only in
times of trial, they are nurtured carefully and often unknowingly over
the years. They demand, as Jefferson said, "eternal vigilance".
Certainly, liberty and freedom were not allowed to atrophy and become
weak in colonial Virginia. Instead, it was the English who had not been
vigilant and who had allowed a particularly strong concept of liberty
to grow strong in Virginians.
How could a planter elite become the fount of republicanism.[4] First,
the common bond of land and tobacco farming gave the large and small
planters similar economic interests and a homogeneous society, at least
east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Second, the less-affluent farmer
naturally elected his more prosperous neighbors to the House of
Burgesses. The poorly run plantation was no recommendation for a public
office whose main responsibility was promoting agricultural prosperity.
Third, the hard-working small farmers lacked the time and money to
serve in public office. Virginia had a long tradition of voluntary
service in local government and only a small per diem allowance for
attending the House of Burgesses. Finally, social mobility was fairly
fluid in a fast-growing society, and the standard of living among the
lower classes had improved visibly in pre-Revolutionary Virginia. The
independent farmers and small slaveholders saw no reason to oust or
destroy the power of the larger planters. They wanted to emulate them
and they fully expected to be able to do so.
[4] See D. Alan Williams, "The Virginia Gentry and the Democratic
Myth", Main Problems in American History, 3rd. ed. (Dorsey Press,
Homewood, Illinois, 1971), 22-36.
The liberal humanism of the planter gentry did much to assure the
people that they had little to fear from their "betters". The gentry
served because they believed in noblesse oblige--with power and
privilege went responsibility. Honor, duty, and devotion to public and
class interest called them to office, and they took that call
seriously. They alone had the time, the financial resources, and the
education necessary for public office. As social leaders they were
expected to set an example in manners and public morals, to uphold the
church, to be generous with benevolences, to serve with enlightened
self-interest, and to be paragons of duty and dignity. With a certain
amount of condescension and considerable truth, they thought colonial
Virginia would be ill-served if they refused to lead and government was
run by those who were less qualified to hold office. They set a
standard which has remained the benchmark of Virginia political ethics.
Though they remembered their own interests, the burgesses believed they
were bound to respect and protect those of others. This was a
fundamental part of Virginia public ethics and was one reason for the
absence of extensive political corruption. They held that sovereignty
was vested in the people, who delegated certain powers to government.
This they believed long before the Revolution. As early as 1736 Sir
John Randolph reminded the burgesses:
We must consider ourselves chosen by all the People; sent hither to
represent them, to give their Consent in the weightiest of their
Concerns; and to bind them by Laws which may advance their Common
Good. Herein they trust you with all that they have, place the
greatest Confidence in your Wisdoms and Discretions, and testify
the highest Opinion of your virtue.[5]
[5] Journal of House of Burgesses, 5 August 1736.
When Randolph made these remarks, he was telling the burgesses what
they already knew and at a time when there were no pressing public
issues. It was this abiding interrelationship between electorate and
representatives which was the strength of the Virginia political
system. The gentry extolled republicanism not only because it seemed
the right and just attitude but also because it worked.
The small farmers and slaveholders acted as a restraint upon any
tendency toward oligarchy which the gentry might have entertained. The
small farmers were in the majority and they had the right to vote. The
percentage of white males who voted in the 18th Century elections was
quite high. True, the colonial voters elected only the burgesses, but
that single choice was an important guarantee of their rights, since
the House of Burgesses was the strongest political body in Virginia.
Thomas Jefferson once remarked that the election process itself tended
to eliminate class conflicts and extremism: the planter aristocrat with
no concern for the small farmer was not apt to be elected, and the man
who demagogically courted the popular vote was ostracized by the
gentry. Therefore, the House of Burgesses became, at the same time, the
center of planter rule and of popular government.[6]
[6] For a short well-written discussion of the election process
see Charles S. Sydnor, Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices
in Washington's Virginia (University of North Carolina, 1952,
reprinted in paperback as Revolutionaries in the Making:
Political Practices in Washington's Virginia.)
The constitutional philosophy of the House of Burgesses proclaimed in
response to the Grenville revenue program in 1764 was not new. When
Patrick Henry electrified the burgesses with his Stamp Act Resolves in
May 1765, he was not setting forth a new concept of government, he was
reaffirming, in a most dramatic form, constitutional positions the
burgesses themselves well understood. The burgesses had developed their
constitutional positions during the 1750's in response to a series of
minor, isolated events--royal disallowance, the Pistole Fee
Controversy, and the Two-Penny Act.
After trying for years to codify and reform laws long in use, the
General Assembly in 1748 completed a general revision of the laws.
Included in these revisions were several laws already in force and
approved by the crown. The assembly did not include a suspending clause
with these acts, (holding up their implementation until the crown had
an opportunity to approve them). While a suspending clause was supposed
to be attached, the assembly had not done so regularly for years and
the governors had not challenged them, nor had the crown complained. In
1752, however, the crown disallowed half-a-dozen laws, claiming the
assembly had intruded upon the king's rights and ignored the governor's
instructions. Angered, the assembly protested this "new" behavior by
the crown and asserted they could not remember when the king had vetoed
laws which were of no consequence to the crown, nor contrary to
parliamentary law, but which were of importance to Virginia. It was the
beginning of a long struggle.
In 1752 there also occurred a second and more decisive dispute--the
Pistole Fee Controversy. One of the frequently overlooked events in
Virginia, this debate between the royal governor and the House of
Burgesses brought forth the classic constitutional defense by the house
of its right, and its right alone, to tax Virginians. The burgesses'
powers, as proclaimed by Richard Bland, became the fundamental argument
by Virginians against royal encroachment upon what they believed were
their rights.
Shortly after his arrival in Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie
announced his intention to charge one pistole (a Spanish coin worth
about $3.50) for applying the governor's seal to all land grants. The
council, believing this was a routine fee for a service rendered,
concurred. The storm of protest which followed amazed Dinwiddie. The
burgesses accused Dinwiddie of usurping a right not his in order to
line his pockets. This was not a fee, it was a tax, and only the
burgesses could initiate a tax on Virginians. Dinwiddie denied that the
fee was solely for his personal remuneration. Instead, he maintained
his aim was to return to the tax rolls millions of acres of land
withheld by Virginians in order to prevent collection of the annual
quit-rent on the land which every Virginia landowner paid the crown. In
the heated debates which followed, both parties built their cases
around the rights and privileges each claimed was its own. The ultimate
outcome, which resulted in a compromise by the crown, satisfactory to
both Dinwiddie and the burgesses, is not as important as the
constitutional argument put forth by the burgesses.
The house resolutions included ringing phrases which would become
familiar in the 1760's:
The Rights of the Subject are so secured by Law, that they cannot
be deprived of the least Part of their Property, but by their own
Consent; Upon this excellent Principle is our Constitution founded
... That the said Demand is illegal and arbitrary, contrary to the
Charters of this Colony, to his Majesty's and his Royal
Predecessor's Instructions to the several Governors, and the
Express Order of his Majesty King William of Glorious Memory ...
That whoever shall hereafter pay a Pistole ... shall be deemed a
betrayer of the Rights and Privileges of the People.[7]
[7] Journal of House of Burgesses, 1752-1758, 143, 154-155.
The author of these resolves was Richard Bland, a tough-minded burgess
from Prince George County, descendant of one of the colony's oldest
families. One of the earliest graduates of the College of William and
Mary to achieve a major position in the burgesses, he was one of the
most widely read. He held four beliefs common to the revolutionary
generations, beliefs he translated into major works during the Pistole
Fee Controversy, the Parsons' Cause, the Stamp Act, and the later
revenue crises:
the eternal validity of the natural-law doctrines most cogently
stated by John Locke;
the superiority over all other forms of government of the English
Constitution, of which an uncorrupted model or extension was the
peculiar property of the Virginians;
the like superiority of those unique rights and liberties which
were the heritage of the free-born Englishman; and
the conviction that the good state rests on the devotion of men of
virtue, wisdom, integrity, and justice.[8]
[8] Clinton Rossiter, Six Characters in Search of a Republic
(Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1964), chap. 5, "Richard Bland, the
Whig in America", 184.
In addition to the house resolutions, Bland wrote a closely reasoned
essay attacking the Pistole Fee, A Modest and True State of the
Case (1753). Only a portion survives and is known as A Fragment
Against the Pistole Fee. His underlying principle, one which the
British ignored and Virginians never forget, is cogently set forth.
The Rights of the Subjects are so secured by Law that they cannot
be deprived of the least part of their property without their own
consent. Upon this Principle of Law, the Liberty and Property of
every Person who has the felicity to live under a British
Government is founded. The question then ought not to be the
smallness of the demand but the Lawfulness of it. For if it is
against Law, the same Power which imposes one Pistole may impose a
Hundred ...
LIBERTY & PROPERTY are like those precious Vessels whose soundness
is destroyed by the least flaw and whose use is lost by the
smallest hole.
Virginians never deviated from this view.
In 1818 John Adams, when asked what was the Revolution, replied, "the
Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in
the minds and hearts of the people ... This radical change in the
principles, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real
American Revolution." In Virginia, the Revolution began in the minds
and hearts of the House of Burgesses with the Pistole Fee. Its author
was Richard Bland.
The third event was the Parsons' Cause. This event reached the people,
and in it the people found a spokesman--Patrick Henry. The Parsons'
Cause was an outgrowth of the Two-Penny Acts. Nearly all Virginia
salaries and most taxes were paid in tobacco, rather than specie (hard
money). Many officials, including the clergy, had their salaries set by
acts of the assembly at a specified number of pounds of tobacco per
year. In the case of the clergy this was a minimum of 16,000 lbs. per
year. In the 1750's a series of droughts and other natural disasters
brought crop shortages in some areas, driving tobacco prices well
beyond normal levels. In 1753 and again in 1755 the assembly allowed
taxpayers to pay taxes in either tobacco or specie at the rate of two
pennies per pound of tobacco owed. On one hand this seemed eminently
fair. The crop shortages worked a double penalty on the planter--he had
little tobacco because of the weather, but he was forced to pay his
taxes in valuable tobacco he did not have. On the other hand, the
clergy and others protested they received no relief when tobacco was in
oversupply and the price was low. More importantly, they had a contract
which had been enacted into law and approved by the king. No assembly
could repeal a law approved by the king without his approval. In 1753
and 1755 the issue faded away.
Then in 1758 the assembly passed another Two-Penny Act, applying
throughout the colony and to all officials and even to private debts.
Governor Francis Fauquier, although knowing that he could not put such
a law into effect until the king had given his approval, decided he
would do the politically expedient thing and signed the bill.
Fauquier reckoned without the tenacity of the clergy led by the Rev.
John Camm, a William and Mary college professor and parish pastor.
Camm, whom Fauquier called "a Man of Abilities but a Turbulent Man who
Delights to live in a Flame", later became President of the college,
rector of Bruton Parish Church, and a member of the council.
In 1759 he was determined to receive what he believed was his
guaranteed salary. Camm believed the law unconstitutional on two
grounds: the assembly had passed a law repealing one already approved
by the king, and Fauquier had permitted the law to go into effect
without the suspending clause period taking place. At the behest of
many Anglican clergy, Camm went to England. Presenting the parsons'
case to the Bishop of London, who in turn forwarded the case to the
Privy Council, Camm succeeded. The king declared the law
unconstitutional.
Virginians were outraged. Unlike the Pistole Fee, which touched most
directly the larger planters and the burgesses, the Parsons' Cause
enflamed the entire populace. Camm and a number of clergymen sued in
county courts for back salary. They received little satisfaction.
Several county courts went so far as to declare the Two-Penny Act legal
despite the king's disallowance.
Hanover County Court took a different tack. There the Rev. James Maury,
Jefferson's field school teacher and hard-pressed father of 11
children, sued the vestry of Fredericksville Parish for his salary. The
county court upheld his right to sue for claims and called for a jury
trial to set the damages. Ironically, one of the clergymen who would
benefit from a favorable verdict for Maury was the Rev. Patrick Henry.
Presiding over the county court on December 1, 1763, was his brother,
John Henry. Defending the parish vestry was his nephew and namesake,
and the son of the justice, Patrick Henry. Hanover County was a center
of Presbyterianism and in the jury box undoubtedly sat men who already
had a dislike for Anglican clergymen whose salaries they were compelled
to pay but whose churches they did not attend.
Young Patrick Henry, in his first prominent trial, launched immediately
into a scathing attack on the established clergy, calling them
"rapacious harpies", men who would "snatch from the hearth of their
honest parishioners his last hoe-cake, from the widow and her orphan
children their last milch cow; the last bed, nay, the last blanket from
the lyin-in woman". Having stunned his audience into silence, Henry
turned his invective upon the king. Although the constitutionality of
the law was not an issue, because the county court had already decided
it was constitutional, Henry proceeded to excoriate the king himself
for violating the English constitution. His biographer, Robert Meade,
notes:
Henry insisted on the relationship and reciprocal duties of the
King and his subjects. Advancing the doctrine of John Locke as
popularized by Richard Bland and other colonial leaders, he
contended that government is a conditional compact, composed of
mutually dependent agreements 'of which the violation by one party
discharged the other'. He bravely argued that the disregard of the
pressing wants of the colony was 'an instance of royal misrule',
which had thus far dissolved the political compact, and left the
people at liberty to consult their own safety.[9]
[9] Robert D. Meade, Patriot in the Making (Patrick Henry)
(Lippincott: Philadelphia, 1957), 132.
The jury retired, and then returned with its verdict--one penny damages
for Parson Maury. Henry had lost the legal case, he had won the battle
for their minds and hearts.
Out of the Parsons' Cause in 1763 came four important developments: the
Anglican clergy suffered an irreparable setback and loss of status; the
House of Burgesses now closely scrutinized the instructions from king
to governor; the suspending clause was seen as a direct challenge to
colonial legislative rights; and Patrick Henry burst forth as the
popular spokesman for Virginia rights, winning a seat in the 1765
election to the House of Burgesses. In 1763 few people were willing to
accept his premise that the king had been guilty of "royal misrule". In
a dozen years they would.
Thus, by 1763 the fundamental political principles which would bring
Virginia to independence already had been proclaimed. They were not
developed in response to British actions, but Virginia experiences.
They awaited only the specific challenges before they would be
transformed into inalienable rights. Within a few months those
challenges tumbled forth from Britain.
Part II:
The Road to Revolution,
1763-1775
[Sidenote: "_For imposing taxes on us without our concent...._"]
The Grenville Program, 1763-1765
In April 1763 George III had to abandon his chief minister and
confidant, the hated Lord Bute, and turn the government over to George
Grenville, leader of the largest Whig block in parliament and
brother-in-law of William Pitt. Grenville's strengths were his
knowledge of trade and public finance, a penchant for hard work and
administrative detail, a systematic mind, and, in an era of corruption,
integrity. His weaknesses were a cold personality and a limited
conception of broad political and constitutional issues. It was said
that Grenville lost the American colonies because he read the
dispatches from America and was well acquainted with the growing
economic maturation and apparent ability of the colonies to bear
heavier taxes. George III, who disliked Grenville immensely, the more
so because he had been forced to accept the Whigs, described him as a
man "whose opinions are seldom formed from any other motives than such
as may be expected to originate in the mind of a clerk in a counting
house." An astute observer might have told George that with the
national debt at £146,000,000 and rising, a man with the logical mind
of a counting clerk might be the answer. Still it was this logical mind
which was Grenville's undoing. As British historian Ian Christie notes,
"all the various provisions of the years 1763 to 1765 made up a
logical, interlocking system. Its one fatal flaw was that it lacked the
essential basis of colonial consent."[10]
[10] Ian R. Christie, Crisis of Empire, Great Britain and the
American Colonies, 1754-1783 (Norton: New York, 1966), 54. The
King's comment on Grenville is cited on p. 39.
Three overriding colonial problems faced Grenville: a new governmental
policy for the former French and Spanish North American territories; a
means to defend these territories from the avowed intentions of the
French and Spanish to reestablish control; and a means to pay the costs
of imperial government and defense.
Western Lands and Defense
There was an immediate need for English government in the former
English and French lands. In October 1763 the Board of Trade proposed,
and the king in council established, a temporary program for western
lands. Under the Proclamation of 1763 a governor-general would run
Quebec (an attempt to get the French colonists to use an elected
assembly failed), the French were confirmed in their land grants, and
the Roman Catholic Church was retained. East and West Florida became
separate colonies. In the disputed lands beyond the Appalachians into
which English settlers had moved as soon as General Forbes occupied
Fort Duquesne in 1758 and where the Indians under Chief Pontiac were in
rebellion against these incursions, no English settlers were allowed
until permanent treaties could be worked out with tribes owning the
lands.
The Grenville ministry had several aims for its western lands policy.
The Proclamation of 1763 would separate the Indians and whites while
preventing costly frontier wars. Once contained east of the mountains,
the colonials would redirect their natural expansionist tendencies
southward into the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, and northward into
Nova Scotia. Strong English colonies in former Spanish and French
territories would be powerful deterrents to future colonial wars. There
is no indication Grenville believed the Americans would be more easily
governed if contained east of the mountains. His prime aim was orderly,
controlled, peaceful, and inexpensive growth.
The Proclamation of 1763 hurt Virginia land speculators more than
individual colonists. For the Ohio Land Company whose stockholders were
mostly Northern Neck and Maryland gentry, including the Washingtons and
Lees, it was a crushing blow to their hopes for regaining the Forks of
the Ohio and lands on the southern bank of the Ohio granted to them by
the crown in 1749. The rival Loyal Land Company led by Speaker
Robinson, Attorney-General Randolph, and the Nelsons, lost their claims
to the Greenbriar region, but with less invested, they had less to
lose. Also dashed were the hopes of many French and Indian War veterans
who had been paid in western land warrants for their service. Many
veterans ignored the proclamation, went over the mountains, squatted on
the lands, and stayed there with the concurrence of amiable Governor
Fauquier. Most Virginians were little injured by the order for they fit
into Grenville's plan for colonial growth. The general flow of Virginia
migration after 1740 was southward along the Piedmont into the
Carolinas or southwestward through the Valley of Virginia, not north
and northwest to the Forks of the Ohio. In 1768 and 1770 by the
treaties of Fort Stanwix (N.Y.) and Fort Lochaber (S.C.) the Six
Nations and Cherokee Indians gave up their claims to the Kentucky
country as far west as the Tennessee River. The Virginian occupation,
led by John Donelson and Daniel Boone, quickly moved in through the
Cumberland Gap. Not until the Quebec Act of 1774 thwarted their claims
to land north of the Ohio did Virginians react strongly against British
land policy.
To defend the new territories and maintain the old, Grenville proposed
retaining 10,000 British troops in America, stationing them mainly in
Halifax, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and the West Indies from which
they could be moved to trouble spots as needed. The British had learned
from the unpredictable response by the colonies during the French and
Indian War and the nearly disastrous Pontiac Rebellion in early 1763
that the colonies would not, or could not, provide cooperatively for
their own defense even in the face of clear danger. There were too many
inter-colonial rivalries and there was stubborn adherence to the
English tradition that local militia was not to serve outside its own
jurisdiction or for long periods of time. Moreover, the western lands
were primarily an imperial responsibility. Thus, the decision was made
to station British troops in America.[11]
[11] There are those who suggest the troops were sent to America
on a pretext. The ministry, knowing it could not reduce the army
to peacetime size in face of French threats, also knew there was
strong English resentment against "a standing army" in England.
The colonial condition offered an excuse for retaining the men in
arms See Bernhard Knollenberg, Origin of the American Revolution,
1759-1766 (New York, 1960), chapters 5-9.
In April 1765 parliament passed the Quartering Act, similar to one in
England, requiring colonies, if requested, to provide quarters in
barracks, taverns, inns, or empty private buildings. Although the act
did not apply directly to them, Virginians sided with the hard-hit New
Yorkers who bitterly denounced it as another form of taxation without
representation. So strong was the reaction in New York that her
assembly virtually shut down rather than acquiesce. Finally the New
Yorkers gave in, making the Quartering Act to New York what the Stamp
Act was to Virginia, a symbol of "oppression and slavery." What
parliament could do to one colony she could do to all.
A New Revenue Program
At the heart of the Grenville program were his financial schemes. The
program had three parts: 1) to strengthen and enforce existing Acts of
Trade; 2) to ease inflation and stabilize colonial trade with a uniform
currency act; and 3) to raise additional revenue by applying stamp
taxes to the colonies. Even then Grenville expected to raise only about
one-half the expenses the new empire required. The rest would have to
come from British sources.
To close the loopholes in the Navigation Acts and make them profitable,
Grenville submitted the American Revenue Act of 1764, popularly known
as the Sugar Act. Although the sugar trade provisions were the most
dramatic example of a redirection in the Navigation Acts, the American
Revenue Act contained radical departures from past attitudes and
practices. Heavy duties were applied to foreign goods allowed to enter
the colonies directly, including white sugar, Madeira wine, and coffee.
Many goods formerly allowed to enter the colonies directly were placed
on the list of enumerated articles which must pass through England
before being shipped to the colonies. The act, although slightly
reducing the duty on French West Indian foreign molasses, contained
strict provisions for its collection omitted from the laxly enforced
Molasses Act of 1733. The British fleet was stationed along the
American coast to assist the customs service in enforcing the act.
Parliament created a new vice-admiralty court to sit at Halifax without
a jury as an alternative to the colonial vice-admiralty courts whose
juries were notoriously biased against the customs officers and whose
judges often were colonials engaged in illicit trade.
In the Sugar Act, Grenville and parliament took the existing Navigation
Acts and reasserted parliamentary authority over imperial trade,
reaffirmed the 17th Century colonial philosophy that the colonies
existed to promote the welfare of the mother country and the empire,
granted trade monopolies to British merchants and manufacturers where
none existed before, and discriminated in favor of one set of colonies,
the British West Indies, and against another set, the North American
colonies. To this was added a new principle--the Navigation Acts should
not only regulate trade, they should produce revenue. Cleverly designed
within the constitutional system, the Sugar Act brought howls of
protests from New England and Middle Colony traders, smugglers and
legitimate operators alike, who had flourished under the benevolence of
"salutary neglect" for the past half-century. For many Americans the
new act with its favoritism to British and West Indian merchants, its
use of the navy as law enforcer, and the founding of a vice-admiralty
court in Nova Scotia with jurisdiction over all America was an abuse of
parliament's power. As events developed the Sugar Act was a failure.
The old act designed for regulatory purposes, cost approximately three
times as much to enforce as the revenues collected; the new act,
expected to produce annual revenues of about £100,000, averaged about
£20,000 in revenues at an annual cost of over £200,000.
The Currency Act of 1764
Virginians, only indirectly effected by the Sugar Act, were deeply
effected by the second part of the Grenville program--the Currency Act
of 1764. During the French and Indian War Virginia had printed several
paper money issues to finance the war and provide currency in the
specie-short colony. The various issues, eventually totaling over
£500,000, circulated for a fixed number of years and then were to be
redeemed upon presentation to the treasurer, Speaker John Robinson. As
the war lengthened and the number of paper money issues increased,
considerable confusion developed over the amount of money outstanding,
the rate of exchange, and its use as legal tender for personal debts as
well as public taxes. Although backed by the "good will" of the General
Assembly, this money (called "current money") was discounted when used
to pay debts contracted in pounds sterling. Although the official
exchange rate set by the assembly was £125, Virginia current money
equalled £130-£165 per £100 sterling, averaging £155-£160 in 1763 and
early 1764. The citizens were compelled by law to accept inflated
Virginia paper currency as legal tender for debts which they had
contracted in pounds sterling. The fiscal problems were most critical
in Virginia, but they also existed in most colonies outside New England
whose colonies parliament restricted under a currency act in 1751. In
response to pleas from London merchants, Grenville devised and
parliament passed the Currency Act of 1764, prohibiting the issuing of
any more paper money and commanding all money in circulation to be
called in and redeemed.
The result in Virginia was sheer consternation, especially among the
hard-pressed Tidewater planters. In the process of calling in the money
a severe currency shortage developed and some financial hardship
occurred at the same time the Stamp Act took effect. More significant
than the economic impact was the political impact of the Currency Act
on Virginia politics and the political fortunes of key Virginians.
Among the many Virginians caught up in the Currency Act none was more
involved than Speaker John Robinson. At his death in May 1766 an audit
revealed massive shortages in his treasurer's account books resulting
from heavy loans to many Tidewater gentry and political associates. The
Robinson scandal brought about a redistribution of political leadership
in Virginia and brought into the leadership circle the Northern Neck
and Piedmont planters who formerly were excluded.[12]
[12] For a favorable and convincing view of Virginia's motives in
passing the paper money bills, see Joseph Ernst, "Genesis of the
Currency Act of 1764, Virginia Paper Money and the Protection of
British Investments", William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., XXII,
3-32, and "The Robinson Scandal Redivius", Virginia Magazine of
History and Biography, LXXVII, 146-173. Ernst is critical of
Robinson's political use of the funds. For a more charitable view
of Robinson's actions, see the outstanding biography by David
Mays, Edmund Pendleton 1721-1803 (Harvard Press, 1952), 2 vols.
Pendleton was the executor of the Robinson estate.
The third facet of the Grenville revenue plan was the infamous Stamp
Act. Grenville and his aides perceived the tax bill as a routine piece
of legislation which would extend to the colonies a tax long used in
Britain. Grenville announced in March 1764 the ministry's intention to
present to the commons a stamp tax bill at the February 1765 session of
parliament. He "hoped that the power and sovereignty of parliament,
over every part of the British dominions, for the purpose of raising or
collecting any tax, would not be disputed. That if there was a single
man doubted it, he would take the sense of the House...." As another
observer put it, "Mr. Grenville strongly urg'd not only the power but
the right of parliament to tax the colonys and hop'd in Gods Name as
his Expression was that none would dare dispute their Sovereignty."[13]
The House of Commons, as quick as the Virginia House of Burgesses to
proclaim its sovereignty rose to Grenville's bait and declared in a
resolution of March 17, 1764 that "toward defending, protecting, and
securing the British colonies and Plantations in America, it may be
proper to charge certain Stamp Duties in the said Colonies and
Plantations...." In that simple phrase parliament declared its full
sovereignty over the colonies and from it never retreated.
[13] Both quotes cited in Edmund and Helen Morgan, The Stamp Act
Crisis paperback edition (Collier Books: New York, 1962), 76.
This is the standard work on the Stamp Act.
Virginia and the Stamp Act, 1764
That Grenville might have hoped that the "power and sovereignty of
Parliament ... would not be disputed" suggests the degree to which he
did not comprehend 18th Century colonial constitutional developments.
Virginia reaction was immediate, clear, unequivocal, and illustrative
of just how deeply ingrained were Virginia's constitutional positions
about the limits of parliamentary authority. In 1759 the General
Assembly had elected a joint committee to correspond regularly with its
London agent and to instruct him on matters of policy and legislation
pending in England. This committee was meeting on July 28, 1764, in
Williamsburg drafting instructions to agent Edward Montagu on the Sugar
Act when word arrived from Montagu about the commons resolution. The
Committee of Correspondence's reply was instantaneous:
That no subjects of the King of great Britain can be justly made
subservient to Laws without either their personal Consent,
or their Consent by their representatives we take to be the most
vital Principle of the British Constitution; it cannot be denyed
that the Parliament has from Time to Time ... made such Laws as
were thought sufficient to restrain such Trade to what was judg'd
its proper Channel, neither can it be denied that, the Parliament,
out the same Plentitude of its Power, has gone a little Step
farther and imposed some Duties upon our Exports....
P.S. Since writing the foregoing Part ... we have received your
letter of the parliam'ts Intention to lay an Inland Duty upon us
gives us fresh Apprehension of the fatal Consequences that may
arise to Posterity from such a precedent.... We conceive that no
Man or Body of Men, however invested with power, have a Right to do
anything that is contrary to Reason and Justice, or that can tend
to the Destruction of the Constitution.[14]
[14] Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XII, 10, 13.
Comprising the committee were Councilors John Blair, William
Nelson, Thomas Nelson, Sr., Robert Carter, and Burgesses Peyton
Randolph, George Wyth, Robert Carter Nicholas, and Dudley Digges.
Navigation Acts were acceptable, Stamp Acts were a "Destruction of the
Constitution."
In May Grenville met with the colonial agents in London and possibly
suggested (his intent has been disputed) that a stamp tax might not be
imposed if the colonial legislatures came up with alternative taxes. At
least Montagu thought this is what Grenville suggested. The Virginia
committee even told Montagu in its July letter, "if a reasonable
apportionm't be laid before the Legislature of this Country, their past
Compliance with his Majesty's several Requisitions during the late
expensive War, leaves no room to doubt that they will do everything
that can be reasonably expected of them." It made no difference, for
even before the agents could receive replies from their various
colonies, Grenville had fixed upon the stamp act itself. This was
probably just as well for the Virginians, once they reflected on the
requisition scheme, came to believe that taxes imposed by the General
Assembly to offset a threatened tax by parliament were as unpalatable
and unconstitutional as a tax passed by parliament.
On December 18, 1765, the Virginia General Assembly confirmed the
constitutional stance taken by its committee in July. Unanimously the
House of Burgesses and the council sent a polite address to the king,
an humble memorial to the House of Lords, and a firm remonstrance to
the commons. The commons' resolution of March 17 was against "British
Liberty that Laws imposing Taxes on the People ought not be made
without the Consent of Representatives chosen by themselves; who at the
same time that they are acquainted with the Circumstances of their
Constituents, sustain a Proportion of the Burthen laid upon them."[15]
From this position, Virginia never retreated.
[15] William Van Schreeven and Robert Scribner, Revolutionary
Virginia: The Road to Independence, Vol. I. A. Documentary Record
(University Press of Virginia: Charlottesville, 1973), 9-14. This
volume contains the main revolutionary statements of the
assembly, conventions, and certain county and quasi-legal local
gatherings, 1763-1774.
By the time parliament took up the Stamp Act in February 1765, the die
was already cast. Members of parliament were outraged by the
presumptuous claims of the colonial assemblies to sovereignty co-equal
with itself. Only a few members questioned the wisdom of the act. Issac
Barré won fame as a patriot member of parliament for his eloquent
defense of the colonies as he called on the Commons to "remember I this
Day told you so, that same Spirit of Freedom which actuated that people
at first, will accompany them still." Yet even Barré would not deny
parliament's right to pass the tax. The House of Commons refused even
to receive the petitions from the colonial legislatures and passed the
act into law on March 22, 1765.
Covering over 25 pages in the statute book, the Stamp Act imposed a tax
on documents and paper products ranging from nearly all court
documents, shipping papers, and mortgages, deeds, and land patents to
cards, dice, almanacs, and newspapers, including the advertisements in
them. Charges ranged from 3d to 10s, with a few as high as £10, all to
be paid in specie. Virtually no free man in Virginia was left untouched
by the tax. Edmund Pendleton, upon hearing of its passage, lamented
"Poor America".
The law was to become effective on November 1, 1765.
The Stamp Act Resolves, May 1765
That the May 1765 session of the Virginia General Assembly became one
of the most famous in the state's history was totally unanticipated by
all political experts. The only reason Governor Fauquier called the
session was to amend the frequently revised tobacco planting and
inspection law. The Stamp Act already had been taken care of by the
remonstrance in December. A new issue did develop when Governor
Fauquier announced that all outstanding Virginia paper currency must be
redeemed by March 1st, after which it no longer would be legal tender.
As the money poured into the treasurer's office, it rapidly became
apparent what Richard Henry Lee had suspected as early as 1763 and what
many debt-ridden Tidewater planter-burgesses personally knew--Robinson
was tens of thousands of pounds short in his accounts. The shortage,
which turned out to be £106,000, derived from the speaker-treasurer's
habit of lending his fellow planters tax funds to pay private debts to
British merchants. The speaker, whom Jefferson called "an excellent
man, liberal, friendly, and rich", had anticipated improvement in the
economic climate would bring the money in. Meanwhile he could always
rely on his own great private fortune. He failed to count on the
continued economic depression, the passage of the Currency Act, or the
living standards of his debtors. Something had to be done and quickly.
While the tobacco revision was working its way through committees, the
speaker and his debtor-burgess friends devised a public loan office
plan to take up the debts, provide an alternative source for funds, and
relieve Robinson of his burden. Such a plan would have raised the ire
of Richard Henry Lee, but the burgess from Westmoreland was sitting out
this supposedly "short, uneventful meeting." He had made a monumental
error in political judgment, having applied to the crown to be the
Stamp Act agent in Virginia. Robinson knew this and quietly warned Lee
that he should stay home. Robinson did not anticipate the unlikely duo
which would bring down the public loan office. Leading the opposition
in the House was Patrick Henry, first-term burgess from Louisa County.
Directing his attack against favoritism and special interest
legislation, Henry, who had developed a thriving legal trade
representing creditors against debtors, knew whereof he spoke when he
exclaimed, "What, sir, is it proposed then to reclaim the spendthrift
from his dissipation and extravagance, by filling his pockets with
money?" Robinson had the votes and carried the house, but lost in the
council whose members disliked all public finance schemes. Chief
opponent was Richard Corbin, wealthy, receiver-general of royal
revenues and later Tory. In words nearly identical to Henry's, Corbin
noted, "To Tax People that are not in Debt to lend to those that are is
highly unjust, it is in Fact to tax the honest, frugal, industrious
Man, in order to encourage the idle, the profligate, the Extravagant,
and the Gamester". Council defeated the loan plan. With the tobacco
laws revised and the loan scheme defeated and only routine legislation
in committee, most burgesses left town.
Exactly when or why Patrick Henry, George Johnston of Fairfax, and John
Fleming of Cumberland decided to offer the Stamp Act Resolves is lost
in obscurity. Our sources are principally Thomas Jefferson, then a
college student at William and Mary, Paul Carrington, a pro-Henry
burgess from Charlotte County, and an unknown French traveler who stood
with Jefferson at the house chamber doors. Jefferson and Carrington did
not record their thoughts until a half-century later, during which the
sequence of events became blurred by time. The Frenchman, who stood
with Jefferson at the house chamber doors, missed the subtleties of the
language and parliamentary procedure. One thing is clear--men who heard
Patrick Henry never forgot the impression he made on them.
Governor Fauquier suggested that many burgesses were not satisfied with
the remonstrance against the Stamp Act in December. Although he
described the remonstrance as "very warm and indecent", he told the
Board of Trade the original version was much more inflammatory and its
language was "mollified" so that the Assembly could convey its
opposition to the Stamp Tax without giving the "least offense" to crown
and parliament. Fauquier also observed that economic uncertainties had
made Virginians "uneasy, peevish, and ready to murmur at every
Occurrence." Henry suggests that he drew up the Resolves when he found
no one else was willing to do so after hearing of the actual passage of
the Tax Act. Whatever the reason, Henry and his associates were ready
to abandon the niceties of formal address and constitutional subtleties
and to give "offense", especially in view of parliament's refusal to
hear the remonstrance.
Only 39 of the 119 elected burgesses were sitting on May 29, 1765 when
Patrick Henry introduced and George Johnston seconded seven resolutions
for consideration by the house. The first five stated:
Resolved, That the first Adventurers and Settlers of this his
Majesty's Colony and Dominion brought with them and transmitted to
their Posterity and all other his Majesty's Subjects since
inhabiting in this his Majesty's said Colony, all the Privileges,
Franchises and Immunities that have at any time been held, enjoyed,
and possessed by the people of Great Britain.
Resolved, That by two royal Charters granted by King James first
the Colonists aforesaid are declared intituled to all the
Privileges, Liberties, and Immunities of Denizens and natural-born
Subjects, to all Intents and Purposes as if they had been abiding
and born within the Realm of England.
Resolved, That the Taxation of the People by themselves or by
Persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know
what Taxes the People are able to bear, and the easiest Mode of
raising them, and are equally affected by such Taxes Themselves, is
the distinguishing Characteristic of British Freedom and without
which the ancient Constitution cannot subsist.
Resolved, That his Majesty's liege People of this most ancient
Colony have uninterruptedly enjoyed the Right of being thus
governed by their own assembly in the article of the Taxes and
internal Police, and that the same hath never been forfeited or any
other way given up but hath been constantly recognized by the Kings
and People of Great Britain.
Resolved, Therefore that the General Assembly of this Colony have
the only and sole exclusive Right and Power to lay Taxes and
Impositions upon the Inhabitants of this Colony and that every
Attempt to vest such Power in any Person or Persons whatsoever,
other than the General Assembly aforesaid, has a manifest Tendency
to destroy British as well as American Freedom.
There were two other resolves which apparently were defeated during
debate while the house was in committee. The record is not clear. In
one sense it makes no difference. All seven were printed and circulated
in the other colonies and in London as if they were the official
actions of the Virginia House of Burgesses. They read:
Whereas, the honorable house of Commons in England have of late
drawn into question how far the general assembly of this colony
hath power to enact laws for laying of taxes and imposing duties,
payable by the people of this, his majesty's most ancient colony:
for settling and ascertaining the same to all future times, the
house of burgesses of this present general assembly have come to
the following resolves:
Resolved, That his majesty's liege people, the inhabitants of this
colony, are not bound to yield obedience to any law or ordinance
whatever, designed to impose any taxation whatsoever upon them,
other than the laws or ordinances of the general assembly
aforesaid,
Resolved, That any person who shall, by speaking or writing, assert
or maintain that any person or persons, other than the general
assembly of this colony, have any right or power to impose or lay
any taxation on the people here, shall be deemed an enemy to his
majesty's colony.[16]
[16] Ibid., 15-18; resolves 6 and 7 are cited in Meade, Henry, I,
171.
The first four resolves were straightforward restatements of the
remonstrance and Bland's earlier declarations against parliamentary
authority. The fifth went beyond control over taxes to exclude all
duties, even navigation duties for regulatory purposes. The sixth and
seventh were "pure Patrick Henry", reminiscent of his statements before
the Hanover jury in the Parsons' Cause, probably treasonous, certainly
incendiary and revolutionary.
Discussion lasted all through the 29th with the opposition led by
Richard Bland, George Wythe, Peyton Randolph, Speaker Robinson, and
Benjamin Harrison contending that the time was inappropriate for more
resolutions. Both house and council were already on record against the
Stamp Act which no Virginian wanted. More resolutions were unnecessary,
especially resolutions which were as inflammatory as these. Sometime
during these debates the sixth and seventh resolves were eliminated.
Probably the next day, May 30th, the first four resolves passed by
votes of 22-17 with little real objection to the substance only to the
wisdom of more resolutions.
The fifth resolution was another story. The stumbling block was the
phrase "only and sole exclusive Right and Power to lay Taxes".
Jefferson called the debate "most bloody". Henry, in his will, called
them "violent Debates. Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast
on me...." Some time during the debates, observers agree, Henry
exclaimed the theme of his immortal phrase:
Tarquin and Caesar had each his Brutus, Charles the First his
Cromwell, and George the Third--'Treason' proclaimed Speaker
Robinson--may profit by their Example. If this be Treason, Make the
most of it.
His speech may have been embellished by time. There can be no denying,
however, what Jefferson 40 years later remembered. "Torrents of sublime
eloquence from Mr. Henry, backed by the solid reasoning of Johnson,
prevailed."
The fifth measure carried by one vote, 20-19, causing Peyton Randolph
to mutter as he pushed through the door past Jefferson, "by God, I
would have given 500 guineas for a single vote."[17]
[17] A guinea equalled 21 shillings or £525. Later Jefferson said
100 guineas. Jefferson's comments are found in Stan. V. Henkels,
"Jefferson's Recollections of Patrick Henry," Pennsylvania
Magazine of History and Biography, XXXIV, 385-418.
How had these two men, Henry and Johnston brought it off. One was 29,
the other 65; one was a first-time burgess, the other a veteran member.
(Henry was not as unknown as popular myth would have it. He had been in
Williamsburg during the debates over the remonstrance and had
represented a client in an election fraud case before the house.)
First, they had benefited from the departure of two-thirds of the
burgesses; second, there was the frustration over parliament's outright
refusal to even read the remonstrance; third, there was the formation,
probably by Johnston, of a coalition of the younger generation of
planter-gentry living in the Piedmont, the ambitious backcountry
burgesses, and the Northern Neck faction led by Francis Lighfoot Lee of
Loudoun and Thomas Ludwell Lee of Stafford; fourth, there was Henry
himself, of whom Jefferson at a time when he had come to dislike Henry,
still could say "he was the best humoured man in society I almost ever
knew, and the greatest orator that ever lived. He had a consummate
knowledge of the human heart, which directing the efforts of his
eloquence enabled him to attain a degree of popularity with the people
at large never perhaps equalled."[18]
[18] The record is sparse because no recorded votes were kept; so
the only known votes in favor of the Resolves were: Henry of
Louisa, Johnston of Fairfax, John Fleming of Cumberland, Henry
Blagrave and William Taylor of Lunenburg, Robert Munford and
Edmund Taylor of Mecklenburg, and Paul Carrington and Thomas
Reade of Charlotte. As the twists of fate would have it, all
these counties except Fairfax were named for the Hanoverians. It
is almost certain the Lee brothers voted "yes".
With the five resolves passed, Henry departed Williamsburg. Enough
Tidewater votes were corralled by Robinson and Councilor Peter Randolph
the following day, the 31st, to rescind and expunge from the record the
fifth resolve. Much to the chagrin of Fauquier, no attempt was made to
remove the first four.
As with the sixth and seventh resolves, this last-ditch effort made no
difference. The public printer, conservative Joseph Royle of the
Virginia Gazette, refused to publish the resolves at all. What
went into print outside the colonies were the four true resolves, plus
the three spurious ones, often made more radical in tone as they were
reprinted. The effect was electric. If this was the expression of the
Virginia House of Burgesses, long thought to be the most reasoned in
its approach to constitutional issues, then a new day had arrived. No
wonder patriots in Philadelphia, Newport, New York, and Boston shouted
with joy when they read them and responded with equally vigorous
statements, although all stopped short of the direct words of the sixth
and seventh resolves. Massachusetts, which for once had lagged behind,
called for a Stamp Act Congress to meet in New York in October.
Virginia did not attend, for Governor Fauquier would not call the
assembly into session to elect representatives. Virginians did not need
to be there. Everyone knew where they stood. The Stamp Act Congress
quickly picked up the spirit, although not the strident language of the
Henry Resolves, and declared all taxes, internal and external, should
be repealed.
Too much should not be made of the division between the Henry-Johnston
forces and the Robinson-Randolph-Bland-Wythe group. The division was
not one of concern about the goal, but rather the means to be used to
reach the unanimously agreed-upon goal--how to retain rights Virginians
believed were theirs and which they thought they were about to lose.
What Henry had done was to imbue "with all the fire of his passion the
protest which the House of Burgesses had made in 1764 in rather tame
phraseology. In neither case was there a difference of principle; in
both, all the difference in the world in power and effect."[19]
[19] Hamilton J. Eckenrode, Revolution in Virginia (New York,
1916), 22.
The effect was permanent. Said Jefferson, "By these resolutions Mr.
Henry took the lead out of the hands of those (who) had heretofore
guided the proceedings of the House, that is to say, of Pendleton,
Wythe, Bland, Randolph, Nicholas. These were honest and able men, who
had begun the opposition on the same grounds, but with a moderation
more adapted to their age and experience. Subsequent events favored the
bolder spirits of Henry, the Lees, Pages, Mason etc." And as soon as he
could join them, Jefferson.
The Stamp Act Crisis: 1765-1766
The Stamp Act brought violence, rioting, and destruction in several
colonies. Virginia met the act with rigid non-compliance, reasoned
arguments, "friendly persuasion", non-importation of British goods, and
finally, nullification of the act altogether. Virginians of all ranks
united against the Stamp Act as they were not to unite against any
British action thereafter. No one defended the act. Virginians were
aided by the complicity and courage of soft-spoken Governor Francis
Fauquier.
Enforcing the Stamp Act depended upon having a law to enforce, a
commissioner to administer it, and stamps to attach to the documents.
Colonel George Mercer, prominent planter who had won the commissioner's
post from Richard Henry Lee, arrived in Williamsburg from London on
October 30, 1765. The law was to take effect on November 1. As Mercer's
ill-luck would have it, the Virginia General Court was in session and
hundreds of citizens were in town, many of them the leading gentry and
lawyers. Hearing that Mercer had arrived, a crowd quickly gathered and
moved on the Mercer family residence. Learning of their coming, Mercer
set out to meet them. At once they demanded to know whether or not he
would resign his post. Mercer pleaded for time and promised an answer
before the law would become effective. With that he went to what is now
Mrs. Christiana Campbell's coffee house where the governor was eating.
The crowd followed. After talking with Mercer briefly, the governor
invited him to the palace and walked unescorted with Mercer through the
assembled hundreds. Privately to the Board of Trade, Fauquier remarked
that he would have called the crowd a "mob, did I (not) know that it
was chiefly if not altogether composed of Gentlemen of property in the
Colony, some of them at the Head of their Respective counties, and
Merchants of the Country, whether English, Scotch, or Virginia."
Mercer, after talking with the governor, returned to his father's house
and discussed the situation with his brothers. The next morning he
found 2,000 Virginians assembled and awaiting his answer. Concluding it
was "an Impossibility to execute the Act" and "being obliged to submit
to Numbers", he resigned as commissioner and wrote Fauquier that he had
no stamps with which to execute the act. With that the crowd carried
him off in triumph to the coffee house.
Virginia developed a clever legal stratagem to allow the tobacco fleet
to sail without the required stamps. Here the agreement of governor,
gentry, merchants, and ship captains was essential. Once Mercer had
resigned and stated he had no stamps for the customs office, Councilor
Peter Randolph, in his capacity of Surveyor General of His Majesty's
Customs, declared the ships could sail for England with the stamps on
the ships' manifests. Governor Fauquier then followed with sealed
certificates for each ship captain attesting to this fact and relieving
the captains of any responsibility for non-compliance. With that the
tobacco fleet sailed off to England and Scotland.
The other Virginia institution most effected by the tax was the court
system. The General Court closed. Many county courts did likewise. At
the suggestion of Richard Henry Lee, the Westmoreland County court on
September 24, 1765 stated it would not sit again until the Stamp Act
was repealed. Northampton County court took a radically different
approach proposed by Littleton Eyre and stayed open, declaring the
Stamp Act "did not bind, affect or concern the inhabitants of this
colony, inasmuch as they conceive the same to be unconstitutional." The
neighboring Eastern Shore county of Accomac followed suit. Edmund
Pendleton advised James Madison, Sr., that justices of the peace should
serve on the county courts and the courts should stay open, for the
justices had taken an oath to uphold the law since the Stamp Act was
unconstitutional, they would not be violating their oaths if they held
court without the stamps. It was a strange restructuring of British
constitutional procedure which saw Virginia county courts and
individual justices of the peace declaring the laws of parliament
unconstitutional. Nullification of the law was at hand.
Most county courts stayed closed to pursue Lee's tactics of applying
pressure on British merchants who needed the courts to enforce
contracts and collect debts. By closing the courts and boycotting
British imports, the Virginians put pressure on the merchants who put
pressure on the government. Asserting pressure in a more direct manner,
Lee and his fellow gentry, and any other freeholders who wanted to
attend, gathered at Leedstown, Westmoreland County, on February 27,
1766 and drew up an "association". They restated the Stamp Act Resolves
and asserted that should anyone comply with the Stamp Act the
"associators--will with the utmost Expedition convince all such
Profligates, that immediate danger and disgrace shall attend their
prostitute Purpose." Should any associator suffer as a result of his
action, the others pledged "at the utmost risk of our Lives and
Fortunes to restore such Associate to his Liberty." The next day the
associators crossed over the Rappahannock to Hobb's Hole and
"convinced" Tory merchant Archibald Ritchie to forego his announced
intention to use stamps. A similar association in Norfolk, the Sons of
Liberty, actually tarred and feathered ship captain William Smith, tied
him to a pony cart and dragged him through Norfolk streets to Market
House. Along the way by-standers, including Mayor Maximilian Calvert,
heaved rocks and rotten eggs at the hapless captain whose final
humiliation came when he was tossed into the harbor beside his
ship.[20] Small wonder ship captains did not sail to Virginia and
London merchants were quickly submitting petitions against the Stamp
Act.
[20] The resolution of the Westmoreland and Northumberland
courts, and Leadstown Association, and the Norfolk Sons of
Liberty are found in Van Schreeven and Scribner, Revolutionary
Virginia, I, 19-26, 25-48.
Repeal and the Declaratory Act, 1766
In July 1766 for reasons unrelated to the American crisis, George III
replaced the Grenville ministry with a new ministry, headed by the
Marquis of Rockingham, which included the Duke of Newcastle, Henry
Conway, and the Duke of Grafton. Missing was the Old Whigs principal
leader, William Pitt, who preferred to pursue his independent and
mercurial ways. The Rockingham ministry, most of whose members had
disliked the Stamp Act from the beginning, drew their greatest strength
from the merchant communities. By the time parliament opened in
December, Rockingham and his supporters were in agreement--the act must
be repealed. But how? The violence and riots in Boston and Newport had
raised cries against property destruction while the extreme
constitutional position attributed to Virginia and the Stamp Act
Congress challenged the very heart of parliament's sovereignty. Pitt
hardly helped Rockingham by excoriating Grenville and exclaiming, "I
rejoice that America resisted."
Pitt did, however, inadvertently propose the solution when he concluded
his denunciation by saying:
... the Stamp Act (must) be repealed absolutely, totally, and
immediately. That a reason be assigned, because it was founded on
an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign
authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as
strong terms of legislation whatsoever. That we may bind their
trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power
whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets
without their consent.[21]
[21] Cited in Morgans, Stamp Act, 335. The discussion which
follows accepts as convincing the Morgan's contention, pgs.
15-154, that the colonists made no distinction between internal
and external taxes in theory, only between taxes in general and
navigation acts for regulatory purposes.
Pitt, following the resolution of the Stamp Act Congress, defined
"legislation" to mean laws governing trade for regulation and general
government, but not internal or external taxes.
By January the clamor for repeal in financially-stricken London rose to
fever pitch, but no solution which admitted that the act was based on
"erroneous principle" would pass. Finally, a Declaratory Act was passed
embodying the ambivalent statement to the effect that parliament did
have the power to make laws binding on the colonies "in all Cases
whatsoever." Though Pitt and the colonists interpreted laws to mean
everything except taxes, others interpreted it to mean taxes; and still
others interpreted it to mean internal but not external taxes. But the
ambivalence was removed when Pitt and Isaac Barre sought to remove the
phrase "in all cases whatsoever" to prevent it being used to justify
taxes. They failed. Thus, when the Declaratory Act passed, most members
of parliament were convinced they had declared their authority to levy
taxes even though they had repealed a specific tax, the Stamp Tax.
In that same series of debates and those which followed on repeal
itself, the idea grew in the minds of many members that the colonists
had made a distinction between "internal" and "external" taxes--the one
levied on goods and services inside the colony and the other levied
outside the colony or before the goods reached the colony. The first
might be the prerogative of the colonial assembly, the other of
parliament. Undoubtedly, many seized upon the distinction between
"internal-external" as a principle they could accept in the midst of a
serious setback and failure. If so, they were helped along by a
magnificent presentation by Benjamin Franklin, agent for Pennsylvania,
who presented the colonial case to the commons. In his astute and often
clever way, Franklin dodged the internal-external issue, knowing full
well most house members would not accept the idea of complete colonial
autonomy on tax matters, while the colonists would accept nothing less.
He hoped repeal would remove the immediate difficulty and parliament
would avoid the taxation issue in the future. His brilliant
presentation was instrumental in gaining repeal of the Stamp Act, but
the short-term solution created long-term confusion.[22]
[22] ibid., 327-352.
Nevertheless, repeal was achieved and a collective sigh of relief was
heard in London and in the colonies. The colonists rejoiced in their
victory. A few men like George Mason read the Declaratory Act and the
debates carefully and concluded that the act did not disavow
parliament's taxing power. Until a specific disclaimer was included,
the problem was not solved. Mason was particularly defiant and
sarcastic about the claims by London merchants that they had been able
to gain repeal only by promising good behavior from the colonies in the
future and warning the Virginians not to challenge parliament again. In
his reply Mason mockingly declared:
The epithets of parent and child have been so long applied to Great
Britain and her colonies, that ... we rarely see anything from your
side of the water free from the authoritative style of a master to
a schoolboy:
"We have with infinite difficulty and fatigue got you excused this
one time; pray be a good boy for the future, do what your papa and
mama bid you, and hasten to return them your most grateful
acknowledgements for condescending to let you keep what is your own
... and if you should at any time hereafter happen to transgress,
your friends will all beg for you and be security for your good
behaviour; but if your are a naughty boy,... then everybody will
hate you, and say you are a graceless and undutiful child; your
parents and masters will be obliged to whip you severely...."[23]
[23] Robert A. Rutland, ed., Papers of George Mason, 3 vols.
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1970), I, 65-73.
One other Virginian did not rest until he had challenged the notion,
much discussed in parliament by commons member Soame Jenyns, that the
colonists, like all British citizens, were "virtually" represented in
parliament. To Richard Bland nothing could be more vital to the rights
of British subjects than to be represented "directly" by those whom
they knew and whom they chose to represent them. In March 1766 he
published his magnificent defense of Virginia rights, An Inquiry
into the Rights of the British Colonies. He would not concede to
parliament the notion that the colonies and colonists were represented
"virtually" in that body just as the nine out of ten Englishmen were
who did not have the vote, or because members of commons were elected
from districts in which they did not live or own property, or because
nearly every profession and "interest", be it merchant, farmer, west
Indian planter, physicians, soldier, clergy, and even a few Americans
sat in parliament. The Inquiry was a hard-hitting defense of
"direct representation". Interlaced with citations to the ancient
charters of Virginia were terms of fury--"detestable Thought",
"Ungenerous Insinuation", "despicable Opinion", "slavery",
"oppression", terms which suggest the level to which rhetoric had risen
even for as rational a man as the moderate burgess from Prince George
County, now grown "tough as whitleather" with "something of the look of
musty old Parchments which he handleth and studieth much". The
Inquiry was widely read in Virginia and England and its
statement on "direct representation" became the standard American
defense against "virtual representation" and any half-way measure which
would have given the colonies a few seats in parliament in the manner
of Scotland or Wales.
Still the conservative Bland, who said things in a most radical way,
was among those most happy to read Governor Fauquier's proclamation of
June 9, 1766 announcing Repeal.[24]
[24] For the full text of Bland's Inquiry, see Van Schreeven and
Scribner, Revolutionary America, I, 27-44.
British Politics and the Townshend Act, 1766-1770.
The fluid British political situation shifted again in July 1767. The
conciliatory Rockingham ministry, having brought off the Stamp Act
repeal and modification of the Sugar Act of 1764, could not sustain
itself in office. Members of both commons and lords had fought doggedly
against repeal and accepted defeat only after considerable patronage
pressures from the ministry. These ministry opponents were determined
to reassert, on the first opportunity, parliament's authority over the
colonies, believing to delay such a confrontation was a sign of
weakness. Within the Rockingham ministry personality conflicts
developed which eventually brought the ministry to a standstill.
George III correctly perceived that his government faced an emergency.
In this crisis he turned to Pitt to lead a new ministry. In one way the
king and Pitt were alike. They were "probably the only men in the
eighteenth century to believe absolutely in (their) own slogans about
patriotism, purity, and a better system of conducting government."[25]
On the other hand they differed as to what these terms meant. The
intent was good, the timing was wrong. Pitt, for reasons still somewhat
obscure, accepted a peerage and became Lord Chatham and opened the door
to cries of corruption and sell-out by the "Great Commoner." More
significantly, Chatham was trying to lead a ministry from the House of
Lords. He could not bring it off and sank deeper into that melancholia
which left him mentally incapacitated during much of his ministry's
short life.
[25] J. Steven Watson, THE REIGN OF GEORGE III (Oxford, 1960), 4.
American affairs fell into the hands of the brilliant, egotistical,
unstable, and ambitious Charles Townshend, whom Pitt called in as his
chancellor of the exchequer. Townshend was one of those junior
government officials who, during the French and Indian War, had
discovered the economic richness and maturity of the colonies and their
constitutional rebelliousness. He had opposed repeal and represented
the gradual infiltration of ministry positions by men who believe the
colonists should pay for their government in a manner which
forthrightly established parliamentary supremacy. In the 1750's he had
developed a plan to bring the colonies into check. Once given the
opportunity by Chatham, he seized it with enthusiasm. That opportunity
came with the huge deficit in American defense costs for 1766 and New
York's intransigent defiance of the Mutiny Act of 1765 (the Quartering
Act.)
The Revenue Act of 1767 (the Townshend Act) was a direct challenge to
colonial self-government and a true measure of the chancellor's
insensitivity and folly. Citing the supposed distinction between
"internal" and "external" taxes, a distinction which he, himself, did
not believe existed, Townshend proposed import duties on glass, paints,
lead, paper, and tea, of which only tea was a potential producer of any
real revenue. The funds from these import duties were assigned to pay
the salaries of colonial governors and other royal officials and were
not for defense expenditures. Had Townshend calculated a means for
arousing the ire of the colonists, he could not have chosen a better
device. It was an injustice that Townshend died suddenly before he had
to wrestle with the consequence of his actions.
By 1769 Chatham finally realized he could not longer govern and
resigned the government to his hero-worshipping follower, the Duke of
Grafton, ostensibly over the decision of Chatham's own ministers to
dismiss General Jeffrey Amherst as titular governor of Virginia and
replace him with Norbonne Berkeley, Baron de Boutetourt.[26] Actually,
Chatham's policies in Europe and America had been repudiated and
"hardliners" were regaining power. Grafton managed to hold on and to do
nothing until February 1770 when the Whig majority completely fell
apart and the king turned to Lord North and the Tories to run the
country.
[26] Ibid. (From 1710 to 1768 the governor for Virginia did not
reside in the colony, choosing instead to accept a fixed salary
and agreeing to send in his stead a lieutenant-governor who
actually exercised all the power. This system ended with Amherst
and his lieutenant-governor, Francis Fauquier, who died in March
1768.)
One result of this political infighting and personality conflict was
support for the king. Amidst the factionalism, corruption, and greed,
independent members of parliament saw the crown as the only means for
creative, effective leadership. For that reason George, after 1770, not
only had a minister he could work with, he had a more tractable
parliament aided by the complete disintegration of the Whigs and a
hardening attitude toward the Americans whose actions bordered on
disloyalty, if not treason.
Virginia Politics, 1766-1768
Political leadership in Virginia also underwent a change after 1766.
Unlike Britain, the changes in Virginia broadened political leadership
to include the new elements which emerged during the Stamp Act debates,
the Lee-Henry group. It also brought into power those who were less
likely to be satisfied with political addresses and constitutional
niceties should parliament pass into law the powers it claimed in the
Declaratory Act.
In May 1766 Speaker-Treasurer John Robinson died. His death coincided
with the murder by his son-in-law, Colonel John Chiswell, of Robert
Routledge of Cumberland County in a tavern fight. Although his
father-in-law and his Randolph relatives managed to gain his release
from jail pending trial, Chiswell believed he was going to be convicted
if the case came to trial and chose suicide to jail. Both events shook
the Robinson-Randolph leadership and the gentry everywhere. Robinson's
death brought into the open the extent of his financial problems and
persons to whom he had loaned money.
In 1766 Virginians were treated to another new phenomenon--an open and
free press. From 1732 when William Parks set up the Virginia Gazette
until 1766 there had been only one paper in the colony. Besides the
paper relied heavily upon the government, both royal and assembly, for
printing contracts, the Gazette tended to print only news which would
not offend. After 1766 there were three Virginia Gazettes, being
published simultaneously in Williamsburg by William Hunter, William
Rind, and Alexander Purdie. In aggressively seeking subscribers and
advertisers in lieu of government printing contracts the two new papers
gave extensive coverage to the Robinson scandals, the Chiswell murder
case, and the running debates between the various candidates for
Robinson's offices. From 1766 on Virginians had a public forum for
political debates in the letters-to-the-editor columns on British
policies and actions.
The immediate result of Robinson's death was the division of his two
offices. After vigorous campaigning previously unknown in Virginia,
Peyton Randolph won out as speaker over the Lee candidate, Richard
Bland. Robert Carter Nicholas, who had conducted the first newspaper
campaign in Virginia, was elected treasurer. John Randolph replaced his
brother as attorney-general. Major changes came in the house committees
where Lee, Henry, and friends were placed on the powerful Committee on
Elections and Privileges. The death of Robinson did not result in an
overthrow of the Tidewater leadership. Virginia leadership has seldom
changed in a dramatic fashion. Instead, the prevailing groups have
tended to expand just enough to include those who gained political
power, but not those who have demagogically courted it.
Lee, with his great planter family tradition, was merely admitted to a
house leadership at a time when most members were sharing his
passionate dislike of the British. Henry won his spurs not before the
crowd but on the floor of the House of Burgesses. At a time when the
British were falling into greater factionalism, the Virginians were
healing breaches. The willingness of Richard Bland, a cousin of Peyton
Randolph, to run for the speakership with Lee-Henry backing is one
example of this truth.
The Townshend Act in Virginia, 1767-1771
Reaction to the Townshend Act was greatest in the northern colonies
which it most directly affected. Reaction was sharpest in
Massachusetts. There the legislature passed and distributed a circular
letter in February 1768 urging all colonies to join in a petition to
the king against the intent of the act--to make the governor and other
officials financially independent from the legislatures over which they
presided. The situation in Massachusetts, as it had in the latter
stages of the Stamp Act Crisis, quickly degenerated into violence, and
General Gage had to send British troops to restore order in Boston.
The Virginia General Assembly was in session when the circular letter
arrived in April 1768. The house formed a committee headed by Bland to
draw up another petition to the king, memorial to the lords, and
remonstrance to the commons. Moderate in tone, but forceful in defense
of Virginian's rights, the 1767 Remonstrance protested parliament's
passage of the tax package and perhaps most forcefully denounced
parliament's action in closing the New York legislature for opposing
the Mutiny Act. The council concurred in these addresses. Before the
assembly could move on to bolder actions, the meeting was prorogued by
President John Blair. The assembly did not meet again until May 1769.
In the interim Lord Botetourt arrived to replace Fauquier who had died
in March 1768.
By the time the burgesses reassembled other colonies had formed
non-importation agreements and were boycotting British goods. On May 16
the House of Burgesses adopted resolutions reasserting its exclusive
right to levy taxes in Virginia and condemning recent parliamentary
proposals to transport colonists accused of treason to England for
trial. George Washington introduced a non-importation plan devised by
Richard Henry Lee and George Mason. Before the house could act
Botetourt dissolved the assembly. This time most of the house moved up
the street to the Raleigh Tavern where 89 of them signed a
non-importation association on May 18, 1769. Lee, Mason, and Washington
proposed a ban on tobacco exports as well, but lost. The association
called for a ban on British imports, a reduced standard of living to
lessen dependence of British credit, and the purchase of goods produced
in America. Hopefully, the British merchants again would bring pressure
on parliament.
The association, which was voluntary and lacked enforcement procedures,
was only partially successful in Virginia. A second association was
announced in May 1770 following repeal of all the Townshend duties
except the tea duty. By late summer the boycott had collapsed although
the association was not dissolved until 1771.
Neither in Virginia nor the other colonies did the Townshend protests
arouse the passions or unanimity of support generated by the Stamp Act.
The lack of strong reaction may have been the result of a number of
factors. The Townshend duties applied to goods which were less widely
used than those affected by the Stamp Act. The Virginia economy was
still struggling to recover its forward momentum, and the merchants who
had to bear the greatest burden in the boycott were reluctant to
protest too strongly. In addition, the colonists had a feeling the
duties would be repealed. Most importantly, the imposition of a duty to
pay for the governor's salary was no issue in Virginia where the
assembly had given the governor a permanent salary in 1682.
In 1770 the duties, except for the Tea Tax, were repealed. George
Mason, Thomas Nelson, Jr., and Thomas Jefferson lamented the retention
of the Tea Tax as a symbol of British oppression and supported the
half-hearted "association". Most Virginians agreed with Robert Carter
Nicholas' plea:
Let things but return to their old channel, and all will be well;
We shall once more be a happy people.
The False Interlude, 1770-1773
The Chesapeake tobacco economy rebounded sharply upward in the early
1770's. The recovery from the recession of the 1760's soothed many
ruffled feelings and Virginians were "once more a happy people."
Unfortunately it was a false prosperity. The old economic problems
reappeared in 1773. Overproduction of tobacco, overextension of credit
by British merchants, speculation in lands and tobacco, and inflated
prices caused the tobacco economy to collapse. The crisis first
appeared when several leading Glasgow merchants failed. They were
unable to pay their own creditors and unable to call in money from
Virginia. Several large London firms followed the Scots into
bankruptcy, and a general retrenchment of tobacco credit followed
throughout 1773 and into 1774.
The calm produced by repeal of the duties also was false. There were
many Englishmen who understood the problem. Said Edmund Burk, the most
creditable opponent of the various tax schemes and the most cogent
defender of colonial liberty in parliament:
The Americans have made a discovery, or think they have made one,
that we mean to oppress them. We have made a discovery, or think we
have made one, that they intend to rise in rebellion against us...
we know not how to advance; they know not how to retreat....
Lord North put his finger squarely on the issue as it remained
unresolved after 1770:
The language of America is, We are not subjects of the king; with
parliament we have nothing to do.
That is the point at which the factions have been aiming; upon that
they have been shaking hands.
The empire was being held together by a king. Affection for the crown
and love for the British constitution as the best government in the
world was the hallmark of Virginia loyalty. Not until the eve of
independence did Virginians come to believe that the king, himself, had
subverted the constitution. When they did they could no longer "shake
hands". Only outside the empire could the blessings of the true
constitution be retained.
In October of 1770, the beloved governor, Lord Botetourt died. His
successor, the Earl of Dunmore, arrived in July of 1771.
The Road to Revolution, 1773-1774
Virginia tobacco planters and merchants were not alone in their
distress. From India came word of serious, even disastrous, troubles
plaguing the East India Company. The company not only controlled the
tea market, it also governed India for the British. Collapse of the
company would be a major disaster for the crown, company, country, and
colony together. To save the company the north ministry proposed, and
parliament approved, laws to improve company management, lend it money,
lower but enforce the duty on tea, and grant the company a monopoly on
tea sales in England and America.
Reaction in Virginia was quick and pointed. The Tea Act of 1773 raised
two highly volatile issues: the right to tax and the granting of a
trade monopoly on tea. In both instances the principle was most
bothersome. The tea tax was small, but as Bland had said of the Pistole
Fee, "the question then ought not to be the smallness of the demand,
but the Lawfulness of it." A small tax successfully collected would
lead to other levies. Also, a successful monopoly of the tea trade
granted to the East India Company could be followed by similar actions
to the detriment of all American traders, merchants, and consumers. The
discriminatory uses of both taxing power and the Navigation Acts became
pointedly clear in a time of economic decline in which no one was
proposing loans and special privileges for Virginia tobacco planters.
Bland had been right--"LIBERTY and PROPERTY are like those precious
Vessels whose soundness is destroyed by the least flaw and whose use is
lost by the smallest hole."
Virginia was already prepared for intercolonial action. In June 1772
the British ship, Gaspee, ran aground while on customs duty in
Narragansett Sound. Rhode Islanders burned the ship to the water line,
injuring the captain in the process. When the guilty colonists, who
were well-known members of the Providence community, were not
apprehended, a royal proclamation was issued decreeing trial in England
for any of the culprits caught and granting use of troops to help
apprehend them. A royal commission was dispatched to Rhode Island. Such
a commission, if once the precedent was established, could be used
against all the colonies.
For a long time Richard Henry Lee had been advocating an intercolonial
committee of correspondence. Now the time had come to act and for all
the colonies to be more alert to these "transgressions" and "intrusions
upon justice." On March 12, 1773 the House of Burgesses, on a motion by
Dabney Carr, burgess from Albemarle County and brother-in-law to
Jefferson, established a Committee of Correspondence composed of Bland,
Richard Henry Lee, Henry, Jefferson, Robert Carter Nicholas, Benjamin
Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Dudley Digges, Carr, and Archibald Cary to
inquire into the Gaspee affair. More importantly, the resolution called
upon all the other assemblies to "appoint some person or persons of
their respective bodies to communicate from time to time, with the said
committee."[27] Said an unknown "Gentleman of Distinction" (probably a
Lee) in the Virginia Gazette the following day, "... we are
endeavoring to bring our Sister Colonies into the strictest Union with
us; that we may resent, in one Body, any Steps that may be taken by
Administration to deprive any one of us the least Particle of our
Rights and Liberties." Within months every colony had a committee of
correspondence. And within months the "Administration" would deprive
Boston of its rights and liberties.
[27] For the resolution see, Van Schreeven and Scribner,
Revolutionary Virginia, I, 89-92. Also note that this committee
consists of men who ware on opposite sides of the fence in the
Stamp Act debate in 1765.
The Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts
Reaction to the Tea Act was nearly unanimous. The tax should not be
paid and a boycott on tea imposed. A boycott developed in Virginia.
Merchants exhausted their stocks and refused to replenish them. Most
Virginians ceased drinking tea. No one, however, was prepared to resort
to violence, so there was little sympathy among Virginians for the
destruction of tea in Boston harbor by a "tribe of Indians" on December
16, 1774. Old colonial friends in England including Burke, Chatham,
Rose Fuller, and even Isaac Barré were also shocked.
Parliament saw the issue as order, government by law, protection of
private property, and even treason. The long history of riotous actions
by Bostonians was recalled. The commons decided that the time had come
to stand firm. Repeal of the Stamp Act and Townshend Duties had not
brought respect for and acceptance of authority. Mason's "dutiful
child" now was to be "whipped". Boston must be brought into line for
her obstreperousness. The response of parliament was slow, measured,
and calculated. The Coercive Acts (the English name, not the colonial)
took two months to pass. By these acts: 1) the port of Boston was
closed until the destroyed tea was paid for; 2) the Massachusetts
government was radically restructured, the governor's powers enhanced,
and the town meetings abolished; 3) trials of English officials accused
of felonies could be moved to England; and 4) a new Quartering Act
applicable to all colonies went into effect.
At the same time, and unconnected with the Coercive Act, parliament
rendered its final solution to the western land problems by passing the
Quebec Act of 1774. Most of the provisions of the Proclamation of 1763
respecting government were made permanent. All the land north of the
Ohio was to be in a province governed from Quebec. Lost was the hope of
many Virginia land company speculators and those in other colonies as
well. Not only was the land now in the hands of their former French
enemies in Quebec, but the land would be distributed from London and
fall into the hands of Englishmen, not colonials. Coming as it did just
after Governor Dunmore and Colonel Andrew Lewis and his land-hungry
valley frontiersmen had driven the Shawnees north of the Ohio in the
bloody battle of Point Pleasant (1774) (also called Dunmore's War), the
Quebec Act was seen in Virginia as one more act of an oppressive
government, one more act in which the Americans had suffered at the
expense of another part of the empire. That the act was a reasonable
solution to a knotty problem was overlooked.
When the Virginians talked about the Coercive Acts, they called them
the Intolerable Acts and included not just the four Massachusetts laws
but the Quebec Act as well.
Word of the Boston Port Bill and the intent of the other Intolerable
Acts reached Virginia just as the assembly prepared to meet on May 5,
1774. Public indignation built rapidly even among small planters and
farmers who knew little of the constitutional grievances. They could
not understand the "mailed fist" stance implicit in the acts. With the
necessary legislation out of the way, the house on May 24, 1774
appealed to the public at large to send aid to their blockaded
fellow-colonists in Boston. They then declared June 1st, the day the
Boston port was to be closed, "a day of Public Fasting, Prayer, and
Humiliation." A sense of inter-colonial camaraderie was building. Any
reservations Virginians had about the propriety of the Tea Party was
lost in the furious reaction to the Intolerable Acts. Governor Dunmore
on May 26 dissolved the assembly for its action. He could not prevent
the day of fasting and prayer from occurring on June 1st. Nor could he
halt the determined burgesses.
On May 27th the burgesses reassembled informally in Raleigh Tavern,
elected Speaker Randolph to be their moderator, and formed an
association which was signed by 89 burgesses. At the urging of Richard
Henry Lee, the most ardent exponent of intercolonial action, the
burgesses issued a call for the other colonies to join in a Continental
Congress. They then agreed to reassemble in Williamsburg on August 1st
to elect and instruct delegates to the congress and to formulate plans
for a non-importation, non-exportation agreement to bring total
pressure on British merchants.
It would be a year before Lexington and Concord and two years before
the Declaration of Independence, but the revolution in Virginia had
already begun in the true meaning of John Adams' words "the Revolution
was in the minds and hearts of the people." After May 17 the center of
Virginia government moved from the General Assembly to the Virginia
Conventions. The assembly would meet briefly in June 1775, but the real
"mind and heart" of Virginia would be in the convention.
Part III:
From Revolution to Independence
The First Virginia Convention
[Sidenote: "_He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies
without the consent of our legislatures...._"]
By the time members of the convention gathered in Williamsburg on
August 1 popular opinion for stern action against the Coercive Acts was
unequivocal. From Spotsylvania, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Prince William,
Frederick, Dunmore (now Shenandoah), Westmoreland, Prince George,
Essex, Middlesex--in all, 31 towns and counties, came outspoken
resolutions against parliamentary usurpation of Virginia rights.
Liberally sprinkled throughout the resolves were sentiments like, "it
is the fixed Intention of the Said Ministry to reduce the Colonies to a
State of Slavery", "we owe no Obedience to any Act of the British
Parliament", "we will oppose any such Acts with our Lives and
Fortunes", "the present Odious Measures", or "ministerial Hirelings,
and Professed Enemies of American Freedom". The targets were parliament
and the king's ministers. As yet, few Virginians were willing to
believe that they would not receive justice from the king, choosing to
believe instead that the king was as much a victim of parliament's
"corruption" as were the colonists.
The unifying theme in the resolves were calls for "non-importation,
non-exportation, and non-consumption". Halt the importation of all
goods from Britain, export no tobacco or supplies to Britain and the
West Indies, and consume no European goods, luxuries, and above all no
tea. Knowing economic coercion had brought repeal of the Stamp Tax and
the Townshend Duties, they were certain coercion would work against the
Intolerable Acts.[28]
[28] Copies of the extant county and town resolves with the names
of many of the signers can be found in Van Schreeven and
Scribner, Revolutionary Virginia, I, 168. There are known, but
unrecorded, resolves from at least nine more of the 65 Virginia
jurisdictions.
The outpouring of delegates to the non-legal convention, well over 100
of the 153 delegates eligible to serve, so gratified the usually
laconic George Washington that he noted, "We never before had so full a
Meeting of delegates at any one Time." With enthusiasm the
representatives, most of whom had sat as burgesses in May, elected
Peyton Randolph as moderator and issued a call for a Continental
Congress of all the colonies to meet in Philadelphia in the fall.
Much more difficult to achieve were tactics and strategies for applying
economic coercion. While the delegates agreed non-importation should be
instituted, they could not easily agree upon what English and European
goods should be excluded as luxuries. All did agree that no slaves
should be imported. Here the convention went beyond a mere desire to
place economic pressure on British slave traders; their objective was
to halt the trade altogether. The major stumbling block to action was
non-exportation of tobacco and non-collection of debts. While most
exponents of non-exportation and non-collection wanted to break the
business links to Britain and to hasten resolution of the
constitutional impasse, there were some Virginians who undoubtedly
believed that these measures would bring them relief from their
creditors. The majority of the delegates, however, including many of
the radicals and those most deeply in debt, held it was improper to
refuse to send to England tobacco promised to merchants and creditors.
Such a tactic was a violation of private contract and personal honor.
Radical Thomson Mason put it succinctly, "Common honesty requires that
you pay your debts."
Eventually a series of compromises was worked out. All importations
from Britain and the West Indies would cease on November 1, 1774; all
slave importations would cease the same day; no tea would be drunk; and
colonists would wear American-manufactured clothes and support American
industries. If these measures did not bring relief and redress of
grievances, all exports would cease on August 10, 1775. To assure
compliance and enforcement of these agreements 107 delegates signed the
Virginia Association binding themselves together in common action. The
convention elected and instructed Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee,
Washington, Henry, Bland, Harrison, and Pendleton "to represent this
Colony in general Congress". They then departed to establish committees
and associations in every county and town in Virginia. Determination to
aid Massachusetts and a conviction that if one colony suffered, all
suffered, permeated the convention resolutions. John Adams confided in
his diary on August 23, "... saw the Virginia Paper. The Spirit of the
People is prodigious. Their Resolutions are really grand."
Two publications issued during the summer of 1774 confirm the degree to
which Virginians were moving away from Britain toward an autonomous
commonwealth status with the king the only link binding the colonies to
the mother country. The first was a series of letters published in the
Virginia Gazette (Rind) during June and July signed by a
"British American", who later identified himself as Thomson Mason, the
outspoken brother of George Mason. The second were notes and
resolutions by Thomas Jefferson, later published and distributed widely
throughout the colonies under the title, A Summary View of the
Rights of British America.[29]
[29] Both are published in Van Schreeven and Scribner,
Revolutionary Virginia, I, 169-203 and 240-256.
Thomson Mason's letters, often ignored in favor of Jefferson's
Summary View, are especially intriguing because they start with
a favorite Virginia assumption--The British constitution was "the
wisest system of legislation that ever did, or perhaps ever will,
exist". It provided a balance in government between the crown, the
nobility, and the commons, or as Mason suggests, it blended the three
forms of government, "monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy (each)
possessed of their distinct powers, checked, tempered, and improved
each other.... The honour of the monarchy tempered the Impetuousity of
democracy, the moderation of aristocracy checked the ardent aspiring
honour of monarchy, and the virtue of democracy restrained the one,
impelled the other, and invigorated both. In short, no constitution
ever bid so fair for perpetual duration as that of England, and none
ever half so well deserved it, since political liberty was its sole
aim, and the general good of mankind the principal object of its
attention."
What went wrong according to Mason, was not that a hapless king
ascended the throne, but a corrupt aristocracy had perverted parliament
and parliamentary powers to its own end. Therefore, the colonies owed
no obedience to the laws of parliament at all; in fact, to no law
passed by that body since 1607. The people of Virginia should be
prepared to defend themselves and ready to "unsheath the sword" to show
the English aristocracy they were determined to protect the "few Rights
which still remain" and to regain "the many privileges you have already
lost." With great courage Mason signed his name to the last letter, in
which he undoubtedly had written treasonous remarks. It is a measure of
the times that no Virginian rose to shout "Treason!" in 1774.
Jefferson's more famous Summary View moved to nearly the same
conclusion with perhaps even more emotion and rhetoric. Intended to
arouse the convention, from which he was absent, the Summary
View is one of Jefferson's few impassioned pleas, written with
fervor in what Dumas Malone, his distinguished biographer, calls "the
white heat of indignation against the coercive acts."[30] Filled with
errors he would undoubtedly have corrected if he had not fallen sick,
Jefferson directed himself toward moral and philosophical arguments.
The essential question was "What was the political relation between us
and England?". The answer was a voluntary compact entered into between
the king and his people when they voluntarily left England for America,
a compact which they had never renounced, but which parliament had
broken and the king had not protected. He denied the authority of
parliament even to make laws for trade and navigation and asserted
England was now attempting to take for its own benefits the fruits of a
society wrested from the wilderness by the American colonists. These
colonists, having arrived without assistance, voluntarily formed a
government based on their own natural rights and were entitled to
defend those rights and that government against the repeated incursions
of parliament. Then Jefferson touched upon a very telling point in
understanding the radical shift of the colonists in their allegiance
from 1763 to 1775. He noted that while parliament had passed laws
previously which had threatened liberty, these transgressions had been
few and far between. More recently, however,
[30] Dumas Malone, Jefferson the Virginian (Little, Brown:
Boston, 1948), 182. His excellent discussion of the Summary View
is on pages 181-190.
Scarcely have our minds been able to emerge from the astonishment into
which one stroke of parliamentary thunder had involved us, before
another more heavy, and more alarming, is fallen on us. Single acts of
tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a
series of oppressions, begun at a distinguishable (an identifiable
point in time) period, and pursued, unalterably through every change of
ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan for
reducing us to slavery.
To Jefferson in 1774 the source of this conspiracy to reduce the
colonies to slavery was parliament; by 1776 he would identify the king
as being involved as well.
Too rash, and too radical, for the August convention or even for the
Continental Congress in October 1774, the Summary View would earn for
Jefferson an intercolonial reputation as a brilliant writer and a
foremost patriot. It was this reputation which resulted in his
appointment to the committee in June 1776 which drew up a declaration
of independence.
Virginia and the First Continental Congress
On August 30, Washington, Henry, and Pendleton set out from Mount
Vernon for Philadelphia. There they met their fellow Virginians and
delegates from every colony except Georgia whose governor had prevented
the legislature from sending delegates. The Massachusetts men,
conscious that many colonists considered them radical, impulsive, and
even crude, determined to operate behind the scenes, deferring to the
Virginians whom Adams called "the most spirited and consistent of any
delegation". They were successful, for Caesar Rodney of Delaware was
soon complaining that "the Bostonians who have been condemned by many
for their violence are moderate men when compared to Virginia, South
Carolina, and Rhode Island". The union of New England and the southern
colonies quickly produced the election of Peyton Randolph as speaker of
the convention and alarmed the more conservative members like Joseph
Galloway of Pennsylvania.
Try as they might the members of this first congress made slow headway.
They knew little of each other and often spent time defending their own
reputations rather than finding common grounds for action. While bound
together by parliament's invasion of their rights, they could not move
forward in unison with a specific plan to protect those rights. So
limited were their visions by their own provincial experiences that
they had to be asked directly by Patrick Henry, "Where are your
Landmarks; your Boundaries of Colonies. The Distinctions between
Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no
more. I am not a Virginian, but an American!" George Washington in his
more plain way did the same thing by talking about "us" instead of
"you".
Then unfounded rumors circulated that Boston had been bombarded by
General Thomas Gage. Complacency ended. Congress acted with dispatch to
approve the Suffolk Resolves from Massachusetts. In direct, defiant
terms these Resolves restated the rights of the Americans in tones
familiar to Virginians:
"If a boundless Extend of Continent, swarming with Millions, will
tamely submit to live, move and have their Being at the Arbitrary
Will of a licentious Minister, they basely yield to voluntary
Slavery, and future Generations shall load their Memories with
incessant Execrations--On the other Hand, if we arrest the Hand
which would ransack our Pockets.... Posterity will acknowledge the
Virtue which preserved them free and happy...."
Slavery, freedom, happiness, virtue, liberty were the clarion calls to
which the colonials acted and reacted.
When the First Congress had completed its tedious work on October 26, it
had adopted much of the Virginia Convention proposals: non-importation
of British and West Indian products would begin on December 1;
non-exportation, if necessary, would begin on September 1, 1776; and a
Continental Association patterned after the Virginia Association was
urged for every town and county in the colonies to assure enforcement of
the embargoes. Congress prepared an address to the British people and a
mild memorial to the American people setting forth the history of
"Parliamentary subjugation". The delegates turned aside as premature
Richard Henry Lee's call for an independent militia in each colony.
The very conservative nature of the whole revolutionary movement can be
seen in congress' plea to the British people--"Place us in the same
situation we were at the close of the last war, and our former harmony
will be restored." They wanted a restoration of rights they thought
they long had held and now had lost. To do so, however, involved a
concession of parliamentary authority which few in England were willing
to do.
Great Britain Stiffens
Economic coercion through non-importation, non-exportation, and
non-consumption was the main weapon of the colonials. It had worked
before, it was not to work in 1774. There was a growing resentment in
Britain against the colonials' intransigence. Repeal of the Stamp Act
and the Townshend duties had brought no respect from the colonists and
no suggestions about how to relieve the financial pressures on British
taxpayers. Whereas parliament had listened to the pleas from distressed
London tobacco merchants and traders in 1766 and 1770, members of both
houses were increasingly of the opinion that the earlier repeals were a
mistake. The basic issue of constitutional supremacy had been avoided.
Now it must be faced. Even before the Continental Congress had met,
King George remarked to Lord North, "The die is cast, the Colonies must
either submit or triumph; I do not wish to come to severer measures but
we must not retreat." There is no evidence that British public opinion
differed with him.
Most Englishmen, the king and most members of the commons among them,
considered the raising of independent militia companies in New England
and the enforcement of non-importation by the Virginia Associations to
be acts of rebellion. When they learned about the Continental
Association in late 1774, they were convinced sterner measures were
called for. At its January 1775 session parliament defeated a late-hour
plan of union offered by Chatham. This plan would have conferred
limited dominion status on the American colonies, reasserted the
fundamental power of the crown, and repealed all the colonial acts
passed by parliament after 1763. A similar plan had been offered by
Galloway to the First Continental Congress. Both failed. Lord North,
while sympathetic to plans for easing tensions, offered a plan of
reconciliation by which the colonists would grant annual amounts for
imperial expenses in lieu of taxes, but he could find no solution which
at the same time did not diminish the authority of parliament or force
the colonists to accept some vague annual levy determined in Britain.
Believing New England was in a state of rebellion and that the
embargoes were acts of treason, parliament in March 1775 passed the
Restraining Act. New England commerce was restricted to Great Britain,
Ireland, and the West Indies, excluded from the Newfoundland fisheries,
and barred from coastal trading with other colonies until they ended
their associations and complied with the Boston Port Act. When further
testimony demonstrated that Virginia, South Carolina, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, and Maryland were equally guilty of forming
non-importation associations, they were added to the Restraining Act
list.
Simultaneously, parliament passed North's plan for reconciliation which
embodied the proposal for removing all parliamentary taxes if the
colonial legislatures would provide alternative sources of revenue.
War
As parliament debated, events in America took matters out of the realm
of abstract theory and put them into the context of practical
revolution.
For Virginia the crucial decisions had been made by the Second Virginia
Convention meeting on March 20, 1775 at St. John's Church, Richmond,
far from Governor Dunmore's eyes in Williamsburg. Originally called to
hear reports from the delegates to the First Continental Congress, to
elect delegates to the Second Congress, and to review the operations of
the association, the convention soon found itself embroiled in a call
by Patrick Henry for sanctioning a Virginia colonial militia
independent of the existing militia which was deemed too reliant on the
governor. To Henry the situation was obvious. Time was fleeting.
Increasing numbers of troops were in New England; a fleet was bound for
New York; war was inevitable; Virginia must be protected. Rather
ingeniously he argued that a well-armed Virginia militia would
eliminate the need for a standing army of British regulars in the
colonies. "A well regulated Militia, composed of gentlemen and yeoman
is the only Security of a free Government." To Bland, Robert Carter
Nicholas, and Edmund Pendleton it was too soon for an armed militia.
Such an action would be a direct affront to the king. More to the
point, they were concerned that the colony was yet too unprepared to
meet the full force of British arms which would certainly be brought
down upon Virginia for such an act of rebellion. Time was necessary to
prepare for this warlike act.
Henry would hear none of it. On March 23 in perhaps his greatest
speech, he swept up the reluctant delegates with his fervent cry:
Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace,--but there is no peace. The war is
actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring
to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in
the field! Why stand we here idle? Is life so dear, or peace so
sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery: Forbid
it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for
me, Give me Liberty or Give me Death.[31]
[31] As with Henry's other great speeches no correct text
remains. There seems little doubt that the exact words in the
speech were lost and that as time went on, they were improved.
But the debate over the exact text should not obscure the basic
fact that Henry's oratory stirred men's hearts with phrases in a
manner no other Virginian, perhaps no other American, has ever
done.
Backed by Jefferson, Thomas Nelson, Jr., and Richard Henry Lee, who were
determined that Virginia should not be as timid as the Continental
Congress had been, Henry carried the day by a close vote. A committee of
12 was elected and included Henry, Lee, Washington, Andrew Lewis of
Botetourt and Adam Stephens of Berkeley, fresh from victories over the
Indians in Dunmore's War just a few weeks earlier, William Christian of
Fincastle and Isaac Zane of Frederick, both experienced Indian fighters,
Jefferson, Nicholas, Benjamin Harrison, Pendleton, and Lemuel Riddick of
Nansemond.
The committee was a consensus of all opinions. It was a mark of the
Virginia legislatures, both the burgesses and the conventions, that once
a decision was made, opposition ceased and the delegates went forward
together. One has to be careful not to talk too much about conservatives
and radicals. They were all patriots together. The process by which
Virginians moved in unison to revolt was summarized by Jefferson:
Sensible however of the importance of unanimity among our
constituents, altho' we (Jefferson, Henry, Lees, Pages, Masons, etc.)
often wished to have gone faster, we slackened our pace, that our
less ardent colleagues might keep up with us; and they, (Pendleton,
Bland, Wythe, Randolph, etc.) quickened their gait somewhat beyond
that which their prudence might of itself have advised, and thus
consolidated the phalanx which breasted the power of Britain. By this
harmony of the bold with the cautious, we advanced with our
constituents in undivided mass, and with fewer examples of separation
(Tories) than perhaps existed in any other part of the Union.[32]
[32] "Jefferson's Recollections," 400-401.
The committee quickly went to work and authorized formations of at least
one infantry company and one cavalry troop in each county. Supplies would
be furnished as quickly as possible. Each company would commence drilling
at once.
Throughout the spring of 1775 Virginia was alive with signs of rebellion.
County committees and associations coaxed, cajoled, and frequently
coerced reluctant colonists, particularly the Scots merchants, to comply
with non-importation, non-consumption agreements. Militia troops drilled,
often in disorderly fashion with little hint of being a threat to British
redcoats. Fashionable gentry took to wearing the plain clothes of
frontiersmen, and shirts emblazoned with the words "Liberty or Death"
were everywhere. County courts had ceased operations, nearly all their
justices were now members of the extra-legal committees which ruled
Virginia.
On April 19, 1775, General Thomas Gage, learning that the Massachusetts
independent militia had armed itself, marched on known caches of arms and
powder at Lexington and Concord. The colonial militia under Captain John
Parker, warned by Paul Revere and William Dawes, drove the British
regulars from the two villages and harrassed them all the way back to
Boston. The next night, in a totally unrelated incident, Governor Dunmore
of Virginia, for the same reasons, seized the gunpowder in the magazine
at Williamsburg. Fighting in Virginia was narrowly averted when the
governor paid for the powder. In Massachusetts fighting continued and the
British were soon penned up in Boston, surrounded by 13,000 ill-armed but
determined New Englanders. In both places the situation was clear
enough--the colonists were armed and prepared to fight to defend their
rights.
Small wonder then that Lord Dunmore worried over the gunpowder in the
Williamsburg magazine. On the night of April 20-21 marines from the
H.M.S. Magdalene stealthily carried away the powder. Dunmore
coyly suggested he had ordered the powder removed for safekeeping to
prevent a rumored slave insurrection. Although his lame excuse fooled
no one, quiet returned to Williamsburg after a brief flurry of
excitement and marches to the Governor's Palace by the Williamsburg
independent company.
The Powder Magazine Raid might have come to nothing if word of the
Lexington-Concord attacks had not arrived. This news first reached
Virginia by rider on April 29. Gage's raid on the Lexington-Concord
magazines and Dunmore's seizure of the Williamsburg powder seemed too
coincidental for Patrick Henry and 300 militiamen from Hanover and
surrounding counties. Henry, who always fancied himself a general, led
his men from Newcastle on May 2 toward Williamsburg. Dunmore sent Lady
Dunmore and their children to the H.M.S. Fowey at Yorktown and
garrisoned the palace in anticipation of attack. Fighting was averted
when Henry's troops reached Richard Corbin's house in King and Queen
County and demanded that Corbin's wife pay for the powder from her
husband's funds. Corbin, the receiver-general of royal customs, was away.
Upon hearing about the demand he sent a secured note for £300 which Henry
finally accepted for the powder. With that the militiamen returned to
Hanover.
Conditions were peaceful enough for Dunmore to call the General Assembly
into session on June 1 to consider Lord North's plan of reconciliation.
The House of Burgesses ignored the plan and concentrated on routine
business. On June 5 the house appointed a committee to examine the powder
magazine, because, they said with tongue-in-cheek, they had heard it had
been burglarized. Dunmore vacillated, first agreeing, then disagreeing to
allow the burgesses in. Finally he gave them the key. Then in
consternation, for he feared seizure by the colonials, he took refuge on
the Fowey. Despite pleas from the assembly, Dunmore, who was still
a reasonably popular man, refused to return.
On June 24, 1775, the assembly adjourned. For all intents and purposes,
although the assembly met briefly in 1776, the history of the Virginia
General Assembly ended with this meeting. Thenceforward, government in
Virginia came from the Virginian Conventions. The membership of these
conventions was comprised mostly of the members of the old House of
Burgesses.
At the same time the Virginia Assembly came to an end the Continental
Congress was moving to aid Boston and to defend the New Englanders from
further armed attack. On June 15, congress unanimously elected George
Washington to take command of the new Continental Army created "for the
Defense of American Liberty, and for repelling every hostile invasion
thereof." The army of 15,000 formed to defend Boston and New York would
be supported by the congress with payments from all the colonies. Eight
rifle companies, including two led by Captain Daniel Morgan of Frederick
County and Captain Hugh Stephenson of Berkeley County were ordered to
Boston.
To rally popular support, congress proclaimed "A Declaration of the
Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms." Written by Jefferson and John
Dickinson of Pennsylvania, this declaration laid bare a long succession
of "oppressions and tyrannies" by parliament and the king's "errant
ministers" who had misled the king into presuming his colonists were
disloyal. Although professing continued loyalty to George III, the
delegates reiterated their intentions to defend themselves as "free men
rather than to live as Slaves", for:
Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal Resources are
great, and, if necessary, foreign Assistance is undoubtedly
attainable.
Nevertheless, the Congress made clear that it did not desire disunion and
independence, it merely wanted justice for the Americans. To that end
they passed the "Olive Branch Petition", a plea to the king to find some
way toward reconciliation.
It is unlikely Congress expected anything more to come from the "Olive
Branch Petition" in England than had come from Lord North's plan of
reconciliation in the colonies. Nothing did. The king refused it. He had
already declared the colonists to be rebels. Parliament rejected it,
applying instead its own brand of economic coercion by passing the
Prohibitory Act in December 1775. Effective January 1, 1776, all American
ports were closed to trade and all American ships on the high seas were
subject to seizure and confiscation as enemy ships. By proclaiming the
colonists to be enemies in rebellion, parliament and the king, in effect,
declared war on the colonies.
To assure itself of manpower, Britain negotiated treaties with
Hesse-Cassel and Brunswick for 13,000 Hessians to fight with the British
armies in America. From the beginning it was obvious many Englishmen had
no stomach for fighting their fellow Englishmen overseas. Conversely it
was obvious the colonial Englishmen were prepared to fight in defense of
their rights and liberties as Englishmen. After the passage of the
Prohibitory Act and the hiring of the Hessian mercenaries no doubt
remained that this was to be a full war in which the colonies would, in
the king's words, "either submit or triumph." The king felt that he would
violate his coronation oath if he failed to defend the supremacy of
parliament. He felt that the act of settlement establishing the
protestant succession in the House of Hanover to the exclusion of the
Catholic Stuarts made parliament supreme and that he was bound by his
coronation oath to uphold this supremacy and that he could not honorably
agree to the colonists' position. A colonial declaration was inevitable.
Independence
On July 17, 1775, delegates to the Virginia Convention reassembled in
Richmond. Those who were reluctant in March now knew that forceful
measures must be taken to defend Virginia through creating an interim
government. Dunmore could not manage the colony from shipboard, and the
royal council was defunct without him. From Philadelphia came word of the
formation of the Continental Army with Washington as its commander; from
Boston the news was of the staggering casualties inflicted on the British
redcoats by the New Englanders before they abandoned Breed's Hill in the
battle known as Bunker Hill; from New York rumors spread of the impending
invasion by the British navy; and for good news there were the victories
of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold at Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
The July Convention elected an 11-man Committee of Safety to govern the
colony. This committee, which had greater powers than any other executive
body in the history of Virginia, could set its own meeting times, appoint
all military officers, distribute arms and munitions, call up the militia
and independent minute-men companies, direct military strategy, commit
men to the defense of other colonies and to assure the colony of its
general safety. Unlike many colonies whose interim governments fell into
the hands of men previously excluded from high office, the Virginia
Committee of Safety comprised men of the first rank, respected leaders
from throughout the colony: Pendleton, Mason, Bland, John Page, Thomas
Ludwell Lee, Paul Carrington, Dudley Digges, William Cabell, Carter
Braxton, James Mercer, and James Tabb. Pendleton was the chairman. This
committee met in almost continuous session during the crises of 1775.
The convention established a Virginia army of three regiments commanded
by Thomas Nelson, Jr., William Woodford, and Patrick Henry, with Henry
designated as commander. The choice of the great orator for a field
command post turned out to be a mistake which even his most loyal
supporters subsequently admitted. The error was later rectified, but not
without creating considerable hard feelings.
Throughout the late summer and early fall Dunmore, in command of several
ships and British regulars brought up from St. Augustine, blockaded the
Chesapeake, raided several plantations, and built bases at Gosport, at
the shipyard of Andrew Sprowle used by the Royal Navy near Portsmouth,
and in Norfolk. There he was joined by a number of Loyalists, mostly
Scots, and 300 former slaves whom Dunmore made into a military company he
dubbed "his Loyal Ethiopians". On October 25-27, 1775, Dunmore sent five
ships to burn Hampton. Reinforcements were sent from Williamsburg. Except
for a severe salt shortage resulting from the blockade and the irritation
of seeing former slaves in British uniform with the mocking motto
"Liberty for Slaves" replacing the colonial slogan "Liberty or Death",
most Virginians saw Dunmore as a nuisance rather than a serious threat.
Then on November 7,1775, Dunmore, exercising one last gasp of royal
power, declared Virginia to be in rebellion, imposed martial law, and
announced that all slaves belonging to rebels were emancipated. This
action cost Dunmore his creditability and destroyed his reputation among
the colonists. Until this time the Virginians had been very respectful of
both Lord and Lady Dunmore, whom they assumed were following orders which
could not be ignored. Now with this personal act Dunmore had shown
himself to favor a determined policy against the colonists.
Deciding to wait no longer, the Committee of Safety which had been
criticized for its inaction, dispatched Woodford with an army independent
of Henry's command to drive Dunmore from Gosport. Dunmore removed himself
to Norfolk. In December 1775 Woodford's men, supported by some North
Carolinians, faced Dunmore's army of redcoats, loyalists, and former
slaves at Great Bridge, the long land causeway and bridge through the
swampland and over the Elizabeth River near Norfolk. There on December 9
Woodford's men repulsed a frontal attack by Dunmore's regulars and drove
them from Great Bridge. After losing the Battle of Great Bridge, Dunmore
knew he could not defend Norfolk. He abandoned the town to Woodford on
December 14, but returned with his ships on January 1, 1776 to shell and
burn the port. Woodford's men then completed the destruction of the one
center of Torism in the colony by burning the city to the ground.
Dunmore resumed harassing colonial trade for several more months.
However, his loyalist supporters dwindled away and he received no
reenforcements of British regulars. Most of his black troops had been
abandoned to the colonists after Great Bridge. Those who remained with
him were later sent into slavery in the West Indies. Finally, on July
8-9, 1776, Colonel Andrew Lewis' land-based artillery badly damaged
Dunmore's fleet at the Battle of Gwynn's Island, in Gloucester County,
now Mathews County. With this Dunmore and his ships left Virginia, the
Governor going to New York where he took an army command under General
Howe. Not until 1779 did a British fleet return in force to the
Chesapeake.
On May 6, 1776, the Virginia Convention had reconvened, this time in
Williamsburg, for there was no need to fear Dunmore. Nor was there any
doubt about the overwhelming Virginian sentiment for independence. The
winter's war, the king's stubbornness, Parliament's Prohibitory Act,
Dunmore's martial law, and Thomas Paine's stirring rhetoric in his
incomparable Common Sense had all swung public opinion toward
independence. Paine's Common Sense touched Virginians through the
printed word in much the same manner as Henry's fiery oratory reached
their hearts.
Immediately upon sitting, the Convention received three resolutions for
independence. Leading the resolutionists was Edmund Pendleton, President
of the Convention, formerly among the more cautious of patriots. For once
Henry wavered slightly and let others take the lead.
On May 15 the convention instructed Richard Henry Lee as a delegate to
the Continental Congress to introduce a resolution for independence
stating:
the Congress should declare that these United colonies are and of
right ought to be free and independent states, that they are absolved
from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political
connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought
to be, totally dissolved....
This Virginia resolution was a declaration of independence. Read the
following day to cheering troops in Williamsburg, the resolution prompted
the troops to hoist the Continental Union flag and to drink toasts to
"the American Independent States", "the Grand Congress", and to "General
Washington".
At the same time the convention appointed a committee led by George Mason
to draw up a constitution and a declaration of rights for the people of
the new Commonwealth of Virginia. Mason's famous Declaration of Rights
was adopted on June 12, 1776, and the Constitution of Virginia was
adopted on June 28, 1776.
Virginia was a free and independent state. It would be seven long years,
however, before Great Britain accepted this as fact.
Part IV:
The Commonwealth of Virginia
Declaration of Rights
[Sidenote: "_We hold these truths to be self-evident...._"]
The two greatest documents of the Revolution came from the pens of
Virginians George Mason and Thomas Jefferson. Political scientist Clinton
Rossiter notes, "The declaration of rights in 1776 remain America's most
notable contribution to universal political thought. Through these
eloquent statements the rights-of-man political theory became political
reality."[33]
[33] Clinton, Rossiter, Seedtime of the Republic (Harcourt,
Brace: New York, 1953), 401.
As Richard Henry Lee rode north to Philadelphia with the Virginia
resolution for independence, George Mason of Fairfax, sat down with his
committee and drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Presented to
the Convention on May 27, 1776, the Declaration was adopted on June 12,
1776. It reads, in part:
A Declaration of Rights, made by the Representatives of the good
People of Virginia, assembled in full and free Convention, which
rights do pertain to them and their posterity as the basis and
foundation of government.
I. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have
certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of
society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their
posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means
of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining
happiness and safety.
II. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the
People; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all
times amenable to them.
III. That Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common
benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation or
community;--of all the various modes and forms of government, that is
best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness
and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of
maladministration;--and that, whenever any Government shall be found
inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community
hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform,
alter or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive
to the public weal.[34]
[34] Rutland, Mason, I, 287-289.
In 16 articles the Declaration goes on to: prohibit hereditary offices;
separate the legislative, executive, and judicial branches; assure that
elections shall be free; prevent suspending law or executing laws without
consent of the representatives of the people; guarantee due process in
criminal prosecutions; prevent excessive bail and cruel and unusual
punishments; eliminate general warrants for search and seizure; provide
jury trials in property disputes; assert "that the freedom of the press
is one of the great bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but
by despotic governments"; provide for a well-regulated militia and warn
against standing armies in peacetime; declare that no government can
exist within the state independent of the government of Virginia; and
grant to all men equally "the free exercise of religion, according to the
dictates of conscience." (While this article granted free expression of
religion, it did not end the establishment of the former Church of
England as the official state church in Virginia. Full separation of
church and state did not occur until the General Assembly passed
Jefferson's famous Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786.)
The most intriguing article is XV, which is not a declaration of a right
as much as it is a reminder that citizens who do not exercise their
rights soon lose them.
XV. That no free government, or the blessing of Liberty, can be
preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice,
moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue, and by a frequent
recurrence to fundamental principles.
Nowhere is the break with England more clear than in the proclamation
that "all men are by nature equally free and independent". No longer were
Virginians claiming rights which were theirs as Englishmen; they now were
claiming rights which were theirs as human beings. These were natural
rights which belong to all persons everywhere and no one, either in the
past or the future could alienate, eliminate, or diminish those rights.
A second vital observation is the Declaration's firm adherence to the
doctrine of popular sovereignty--the power of the government is derived
from the people and can be exercised only with their consent or the
consent of their elected representatives.
A third observation, among many which can be made, is that for the first
time a sovereign state prevented itself and its own legislature from
infringing on the basic liberties of its peoples. The possible assault on
popular rights by an elected legislature had been made all too vivid by
parliament in the 1760's and 1770's.
Edmund Randolph said one aim of the Declaration was to erect "a perpetual
standard". John Adams had warned "we all look up to Virginia for
example". Neither Randolph nor Adams could have been disappointed.
Mason's Declaration of Rights was utilized by Jefferson as he drafted the
Declaration of Independence, written into the bills of rights of numerous
other states, and finally in 1791 was incorporated into the Federal
Constitution as the Bill of Rights.
Declaration of Independence
In Philadelphia, Lee introduced the Virginia independence resolution on
June 7, 1776. On that day only seven colonies were prepared to vote
"aye". Therefore, congress put off a full vote until July 1, hoping by
that date for all states to have received instructions from home. In the
meantime congress appointed John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman
of Connecticut, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Thomas Jefferson to
draft a declaration. For nearly two weeks Jefferson, with the advice of
Adams and Franklin, wrote and rewrote the draft, seeking just the right
phrase, the right concept. On June 28 the committee laid its draft before
the chamber. On July 4 the Congress completed its revisions. The changes
were few when one considers the normal way legislative bodies amend and
rewrite the very best of prose. Still the changes were too many for the
red-haired delegate from Albemarle County, Virginia, who possessed an
ample store of pride in his own words. Jefferson thought his version had
been manhandled; Lee went further and said it had been "mangled".
The preamble to the Declaration of Independence is timeless. There in
clear and unmistakable language is a rationale for revolution, not just
1776, but all revolutions.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate
and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or
to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly
all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new
Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient
sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which
constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The
history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove
this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
The last thread which held the colonies to Britain was the king and to
cut that thread Jefferson and the Congress charged him with all the acts
of parliament and the ministries. As Dumas Malone remarks:
The charges in the Declaration were directed, not against the British
people or the British Parliament, but against the King. There was a
definite purpose in this. Jefferson, and the great body of the
Patriots with him, had already repudiated the authority of
Parliament.... Now ... the onus must be put on George III himself.
Such a personification of grievances was unwarranted on strict
historical grounds. This was the language of political controversy,
not that of dispassionate scholarship.[35]
[35] Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, 224.
Parliament, in fact, is not mentioned at all. Jefferson would not even
acknowledge its existence, referring to it instead as "others" who have
joined with the king in these "repeated injuries and usurpations." But
before we worry too much about the king and sympathize with those who
believe "poor George" has suffered unnecessary abuse, let us remember
that we now know the king, while neither vindictive nor a tyrant, was an
adherent to the policies proposed by his ministers which brought disunion
to the empire.
On July 4, 1776, by a vote of 12-0, with New York abstaining, the
colonies voted independence. On July 8 the Declaration was read publicly.
On July 15 New York voted "yes". And on August 2 most delegates signed
the formal Declaration itself. (The last signer did not put his signature
on it until 1781.)
Just as George Washington misjudged himself and history when he remarked,
"Remember, Mr. Henry, what I now tell you: from the day I enter upon the
command of the American armies, I date my fall, and the ruin of my
reputation," so Jefferson thought little of his composition. He was much
more interested in and concerned about the Virginia Constitution. At
first he was not identified as the author of the Declaration, for the
names of all those who signed were not revealed until January 1777. He
was wrong, of course, as the judgment of time has confirmed. The
Declaration is the greatest political statement written by an American.
To the citizens of the United States it was, and has remained, the most
popular and beloved of all their public documents.
The Virginia Constitution, June 29, 1776
One mark of the revolutionary generation's greatness is seen in this
series of simultaneous events taking place in June 1776. One Virginian,
George Washington, was assembling an army to defend the new nation; two
Virginians, Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson, were leading the
congress to independence; and a third group, George Mason and the
Virginia Convention were constructing a new government for Virginia. Just
as Virginia was the first colony to declare independence, she was also
the first state to draft a new form of government.
The convention had charged Mason and his committee with writing "such a
plan as will most likely maintain peace and order in this colony, and
secure substantial and equal liberty to the people". Within two weeks
Mason had completed his task. It was not, however, a work of haste, for
Mason had contemplated for a long time the proper form of government. To
Mason and most Virginians the constitution must: 1) give life to the
liberties set forth in the Declaration of Rights; 2) prevent those
tyrannies of government which had undermined the once ideal English
constitution; and 3) preserve those elements which had been the strengths
of the old colonial government. The Constitution of 1776 achieved these
ends.
Virginia was made a commonwealth. As Robert Rutland tells us, "Mason's
choice of the word 'commonwealth' was no happenstance. Mason knew
passages of John Locke's Second Treatise on Government verbatim.
None struck Mason more forcefully than Locke's notion that a commonwealth
was a form of government wherein the legislature was supreme." There was
a consensus within the convention that there should be a separation of
powers between executive, legislative, and judicial functions, but no
equality of powers. The legislative function was to be supreme.
The residual power in the Constitution of 1776 is vested in the people
and exercised through the General Assembly. Within the General Assembly
the House of Delegates was to be supreme. The Assembly had two houses:
The House of Delegates, replacing the House of Burgesses, had two members
from each county and one from each town; and the Senate, replacing the
old royally-appointed council, had 24 members chosen from 24 districts
throughout the state. A peculiarity of this constitution was the use of
12 electors, chosen by the voters in each district, to actually choose
the senator from that district. All legislation originated in the House
of Delegates, the Senate being allowed to amend all laws except
appropriation bills, which it had to accept or reject completely.
Mindful of royal authority and disdainful of executive power, the
constitution emasculated the power of the governor, leaving him a "mere
phantom". Elected annually by the combined vote of the General Assembly
for a maximum of three consecutive terms, the governor had no veto power
and virtually no power of executive action. He could not act between
legislative sessions without approval of an eight-man Council of State.
This council was elected by the assembly "to assist in the administration
of government". In truth, the council restrained the executive.
The virtual semi-autonomy of the county courts and the justices of the
peace remained. A system of state courts was provided for, its judges
also elected by the assembly. Property qualifications for voters and for
office holders continued in force. No clergymen were permitted to hold
state office.[36]
[36] Rutland, Mason, I, 295-310.
The constitution, then retained what had worked well in the past--the
General Assembly and the county court system; granted to the House of
Delegates the written powers it had claimed as the colonial House of
Burgesses; eliminated the royally elected council, but retained the idea
of an upper house composed of men of property; and totally restrained the
governor. Thus, if one definition of a commonwealth is a government in
which the legislature is supreme, then Virginia in 1776 was certainly a
commonwealth. This constitution became a model for many other state
governments, although most states benefited from the unfortunate
experiences of governors Henry (1776-1779) and Jefferson (1779-1781) and
gave their executives greater administrative latitude.
Jefferson had hastened back from Philadelphia to try to influence the
writing of the constitution. He arrived too late to have much effect
beyond appending to the constitution a preamble paraphrasing the
Declaration of Independence. But many of his ideas were too
"democratical". He feared the constitution did not have the force of true
law, for it had been written by a convention not elected for that purpose
by the people. Nor had the people voted directly on the constitution.
Jefferson was even more concerned about the remaining vestiges of
feudalism, aristocracy, and privilege. He succeeded in eliminating
primogeniture (the eldest child has greater inheritance rights than the
younger children) and entails (a person could place restrictions on the
use of his property in perpetuity). Both primogeniture and entail smacked
of inequality and alienation of rights by one generation against the
next. Although his Statute on Religious Freedom was not passed until
1786, each session after 1776 saw Jefferson successfully whittle down the
privileges of the once-established Anglican Church. From 1776 until 1778
Jefferson, Wythe, and Pendleton labored on a revision of the state law
code, but only a part of their code was adopted. A revised criminal code
was not fully enacted until the 1790's. Jefferson made little headway on
his plans for public education.
There is no evidence that Virginians were concerned that the convention
had written a constitution without their direct approval. The
Constitution of 1776 remained in effect until 1830. Virginians developed
great pride concerning the work of this revolutionary convention. Here a
group of the richest and best men in the colony had initiated revolution,
articulated a philosophy for revolution, and established a frame of
government which were to be widely imitated throughout the country and
adopted in part in France.
Out of this transformation of the English constitution into a government
for the Commonwealth of Virginia men like Jefferson, Henry, Mason, and
even the more conservative Bland and Pendleton had produced a truly
radical doctrine of popular sovereignty, an appeal to a higher law--the
law of nature and Nature's God, the replacement of virtual representation
with direct representation, and the substitution of a balance of
interests within the Virginia society for the old English theory of a
balanced government comprising crown, nobility, and commons in restraint
of each other.
In the words of historian Bailyn, they had worked "a substantial
alteration in the order of society as it was known" in 1775. They had
unloosened a "contagion of liberty" which could not be restrained.[37]
Ultimately Virginians and Americans came to believe the rhetoric of the
Declaration of Rights and the Declaration of Independence when they read
the words "all men are created equal" to mean "all persons". If it is
something of an anomaly that the men who wrote these words were
slaveholders, it is no anomaly that these words came to be accepted as
"self-evident truths" when later generations applied these truths to the
rights of man, regardless of race, creed, color, religion, or national
origin. But that was a long way off. June-July 1776 was the beginning of
a great experiment, not the finished product.
[37] Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American
Revolution, Harvard University Press, 1962, chapter 4.
The British-Americans: The Virginia Loyalists
Jefferson was correct in stating that Virginians moved forward to war
with greater unity and with fewer examples of Torism than any other
colony. Robert Calhoon, historian of loyalism, notes Virginia Loyalists
consisted "of a handful of Anglican clergymen, the members of a moribund
Royal Council, and several hundred Scottish merchants, and were ... not a
very formidable coalition." This confirms the much older view of Isaac
Harrell who characterized Virginia loyalists as small in number, not more
than a few thousand, whose activities after the departure of Governor
Dunmore were limited. Only in the Norfolk area, the Hobbs Hole region of
Middlesex County, in Accomac County on the Eastern Shore, and in the
isolated frontier area along the Monongahela River, claimed jointly by
Pennsylvania and Virginia, were there enough loyalists to even suggest a
majority of the population. "Of the 2,500 claims filed with British
government for loyalist property lost during the Revolution, only 140
were from Virginia." Most of these 140 claims were made by British
natives living in Virginia at the outbreak of the war. Only 13 were
Virginians.
Except for the Dunmore raids in 1775-1776 and an abortive plot in 1776 by
Dr. John Connolly in the Fort Pitt region there were no loyalist military
operations in Virginia. Several hundred loyalists joined the royal army,
a small number in comparison to most colonies. Most loyalists went to
London or Glasgow. Except for William Byrd III and Attorney-General John
Randolph, most native Virginia loyalists, including Richard Corbin, John
Grymes, and Ralph Wormeley stayed quietly on their plantations.[38]
Virginia's only nobleman, aging recluse, Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax,
owner of the Northern Neck, 9,000 square miles of land, remained
untouched at his hunting lodge in Frederick County.
[38] Robert M. Calhoon. The Loyalists in Revolutionary America,
1760-1781, (Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1973), 458; Isaac Harrell,
Loyalism in Virginia (Duke University, 1926), 62-65.
In the early years there was a general appreciation of the difficulty
some Virginians had experienced in breaking with England and swearing
allegiance to a new nation. This switch was especially difficult for
members of the governor's council and the Anglican clergy who had taken
personal oaths of allegiance to the king, not a casual act in the 18th
Century. Most of these men and women had been respected leaders in
pre-Revolutionary Virginia, had many friends, brothers, and sons in the
patriot camp, and took no direct action to support the British. Generally
they were well treated.
As the war moved along, however, and the colonists suffered enormous
losses in the winters of 1777 and 1778, sympathy decreased and demands
for public declaration of allegiance to the patriot cause grew. Laws were
passed providing for heavy taxation and then confiscation of loyalist
properties. The fortunes of the war can almost be read in the evolution
of loyalist laws. After the battle of Great Bridge (1775) the convention
allowed those who had borne arms against Virginia to take an oath of
allegiance to the Committee of Safety. Most Norfolk area loyalists did.
But when Dunmore persisted in raiding Virginia that spring, the
convention, in May 1776, changed the law and declared those who aided the
"enemy" subject to imprisonment and their property to seizure. In
December 1776 the new General Assembly voted that those who joined the
enemy or gave aid and comfort were to be arrested for treason. If guilty,
they would be executed. Those guilty of adherence to the authority of the
king (as opposed to those who refused to support the new government) were
subject to heavy fines and imprisonment.
A major turning point occurred in 1777 when general patriot outcries
against those not supporting the Revolutionary cause forced the assembly
to pass a test oath. Washington and Jefferson were especially vocal on
this point. Every male over 16 was required to renounce his allegiance to
the king and to subscribe to a new oath of allegiance to Virginia. In
1778 those who refused to take the oath were subjected to double
taxation; in 1779 the tax was tripled. In 1779 legal procedures for the
sale of sequestered and confiscated property were established and sales
begun, although these sales never brought the income expected to the
financially hard pressed state.
A similar progression from toleration to harshness faced the merchants
who had stayed in the colonies as well as those who had fled. The latter
had much of their property confiscated and their ships seized. Those who
stayed found there was no neutrality. The key issue here was debt
payment. The assembly declared that the new Virginia paper money
circulated was legal tender and must be accepted for both new and pre-war
debts. Many Virginians took advantage of this opportunity to pay their
debts in the inflated money, a move which caused many problems after the
war when attempts were made to straighten out personal British accounts.
There was no sympathy for those who protested the inequity of this
action. Revolutions and civil wars seldom bring equity. The remarkable
thing is that in Virginia the Revolution progressed with so little
internal strife.[39]
[39] Harrell, Loyalism in Virginia, 66-96.
The War at Home, 1776-1780
From the time Dunmore left in July 1776, until the British moved into
Virginia again in 1779, Virginians fought the war for independence on the
soils of the other colonies. Their main contributions were providing the
men and material which all wars demand. When one considers the natural
reluctance of colonials to serve outside their own boundaries,
Virginians' record of men and supplies were good.
The demands on the Virginia economy were great. With much of the natural
granary in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Long Island occupied by British
forces and the middle state ports blockaded, pleas from Washington for
Virginia meat and food supplies were constant. Munitions works at Westham
(Richmond), Fredericksburg, and Fort Chiswell and naval shipyards at
Gosport, South Quay, and Chickahominy River operated at full capacity. A
major munitions magazine opened at Point of Fork on the James River in
Fluvanna County, and small iron furnaces appeared throughout the Piedmont
and in the Valley areas. In 1779 Virginia exports of food and grain
outside the United States were halted and redirected to the needs of
Congress. Everywhere Virginians began to spin and weave their own cloth.
Simpler life styles became the order of the war.
The plainer way of life was not just a patriotic morale-builder. It was a
necessity. The natural trade routes between the Chesapeake and Britain
were closed and the tobacco trade was ruined. To finance the war the
assembly taxed nearly everything which could be taxed. Many taxes were
those which the Virginians had rejected when imposed by parliament,
including legal papers and glass windows. The difference was the
necessity or war and the source of the tax laws--the people's own elected
representatives.
Taxes, alone, however have never financed a major war. As in the French
and Indian War, Virginia issued paper money and floated state loans.
Between 1776-1780 the state debt reached £26,000,000 and in the following
two years nearly doubled. By 1779 loans and taxes were not enough and the
assembly levied taxes on commodities as well as currency. Taxpayers had
to make payments in grain, hemp, or tobacco rather than inflated paper
money alone. Inflation set in. By 1780 coffee, when you could get it,
sold for $20 per pound, shoes were $60 per pair, and better grades of
cloth were bringing $200 a yard. The exchange rate of Virginia money to
hard coins (specie) was 10-1 in 1778, 60-1 in early 1780, and then
spiraled upwards to 150-1 in April 1780, 350-1 in July, and was going out
of sight as Cornwallis' army ravaged the state. It never reached the
ratio of 1,000-1 as did the Continental Congress currency, but the phrase
"not worth a Continental" might equally have applied to Virginia money.
Few of those who served Virginia and the new nation, whether as officers,
footsoldiers, governors, judges, or clerks, did so without suffering
substantial financial losses. In many cases they were never reimbursed
even for actual expenses.[40] Unfortunately there were many who reaped
profits by exploiting the situation.
[40] For a good description of the economic impact of the war on
one dedicated Virginian, read Emory Evans' Thomas Nelson of
Yorktown: Virginia Revolutionary (University Press,
Charlottesville, 1975), 65-123.
There also were thousands who moved across the mountains to new lands in
the Valley, southwestern Virginia, and Kentucky. In fact, Virginia had to
head off an attempt by North Carolinians, headed by Richard Henderson, to
detach Kentucky from Virginia. The state had to watch attempts by other
states to claim Virginia lands in the Ohio country. To forestall these
attempts Virginia took two steps. In 1776 the Assembly divided Fincastle
County into three counties--Kentucky, Montgomery, and Washington and
established local governments there; and she agreed to ratify the new
Articles of Confederation only upon the condition that all other states
agree to give up their claims to the Ohio country and that all new states
created from those territories have the same rights and privileges as the
original states. In so doing, Virginians, under the leadership of
Jefferson, formulated a colonial policy for the western lands which
assured equality for the new states, a most important guarantee that
there would be no superior and inferior states in the new United States.
All states would be equal.
It should be remembered that this was never a total war. Independence
simply demanded that Washington, the Continental Congress, and the states
keep an army in the field and a fleet on the seas until the British
accepted the fact that they could not defeat the Americans or until they
decided victory was not worth the cost. Whenever the call came,
Virginians poured forth in sufficient numbers and with sufficient
supplies in the crucial days of 1777-1778 and 1780-1781 to prevent
defeat. And in 1781 they were there in enough numbers to insure victory
at Yorktown.
Part V:
The War for Independence
[Sidenote: "_He has abdicated government here...._"]
Virginia's participation in the Revolutionary War military operations
developed in seven stages: (1) the initial conflict with Lord Dunmore in
the Norfolk and Chesapeake areas in 1775-1776; (2) the thousands of
Virginians who joined the Continental Army and campaigned throughout the
country; (3) the bloody Cherokee war in the southwest from 1775-1782; (4)
George Rogers Clark's audacious and spectacular victory in the Northwest;
(5) the British invasion and ravaging of Virginia throughout 1780-1781;
(6) the southern campaigns of Generals Gates and Greene in 1780 and 1781;
and (7) the final victory at Yorktown in the fall of 1781.[41]
[41] The best general survey of the war is by John Alden, A
History of the American Revolution (Knopf: New York, 1969). The
best detailed account is by Christopher Ward, The War of the
Revolution, 2 volumes. (MacMillan: New York, 1952). Both have
been utilized in this section.
Virginians and the Continental Army, 1775-1779
The decision to make George Washington commander-in-chief of the
Continental armies was undoubtedly a political act meant to bind the
southern colonies to the war and to blunt charges that this was a New
England revolution. Seldom has a political decision borne greater
positive benefits. Washington is an enigma and he always will remain so
to his countrymen. His greatness as a man and as a commander are
difficult to fathom. The contradictions are best summarized by military
historian John Alden:
Faults have been, and can be, found in Washington as commander. He
did not have the advantages of a good military education. He did not
know, and he never quite learned, how to discipline and to drill his
men. He was not a consistently brilliant strategist or tactician....
(Often) he secured advantage ... by avoiding battle. Actually he was
quite willing to fight when the odds were not too heavily against
him. He retreated only when he was compelled to do so, during the
campaigns of 1776 and 1777.... On occasion he was perhaps too
venturesome. His generalship improved as the war continued. However,
his defeats in the field were more numerous than his victories; and
he had to share the laurels of his great triumph at Yorktown, with
the French. If Washington had his shortcomings as a tactician, he
nevertheless performed superbly under the most difficult conditions.
He gave dignity, steadfast loyalty, and indomitable courage to the
American cause.... Indeed Congress supplied historians with
convincing evidence of Washington's greatness. It not only appointed
him as commander in chief, but maintained him in that post year after
year, in victory and defeat, in prosperity and adversity, until the
war was won.[42]
[42] Alden, American Revolution, 183-184.
At first Congress was not certain Washington could command and eagerly
sought European officers for field command positions. Charles Lee and
Horatio Gates, two of the four major-generals appointed to serve under
Washington, were residents of Virginia. Both were English army officers
who had left the British army, settled in Berkeley County, and become
ardent advocates of the colonials' cause. Lee, the well-bred son of
English gentry had served under Braddock in the ill-fated Fort Duquesne
expedition of 1756, was later wounded, left the army after the war, and
became interested in western land schemes. He came to Virginia in 1775
after a stint as a general in the Polish army. Lee was courageous,
ambitious, and vain. He could command when necessary, but had difficulty
following Washington's orders. Given credit for stopping the British
attack on Charleston, South Carolina, in June 1776, he came back north
and was captured in New Jersey in December 1776. Exchanged by the
British, he resumed command in 1778. However, his scandalous behavior at
Monmouth in June 1778 resulted in his court martial. He was finally
dismissed from the service by Congress in 1780.
Gates was the son of an English servant. Somehow he received a regular
army commission, serving in the colonies during the French and Indian
War. He resigned as a major in 1772 and moved to Virginia. Whereas Lee
was haughty, Gates was pleasant and amiable. He also was ambitious and
constantly sought military commands whose demands exceeded his talents.
Commander of the northern army which won the great victory at Saratoga in
1777, Gates was willing to take over as commander in chief in the dark
days of 1777-1778, but his friends in Congress could not displace
Washington. Over Washington's recommendation, Congress elected him
commander of the southern armies in 1780. He left that command after the
blundering defeat at Camden, South Carolina, in August 1780. Gates
retired to Virginia where he lived to an old age, much honored as an
Englishman who loyally supported independence.
The English generals from Virginia did not give Washington his eventual
victories, however. His command strength came from Virginians who learned
by experience, were devoted to the Revolutionary cause, and were loyal to
the general. They were with the Continental Army in its darkest days at
Morristown in the winter of 1776-1777 and Valley Forge in 1777-1778.
These included Colonel Theodorick Bland and his cavalry who fought at
Brandywine in 1777 and Charleston in 1780; General William Woodford, the
victor at Great Bridge, who commanded Virginia Continentals fighting at
Brandywine and Germantown in 1777, and Monmouth in 1778, was captured at
Charleston in 1780 and died in a New York prison that December; Colonel
William Washington and his cavalry who fought in nearly all the battles
in southern campaigns; Colonel Peter Muhlenberg, who raised the German
Regiment from the Valley and Piedmont around his Woodstock home and
commanded them with distinction at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and
Stony Point, and later led Virginia militia against Cornwallis in 1781;
and the gallant Colonel Edward Porterfield, who died with many of his
troops, called "Porterfield's Virginians" at Camden.
There also was a distinguished group of young men like John Marshall,
James Monroe, and Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee who achieved distinction
and displayed loyalty to the national cause which they never surrendered.
The percentage of Virginians who fought in the Continental Army and who
supported the stronger national government of the Federal Constitution
was high. These were men who experienced and remembered the
embarrassments and inadequacies of a weak national government during the
Revolution. They did not want to see the experience repeated.
Perhaps the best Virginia field general and the prototype of the
inventive, untrained American general was Daniel Morgan. A wagon master
from Frederick County, Morgan had fought in the French and Indian War. He
raised the first unit of Virginia Continentals, a company of Valley
riflemen, and took them to Boston in 1775. He and his men fought
brilliantly in the near victory of General Richard Montgomery at Quebec
on Christmas 1775. Captured along with the equally bold Benedict Arnold,
Morgan was exchanged. Developing effectively the Virginia riflemen into
mobile light infantry units and merging frontier tactics with formal
warfare, Morgan showed a real flare for commanding small units of men.
His greatest moments were at Saratoga in 1777 and later in his total
victory over Colonel Banastre Tarleton at Cowpens, South Carolina in
1781. The wagon master progressed steadily from captain to colonel, to
general, and became one of the genuine heroes of the Revolution.
The total number of Virginians who fought in the Continental Army is
difficult to determine. Records were poor, lengthy service infrequent,
and troop strength constantly overestimated. There were possibly 25,000
Virginians in the Continental Army at one time or another, although the
number in the field at any one time was much smaller. Another 30,000 to
35,000 might have joined the Virginia militia. In an era when European
armies went into winter quarters and did not fight at all, the unorthodox
Continental Army won some of its greatest victories in the dead of
winter, yet it too tended to suffer from winter desertions and
unauthorized leaves. Still the shriveled army always seemed to revive in
the spring as the men returned to the ranks.
Troops, even continental units, tended to serve near home. Northern
troops were rarely found in the deep southern colonies and vice versa.
Yet Virginians, because of their proximity to all fighting zones, fought
from Quebec to Charleston, contributing heavily to the units fighting to
hold the middle states in 1777 and 1778 and the Carolinas in 1780 and
1781.
The Indian Wars
The Revolution reopened the long series of Indian wars along the western
frontiers. Encouraged and financed by the same British agents who had
once acted in behalf of the former colonists, the Cherokees and Shawnees,
particularly, seized upon the unsettled conditions to strike back at the
steadily advancing waves of settlers moving southwestward along the
Clinch, Holston, French Broad, and Watauga Rivers. Throughout 1775 and
1776 Virginian, North Carolinian, and Georgian frontiersmen fought the
Cherokee in a series of bloody battles. The culminating attack by 2,000
riflemen under Colonel William Christian destroyed the major Cherokee
villages and compelled the Cherokees to sign "humiliating" treaties with
the southern states in 1777. The determined Cherokee chieftain, Dragging
Canoe, moved westward, regrouped his warriors at Chickamauga, and
launched another series of frontier raids. North Carolina and Virginia
riflemen under Colonel Evan Shelby in 1779 and Colonel Arthur Campbell in
1781 battled the undaunted Cherokees. Finally, in 1782, the Indians
yielded their territory to the frontiersmen. Little noticed, this series
of battles involved a high percentage of the western Virginians in nearly
constant battle readiness.
George Rogers Clark and the Winning of the West
In the Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois country the Revolution was a
continuation of the long series of bloody battles, ambushes, and
deceptions which the Indians and whites had been perpetrating against
each other since the settlers had pushed over the mountains in the early
1770's. The British had merely replaced the French as the European ally
of the Indians. The principal opponents were the tough, well-organized
Shawnees who had been the main targets of Dunmore and Colonel Andrew
Lewis during Dunmore's War in 1774. The Shawnees were joined by the
Miami, Delaware, and Ottawa Indians. These Ohio Indians needed little
encouragement from Lieutenant Colonel Henry Hamilton, the British
commander at Fort Detroit. Amply supplied with munitions, guns, and money
for patriot scalps received from Hamilton, known among the frontiersmen
as the "Hair Buyer", these Indians swarmed across the Ohio River in 1775,
1776, and 1777. No quarter was asked by either side; none was given.
Conditions became especially critical in 1777 when the Indians were
angered and embittered by the foolish and senseless murder of Cornstalk,
the captured chief of the Shawnees.
Complicating any military solution to the western fighting were the old
rivalries among the states for control of the western lands. Virginia had
to establish county government in Kentucky in order to head off North
Carolinian Richard Henderson's bid for that region in 1776.
Pennsylvanians and Virginians still quarrelled over Pittsburgh and the
Upper Ohio. Aid from the Continental Congress was obstructed by the
claims of at least four states to Ohio and the jealousy of the landless
states toward the landed states.
Then in 1777 a 23 year-old Virginian, George Rogers Clark, found the
solution. Virginia should go it alone, raise and equip a small army of
riflemen, and in a lightening move take the Indiana and Illinois region
from the British. Clark reasoned that the British were trying to hold a
vast tract of land with a few troops, a handful of Tories, and the
Indians. The British posts at Kaskaskia, on the Mississippi, and
Vincennes, on the Wabash, were former French forts manned by men with no
allegiance to Britain. Clark's enthusiasm convinced Governor Henry and
the Council of State that victory was possible if the operation was
conducted secretly. Support from George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and
George Wythe was solicited and gained. The assembly, without knowing the
purpose for the authorization, gave Clark permission to raise troops and
released the needed gunpowder.
In June 1778 Clark with 175 riflemen, far short of his hoped-for
complement, set out from the Falls of the Ohio (Louisville). The small
number can be attributed to the fact that the men, like the assembly, had
to sign-on without knowing their destiny. A few slipped away after they
learned Clark's true plans. Those who stayed were dedicated warriors. On
July 4, after floating down the Ohio, Clark's men appeared outside
Kaskaskia. The fort surrendered without a shot being fired. As Clark
suspected, the French inhabitants welcomed the Americans. On July 6
another former French town, Cahokia, 60 miles northward, capitulated. And
on July 14 Frenchmen from Kaskaskia persuaded their fellow countrymen at
Fort Sackville in Vincennes to surrender. On August 1 Clark occupied the
fort.
Clark's plan had worked to perfection. But he was now faced with the same
problem which had enabled him to seize the region--he could not hold
three forts scattered over several hundred miles (Vincennes is 180 miles
east of Kaskaskia). Therefore, when Governor Hamilton moved south from
Detroit in December with his own make-shift army, Clark's men had to
abandon Vincennes and flee west to Kaskaskia. All seemed lost.
Again the refusal of the Americans to follow European military
conventions paid off. Clark, ignoring the tradition to go into winter
quarters took Vincennes in the dead of winter with less than 130 men,
many of them French. It was the most remarkable single military feat of
the Revolution. Only men who had lived in the frontier wilderness could
have endured the march. Despite wading waist-deep through flooding rivers
and swamps in freezing February snowstorms, going days without warm food,
poorly clothed, and carrying only the minimum supply of gunpowder and
shot, Clark and his men reached Vincennes determined to fight. Learning
that he had arrived undetected by the British, Clark ordered great
bonfires lit, both to warm his frozen men and to deceive Hamilton.
Watching dancing shadows of seemingly countless men whooping and shouting
in front of the fires, Hamilton concluded he was hopelessly outnumbered.
The next morning, February 24, 1779, the bold Clark demanded Hamilton's
surrender. At first the governor refused, but a series of well placed
rifle shots took the fight out of the defenders. Then Clark ordered
several Indians, caught in the act of taking scalps into the fort,
tomahawked in full view of the fort. Hamilton agreed to surrender. Clark
sent Hamilton under heavy guard to Virginia, passing through the Kentucky
settlements his Indians had harassed. Ignoring protests from the British,
Governor Jefferson refused to exchange Hamilton, keeping him in irons in
the Williamsburg jail until November 1780 when the prisoner finally
agreed to sign a parole not to fight against the Americans or to go among
the Indians.[43] Clark was treated shamefully by the Virginia Assembly
after the war and was never fully reimbursed for his personal expenses in
the west.
[43] For a dramatic, but not inaccurate, account of the
expedition and Clark, read John Bakeless, Background to Glory:
The Story of George Rogers Clark (Lippincott: Philadelphia,
1957.)
For Clark the capture of Vincennes was to be a prelude to taking Detroit.
In both 1779 and 1780 he planned marches to the center of British western
power. Neither time could he bring off a coordinated attack. The frontier
was under too heavy pressure from the Ohio Indians led by Tory Henry Bird
and the infamous renegade, Simon Girty. Instead, Clark concentrated on
Indians closer to Kentucky. In August 1780 with 1,000 riflemen he
destroyed the principal Shawnee towns of Chillocothe and Piqua, but could
not break the Shawnee strength. The invasion of eastern Virginia in 1781
ended hopes for the Detroit project, drew men from the west, and opened
the way for the Ohio Indians to go on the offensive. Bitter fighting
continued in the west after Yorktown. Clark's troops finally broke the
Shawnees in November 1782 when they again leveled Chillocothe and Piqua.
Hostilities and the British presence in the Northwest Territory remained
a contentious issue until after the War of 1812.
The War and Eastern Virginia, 1776-1779
Initial British war strategy did not call for a direct attack on the
Chesapeake states. They were too hard to hold once conquered. There were
no towns to occupy, no natural defense positions, too many rivers to
cross, too little to be gained in comparison to New York, Philadelphia,
or Charleston. Furthermore, there was no sizeable loyalist population to
rise up and assist the British as in the Carolinas and the middle states.
The war effort was men, material, and money. Under Governor Henry the
executive branch functioned reasonably well. There were no emergencies,
no need for quick decisions which only the executive can make, and little
sapping of morale which a long, inconclusive war can bring. Still, Henry
recognized the restrictions placed on the governor, whom he called a
"mere phantom". Fortunately for him, he left office in June 1779 before
the inherent weakness of the executive branch became apparent. Jefferson
was not to be so fortunate. From time to time in the administrations of
Henry, Jefferson, and Thomas Nelson, Jr., persons talked of making the
governor a "dictator" (in the Roman use of this word, not the modern
connotation). These were mostly speculative discussions, not serious
attempts to change the government. Only in the dire crises of Summer 1781
was it even a remote possibility.
The most direct threat to Virginia in these early years was on the seas.
To meet that threat Virginia established a state navy in 1776. Eventually
the Virginia navy had "72 vessels of all classes, including many ships,
brigs, and schooners; but apparently most of them were small, poorly
manned, and lightly armed; and were used largely for commerce."[44] Never
intended to meet the British fleet in combat, the Virginia navy did
succeed in establishing regular patrols, clearing the Bay of privateers,
and protecting merchantmen trading in the West Indies.
[44] Gardner W. Allen, A Naval of the American Revolution, 2
volumes (Boston, 1913), I, 40-41.
By January 1779 the British army came into Piedmont Virginia in a totally
unexpected manner. Congress declared the "convention" (treaty of
surrender) by which Burgoyne had surrendered his troops at Saratoga to be
faulty and ordered some 4,000 Hessian and British soldiers imprisoned in
Albemarle County. Settled along Ivy Creek, the prisoners, mostly Germans,
lived in hastily built huts generously called "The Barracks". Several of
their chief officers, among them Baron de Riedesel and General William
Phillips, lived in comfort and close contact with their near neighbor,
Governor Jefferson. Phillips was shortly exchanged and went to New York.
The conditions under which the troops lived steadily deteriorated,
although the prisoners were so inadequately guarded that hundreds walked
away. In November 1780 Governor Jefferson concluded that the convention
troops should be moved from Virginia to get them away from invading
British troops. The British troops moved first toward Frederick,
Maryland, with the Hessians following. Again many of the prisoners
drifted off into the forests never reaching Frederick.
Black Virginians in the Revolution
One particularly difficult question for the government was whether to
utilize the black population in the military. Only a few thousand of the
nearly 230,000 black residents were free men. The remainder were slaves.
There was a constant fear that arming free blacks would incite their
slave brethren to revolt. This fear was strongest in 1775-1776 when
Dunmore had encouraged slaves to flee their masters and join his troops.
Although Dunmore's black troops numbered only several hundred nearly
10,000 slaves fled Virginia during the war. Most did not better their
lot, ending up as slaves in the West Indies. Many did get to Nova Scotia
where they lived as free men in the large loyalist colony there. Others
settled in the British West African colony of Sierra Leone.
Negro troops were present at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, and in the
ranks of Washington's first Continentals. Quickly, however, under
pressure from southern colonies, notably South Carolina, Congress adopted
a policy of excluding blacks from further enlistment in the Continental
Army. Although most states excluded slaves from service, they did not
exclude free blacks from enlisting in the militia. Virginia allowed free
blacks to enlist after July 1775. This enticed slaves to run away and
enlist as free blacks, a practice the assembly tried to halt by requiring
all black enlistees to have certificates of freedom. Then an odd reversal
occurred after 1779 when the state began to conscript white males into
the militia. Taking advantage of the provision in the draft law allowing
draftees to send substitutes, some slave owners offered their slaves as
substitutes. This was as far as the enlistment of slaves went. James
Madison proposed in 1780 that the state purchase slaves, free them, and
make them soldiers. The legislature rejected the plan. On the other hand,
the state did buy some slaves to work in shipyards, on shipboard, and in
state-run factories.[45]
[45] For a fuller discussion of black Virginians in the
Revolution, see Luther P. Jackson, Virginia Negro Soldiers and
Sailors in the Revolutionary War (Norfolk, 1944), and Benjamin
Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (University of
North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1961).
The actual number of black Virginians in the service is unknown.
Historians Luther Jackson and Benjamin Quarles suggest there were several
hundred in the army and at least 140 in the small Virginia navy. Usually
these men were orderlies, drummers, and support troops. In the navy they
frequently served as river pilots. There were exceptions like freeman
John Banks of Goochland, who fought as a cavalryman under Colonel Bland
for two years, the well-known spy James Lafayette, who performed
invaluable work for Lafayette in the closing days of the war, or John de
Baptist, a sailor who served with distinction on the Dragon.
Peace did not bring freedom for the slaves in the services. The
state-owned slaves were resold. Free men who had enlisted in the service
were entitled to and did receive enlistment and pay bounties due all
soldiers. Slaves whose masters had offered them as substitutes had a more
difficult time. Some slave owners tried to reclaim them as slaves even
though the Virginia law explicitly permitted the enlistment only of free
men. Fortunately, Governor Benjamin Harrison was enraged by this
duplicity at what he called a repudiation of the "common principles of
justice and humanity" and prevailed upon the legislature "to pass an act
giving to these unhappy creatures that liberty which they have been in
some measure instrumental in securing for us."
Nevertheless, although white Virginians recognized the contradiction
between that liberty which they enjoyed and the slavery which existed
around them, they did not see a means whereby the ideal that all men were
created equal could become a practical reality. Unlike later generations,
however, the Revolutionary generation made no attempt to justify slavery
or to accept its extension. In 1778 Virginia became the first state to
prohibit the importation of slaves, and in 1782 passed a liberal
manumission law permitting masters to free their slaves without special
legislative act. Many took advantage of this law. Virginia also
determined that there should be no slavery in the western lands ceded to
the federal government. Jefferson saw to it that a prohibition against
slavery was written into the federal Land Ordinance of 1784 and the
Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Yet, what was earlier noted bears
repeating--the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence
were the beginning of a great governmental experiment, not the finished
product.
The British Move South, 1780-1781
The British shifted their armies southward in 1779, hoping to cut off the
lower southern states, break the morale of the rest of America, and force
a negotiated peace. Their principal hopes rested on exploiting loyalist
strength in the fiercely divided Carolinas where much of the fighting
since 1775 had been colonial against colonial, patriot against Tory. In
early 1780 General Henry Clinton sailed from New York with 8,000 troops,
outmaneuvered General Benjamin Lincoln, and captured Charleston. The
defeat was a severe blow to the Americans costing them their chief
southern seaport, several thousand Continentals and militiamen from the
Carolinas and Virginia, and Generals Lincoln and William Woodford.
Clinton sailed back to New York, leaving his troops with Lord Cornwallis.
The most daring of the British generals, Cornwallis decided to leave
Charleston and invade the Carolinas. With excellent support from Colonel
Banastre Tarleton, Lord Rawdon, and Major Patrick Ferguson he swept all
before him. Tarleton, the best cavalry officer in either army, and
Ferguson led partisan loyalist units. Tarleton's troopers, known as the
British Tory Legion, needed no introduction to Virginians. They had
slaughtered without quarter unarmed Virginians under Colonel Abraham
Buford in May 1780 at the Waxhaws, south of Charlotte, North Carolina.
From then on he was known as "Bloody Tarleton".
Congress elected Horatio Gates to replace Lincoln in the southern
command. Gates hurried south with several thousand Maryland, Virginia,
and North Carolina militiamen and Continental troops. Stumbling into
Cornwallis' army at Camden, South Carolina, he planned and executed a
faulty battle plan. Cornwallis executed perfectly and completely routed
Gates. For the only time in the war Virginia militiamen behaved badly,
fled the field, and were a major contributing factor to the disaster. Not
only did Gates lose 600 men, many of them battle-hardened Continentals,
he lost two outstanding officers, General Jean de Kalb, the tough German
officer, and Colonel Edward Porterfield from Virginia. Facing almost sure
defeat in the Carolinas, Congress replaced Gates with Nathaniel Greene of
Rhode Island, taking care not to embarrass the Englishman who had given
so much to Patriot cause.
Greene turned out to be the man to baffle Cornwallis. With a constantly
underequipped and often inadequate army he managed to keep Cornwallis at
bay. He was moved by one desire--to force Cornwallis into costly battles,
but never expose his whole army to capture. Flee if necessary, but be
able to fight another day. He was inventive and unorthodox. With an army
much smaller than Cornwallis' he divided it into thirds, plus compelling
Cornwallis to divide his own army. Greene knew that Cornwallis,
victorious as he might have been, was detached from Charleston and had to
live off the land. He would fight a war of attrition and wear Cornwallis
down. His strategy worked, although not without fateful moments. He had
great faith in his command officers and gave them considerable leeway.
They rewarded him with two stunning victories--King's Mountain, North
Carolina in October 1780 and Cowpens, South Carolina in January 1781.
King's Mountain was a unique battle for it was fought almost completely
between Americans, Major Ferguson and his South Carolina, New York, and
New Jersey Tories on the British side and North Carolina and Virginia
frontier riflemen under Colonels Isaac Shelby, fiery William Campbell,
and John Sevier for the United States. Although Ferguson's position from
the outset was nearly impossible, he refused to surrender, knowing what
was in store if he did. He was correct. The hatred which only the
Carolina civil war unleashed during the Revolution burst forth. Only the
intervention of Shelby and Campbell kept the frontiersmen from
annihilating Ferguson's Tories. As it was, the British lost 1,000 men,
700 of them captives. Ferguson was killed.
Cowpens was a personal victory for General Daniel Morgan who felt he had
been slighted by congress. Greene gave him a full command and sent him
off to find Tarleton. He found him at Cowpens, not too far from King's
Mountain. Morgan utilized his riflemen, light infantry, and cavalry and
Continental regulars in an unconventional manner. He thoroughly whipped
Tarleton, who up until that time had been invincible. Morgan's men killed
100 British, captured 800, and seized Tarleton's entire supply train.
The combination of King's Mountain and Cowpens completely disrupted
Cornwallis' plan and led him into the series of mistakes which ended at
Yorktown.[46]
[46] Ward, American Revolution, II, 792.
Even when he suffered defeat or a stalemate, as he did at Guilford
Courthouse (Greensboro, North Carolina) in March 1781, Greene made
Cornwallis pay such a heavy price that the British general could not
afford the cost of victory. Wandering aimlessly after Greene across North
Carolina and unable to live off the barren countryside, Cornwallis
retreated eastward to Wilmington. There in the spring of 1781, with only
1400 of his original 3,000 troops left, he decided to move north and join
Benedict Arnold's troops who had invaded Virginia on December 30, 1781.
The Invasion of Virginia, 1781
Three times before the British had appeared in the Chesapeake. In 1777
Admiral Howe sent a fleet into the upper Bay to assist the grand attack
which was to take New York and Philadelphia simultaneously. He had
withdrawn without contact after Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga ruined the
scheme.
Admiral George Collier swept into Hampton Roads in May 1779, burned the
shipyard at Gosport, captured 130 ships, occupied Portsmouth, and raided
the countryside, doing $2,000,000 damage. Before he could be challenged
by General Thomas Nelson, Jr., and the Virginia militia he was gone. One
consequence of the raid was the loss of all future loyalist support for
the British. At Collier's arrival, the numerous Norfolk-Portsmouth
loyalists came out from under cover, only to be abandoned when the
British left after a few days. They never ventured forth again.
In October 1780 General Alexander Leslie descended upon Hampton Roads
with a substantial British force, fully intending to take Virginia out of
the war in coordination with Cornwallis' march through the Carolinas.
King's Mountain ended that plan. Needing reenforcements, Cornwallis
called Leslie southward. Again the British left the state.
Although Virginia breathed a sigh of relief, she was in a most difficult
position at the end of 1780. Her military resources were stretched to the
limit. Governor Jefferson had tried simultaneously to meet calls for
troops from Washington to the north and Greene to the south, while never
overlooking Clark to the west. Although roundly criticized for stripping
Virginia to aid other states, Jefferson well understood the crucial
nature of Greene's campaign. The only reserves he had left were
militiamen.
Of the estimated 55,000 to 60,000 Virginians who fought at some time
during the Revolution, as many as 35,000 were militia. Many were
short-term soldiers, fighting only three to six months at a time. Often
they were unprepared and untrained, not used to disciplined fighting,
good marksmen, but unskilled in the use of the bayonet. Often, and
unnecessarily disparaged, the militia was the backbone of the patriot
armies, appearing when needed, disbanding as soon as danger passed. In
Virginia they had been called out in 1777, in 1779, for a false rumor in
June 1780, and to meet Leslie in October 1780. In each case the enemy
disappeared. These British cat-and-mouse appearances may have lulled the
Virginians and Jefferson into a false sense of security, for the state
was unprepared for the real invasion Washington had warned was coming.
On December 30, 1780, Benedict Arnold, seeking the glory in the British
army he thought had been denied him by the Americans, sailed into the
Chesapeake with a small, well-disciplined British army. Whatever might be
said about Arnold's political ethics, few have criticized his command
performance with small forces. He was initially aided in Virginia by
Jefferson's caution which left Nelson's militia only half-mobilized. The
only other force was a small Continental regiment under Steuben.
Arnold sailed up the James to Westover, the estate of Tory William Byrd
III. From there he moved unopposed to Richmond, the official state
capital since April 1780. Throughout January 5 and 6 his men burned the
state buildings, destroyed the iron and powder factory at Westham, and
seized or burned all available state records. Knowing he could not hold
Richmond, Arnold returned to Portsmouth and went into winter quarters.
Recognizing the danger Arnold posed, Washington sent Lafayette south from
New York with 1,200 New England and New Jersey Continentals. Even after
joining his troops with the Virginia militia of Nelson, Muhlenberg, and
George Weedon, he could do little more than watch Arnold. Arnold had
already sent General William Philips, the former prisoner of war in
Charlottesville, against Petersburg. Meeting little opposition from the
Virginia militia as he destroyed tobacco and supplies in the town on
April 24, Philips went into Chesterfield county, burning militia barracks
and supplies. At the same time Arnold was burning more than 20 ships in
the James below Richmond.
Everything seemed to go wrong. The French fleet sent from Newport to
block Arnold at Portsmouth was routed by a British fleet off the Capes
and went back to Rhode Island. The British forces ravaged at will the
Virginia countryside along the James and Appomattox Rivers. Then Arnold
was joined on May 20 by Cornwallis who had marched northward from
Wilmington to meet him at Petersburg. There were now 7,200 British troops
in Virginia. Facing them was the young Marquis de Lafayette with 3,200
soldiers, 2,000 of them inexperienced Virginia militia. Total collapse of
Virginia seemed imminent.
Artfully, Lafayette kept his smaller army intact, moving westward along
the South Anna River, then northward over the Rapidan west of
Fredericksburg. There he was joined by General Anthony Wayne and his
Pennsylvanians. Cornwallis followed but could not draw Lafayette or
Wayne into battle. So he settled down at Elk Hill, the estate of Mrs.
Jefferson's father in Cumberland County. From there he sent Major John
Simcoe on a raid against General Steuben and the major munitions center
at Point of Fork on the James. At first Simcoe was unsuccessful; then
he tricked Steuben into withdrawing to the west, needlessly abandoning
the munitions.
At the same time Cornwallis ordered Tarleton to leave Lafayette in
Hanover County, take his cavalry, dash to Charlottesville, break up the
assembly then meeting there, and capture Jefferson. By hard riding on
the nights of June 3 and 4 Tarleton nearly made it to Charlottesville
undetected. But he stopped at Cuckoo Tavern in Louisa County, where he
was spotted by militia Captain John Jouett, Jr. Guessing Tarleton's
mission, Jack Jouett rode madly through the night over the back roads
he knew well, and beat Tarleton's men to town. At Jouett's warning most
of the legislators fled over the Blue Ridge to Staunton, while Governor
Jefferson left Monticello southward to his summer home at Poplar
Forest, Bedford County. Seven members of the assembly, one of whom was
Daniel Boone, delegate from Kentucky County, were captured. Unable to
take them with him, Tarleton paroled them.
This was the low point of Jefferson's public career. His term had ended
officially on June 3 and since he had not intended to stand for
reelection, he did not go to Staunton. Some disgruntled delegates
wanted him censured. Instead a formal investigation in December 1781
ended with the senate and house presenting him with a unanimous vote of
commendation.
The assembly elected Thomas Nelson, Jr., radical patriot, wealthy
merchant from Yorktown, and commander of the Virginia militia, to be
governor. Nelson served only five months, compelled by ill health to
resign in December. In those five months Virginia went from the depths of
despair to the glories of Yorktown. Nelson was succeeded by Benjamin
Harrison, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
On June 15 Cornwallis left his camp at Elk Hill, sacking the plantation
as he departed. He moved eastward toward the coast where he could better
coordinate his movements with those of Clinton in New York. Clinton was
under heavy pressure from Washington and French General Rochambeau.
Heading for Williamsburg, Cornwallis plundered the countryside as he
went. Reaching Williamsburg, he received orders from Clinton to send
3,000 men to New York. Leaving Williamsburg for his ships at Portsmouth,
he maneuvered Lafayette and Wayne into a reckless battle near Jamestown
on July 6. Beating Wayne badly, Cornwallis had Lafayette at his mercy,
but could not follow up for a complete victory.
At this point indecision by Clinton, commander-in-chief of the British
army, caused a fatal error. He had ordered Cornwallis to send the men to
New York; then he countermanded that order and wanted them shipped to
Philadelphia; then to New York again. Finally learning that Admiral de
Grasse with a major French fleet had left France for America, he
suggested Cornwallis move across the James from Portsmouth and find a
suitable site on the peninsula for both an army and the British fleet. He
suggested Old Point Comfort. His proposal was examined by Cornwallis and
rejected as undefendable. Cornwallis settled on Yorktown with its high
bluff and good port.
Yorktown, September-October, 1781
The news that Admiral de Grasse and the French fleet had cleared France
presented Washington with an opportunity he had to exploit. Washington
and Rochambeau took counsel and concluded an assault on Clinton in New
York was not a certain success. Cornwallis was a better bet. They decided
to leave Clinton in New York believing he was about to be attacked by a
large army and move quickly southward to Virginia. Coordinating their
arrival with that of de Grasse in the Chesapeake, they would snare
Cornwallis at Yorktown.
For once in the war a grand American plan went off without a hitch.
Washington and Rochambeau left New York on August 21, getting away
without detection by Clinton. Simultaneously Lafayette moved his troops
south of Cornwallis to block an escape into the Carolinas. On August 30
de Grasse with his great fleet of 24 major ships, 1,700 guns, 19,000
seamen, and 3,000 troops reached the Capes. He had disembarked his troops
before a smaller British fleet arrived to challenge him. On September 5
the French fleet drove the English back to New York. Cornwallis was
trapped.
Carefully Washington, Rochambeau, and de Grasse plotted the siege of
Yorktown. When the formal siege began on September 28, Washington had an
army of nearly 16,000 men including 7,800 fresh, disciplined, and
well-equipped French troops. The 8,800 Americans included 3,000 Virginia
militia commanded by Governor Nelson and veteran Generals Weedon, Robert
Lawson, and Edward Stevens. The bulk of Washington's Continentals were
from Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. Cornwallis had about 7,000
men, many of whom had been in the field since February, 1780.
At the beginning Cornwallis abandoned his weaker outer defenses, which
Washington immediately turned into artillery battery positions. Once the
siege began in earnest on October 6, the allied artillery pounded the
British into submission. Parallel trenches were dug close to the British
lines. On the night of October 14 a combined attack by Americans under
Colonel Alexander Hamilton and the French took the two redoubts which
were the keys to the sagging British defenses. On the 16th Cornwallis
attempted to escape across the York River to Gloucester Point and then
north to New York and Clinton. A sudden storm scattered his boats and
barges. With that Cornwallis recognized the utter hopelessness of his
position and on the 17th signalled Washington for terms of surrender.
Washington replied that only complete surrender was acceptable.
Cornwallis agreed. There was no choice. At 2 p.m. on October 19, 1781,
Cornwallis' army of 7,247 stacked arms and surrendered to the Americans
while a British regimental band played the now famous military march,
"The World Turned Upside Down." Cornwallis, pleading illness was not
present. He was later to go on to a distinguished career as
governor-general of India.
Fighting went on spasmodically in the Carolinas and in the West for some
time. But everyone knew the war was over. The British people no longer
wanted to fight what had become a world war involving the Dutch, French,
and Spanish, as well as the Americans. When he heard the news from
Yorktown, Lord North supposedly cried out, "Oh God! It is all over."
And it was. On March 4, 1782, the House of Commons voted for peace.
Commissioners for both sides meeting in Paris agreed on terms on November
30, 1782. The formal treaty was ratified on September 3, 1783. The United
States of America existed in law as well as in fact.
What had begun as an attempt by Britain to balance her budget after the
victorious French and Indian War ended with an independent United States.
She also gave Florida back to the Spanish who returned Louisiana to the
French. Perhaps wiser men than George Grenville and George III might have
prevented the separation. Probably not. Thomas Paine put it so simply and
so persuasively, "An Island was not meant to rule a continent."
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WASHINGTON'S VIRGINIA. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill,
North Carolina, 1952. Reprinted in paperback under title of AMERICAN
REVOLUTIONARIES IN THE MAKING: Macmillan Company, New York, New York,
1965.
Van Every, Dale. FORTH TO THE WILDERNESS, 1754-1774. William Morrow
Company, New York, New York, 1961.
Van Every, Dale. A COMPANY OF HEROES: THE AMERICAN FRONTIER, 1775-1783.
William Morrow Company, New York, New York, 1962.
Van Schreeven, William J., and Scribner, Robert L. REVOLUTIONARY
VIRGINIA: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE, VOLUME I, 1763-1774, Volume II,
1773-75, Volume III, 1775. Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission,
University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1973, 1974,
1975.
Van Schreeven, William J., and Scribner, Robert L. REVOLUTIONARY
VIRGINIA: A DOCUMENTARY RECORD, VOLUME II, 1773-1775. Virginia
Independence Bicentennial Commission, University Press of Virginia,
Charlottesville, Virginia, 1975.
Ward, Christopher. THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 2 Volumes, Macmillan
Company, New York, New York, 1952.
Watson, J. Steven. THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. Oxford University Press,
Oxford, England, 1960.
Williams, D. Alan. "The Virginia Gentry and the Democratic Myth." MAIN
PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 3rd edition, Dorsey Press, Homewood,
Illinois, 1971.
Appendix
A Chronology of Selected Events in Virginia
1763-1783[47]
[47] The chronology of selected events in Virginia 1763-1783 was
taken from William W. Abbot's publication entitled, A VIRGINIA
CHRONOLOGY 1585-1783, "To pass away the time", Williamsburg,
Virginia, 1957. Permission for use of this material has been
granted by the publisher.
May 10, 1763. After the news of the signing of the Peace of Paris
on February 10, 1763, came to Virginia, the Virginia regiment was
disbanded.
May 28, 1763. The defeat of the French in America introduced new
stresses and strains in the British Empire. Differences between the
colonies and Mother Country began to appear immediately and with
increasing frequency and intensity. The Bland Report of 1763 made to the
House of Burgesses revealed one point of conflict between the two.
Virginia had in part financed her contribution to the recent war by
issuing paper money backed by taxation. The British merchants, creditors
of the colonial planters, feared inflation and were bitterly attacking
the policy of printing paper money in the colonies. Defending Virginia's
actions, the Bland Report presented the American argument for paper
money. The British merchants carried the day to their own hurt by
securing an Act of Parliament in 1764 forbidding the future issue of
paper currency in the colonies.
October 7, 1763. Another cause for colonial resentment at war's
end was the King's proclamation closing the trans-Allegheny west to
settlement.
December, 1763. One consequence of the Parsons' Causes was the
sudden emergence of young Patrick Henry on the political scene. When the
court of Hanover county decided in favor of Reverend James Maury, the
defendants called on Henry to plead their cause before the jury which was
to fix the amount of damages. By appealing to the anti-clerical and even
lawless instincts of the jury and by doing it with unmatched oratorical
skill, Patrick Henry won the jury to his side and made himself a popular
hero in upcountry Virginia.
October 30, 1764. Many Burgesses arrived early for the October
December session of the General Assembly "in a flame" over the Act of
Parliament proposing a Stamp tax on the American colonists. The committee
of correspondence had been busy during the summer communicating with the
agent in London, and the Burgesses were ready to take action against the
proposed tax.
December 17, 1764. The House of Burgesses and the Council agreed
upon an address to the Crown and upon memorials to the House of Commons
and to the House of Lords. The three petitions stressed the sufferings
such a tax would cause war-weary Virginians and also opposed the levy on
constitutional grounds. They argued that the colonial charters and long
usage gave the Virginia House of Burgesses the sole right to tax
Virginians and that the fundamental constitution of Britain protected a
man from being taxed without his consent. These arguments, elaborated and
refined, were to be the heart of the colonial contentions in the
turbulent days ahead.
May 29, 1765. The arguments of the Virginia Assembly went
unheeded. On February 27, 1765, Parliament decreed that the stamp tax
should go into effect on November 1. The General Assembly was in session
when news of the passage of the Stamp Act came to Virginia, and on May 29
the House went into the committee of the whole to consider what steps it
should take. Burgess Patrick Henry presented his famous resolutions which
fixed at the outset the tenor of colonial opposition to the stamp tax.
The House adopted by a close vote on the 30th five of Henry's seven
resolutions, and all seven were given wide circulation throughout the
colonies.
October 30, 1765. On the day before the stamp tax was to go into
effect, George Mercer, the collector, arrived in Williamsburg with the
stamps. Williamsburg was filled with people in town for the meeting of
the General Court, and Governor Fauquier had to intervene to protect
Mercer from the insults of the mob. On November 1, the courts ceased to
function and all public business came to a virtual halt.
February 8, 1766. Foreshadowing the judicial review of a later
day, the Northampton county court declared the Stamp Act unconstitutional
and consequently of no effect.
March 13, 1766. A number of the inhabitants of the town and
environs of Norfolk assembled at the court house and formed the Sons of
Liberty. The Sons of Liberty usually appeared hereafter at the forefront
of any anti-British agitation in the colonies.
1766. Richard Bland published his famous An Inquiry into the Rights of
the British Colonies in which he took a rather advanced
constitutional position in opposition to parliamentary taxation of the
American colonies.
May 11, 1766. At the height of the Stamp Act crisis, the dominant
group in the House of Burgesses was shaken by a scandal involving the
long-time Speaker and Treasurer of the Colony, John Robinson, who died on
this day leaving his accounts short by some 100,000 pounds.
June 9, 1766. Governor Fauquier announced by public proclamation
the repeal of the Stamp Act (March 18, 1766). Although repeal brought a
wave of reaction against the agitation of the past months and a strong
upsurge of loyalty to Great Britain, the leaders of Virginia, and of the
other colonies, had consciously or not moved to a new position in their
view of the proper relationship between the Colony and the Mother
Country. The failure of the rulers of Britain to appreciate and assess
properly the changed temper of the colonists lost for them the American
empire.
November 6, 1766. The General Assembly of 1766-1768 met: November
6-December 16, 1766 and adjourned to March 12-April 11, 1767, and then
met in a final session, March 31-April 16, 1768.
January, 1768. The Virginia Gazette began to publish John
Dickenson's letters from a "Pennsylvania Farmer." These letters did a
great deal to clarify, in the minds of many, the American position with
regard to the Parliamentary claim of the right of taxation in the
colonies.
March 3, 1768. Governor Fauquier died.
March 31, 1768. News of the passage of the Townshend Acts and of
the suspension of the New York legislature was already causing a wave of
indignation in Virginia when the General Assembly met in March. Having
taken under consideration the circular letter of the Massachusetts
legislature opposing the Townshend Acts and various petitions to the same
effect, the House of Burgesses prepared petitions to the Crown and to
both Houses of Parliament, and on April 14 adopted all three unanimously.
The House then sent word to the other colonial Assemblies of its action
and congratulated the Massachusetts House "for their attention to
American liberty."
August 12, 1768. In a move to strengthen the hand of the Virginia
Governor and at the same time to conciliate the Colony, the King made
Fauquier's replacement, Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, Governor
of Virginia in the place of Jeffrey Amherst. Not since the time of
Governor Nicholson had the Governor himself come out to Virginia.
October 26, 1768. Lord Botetourt arrived in Williamsburg.
May 8, 1769. The Governor, Lord Botetourt, opened the first and
only session of the General Assembly of 1769 (May 8-17) with a
conciliatory speech; but, obviously unmoved, the House of Burgesses set
about with remarkable unanimity to restate their position with regard to
Parliamentary supremacy. The House also denounced the reported plan for
transporting colonists accused of treason to England for trial. On May
16, the House adopted resolutions to this effect and then on the next day
unanimously approved an address to the Crown.
May 17, 1769. The House resolutions of the 16th caused Lord
Botetourt to dissolve the General Assembly. Dissolution blocked the
planned adoption of George Mason's proposal for forming an association
with the other colonies for the purpose of suspending the importation of
British goods. But the Burgesses got around this by meeting in their
private capacity at the house of Anthony Hays. This was a momentous step.
The meeting made Speaker Peyton Randolph the moderator and appointed a
committee to present a plan for association.
May 18, 1769. The Burgesses adopted the report of the committee
calling for a boycott on English goods to force the repeal of the
Townshend Acts and invited the other colonies to join the association.
November 7, 1769. The General Assembly of 1769-1771 met November
7-December 21, 1769, and adjourned to May 21-June 28, 1770; and then it
met in a final session July 11-20, 1771.
In his speech to the Assembly on the first day of its meeting, Lord
Botetourt pacified the Virginians momentarily with information from Lord
Hillsborough that His Majesty's administration contemplated no new taxes
in America and in fact intended the repeal of the Townshend Acts.
June 22, 1770. During the May-June session of the General
Assembly, the gentlemen of the House of Burgesses joined with a large
group of merchants to take action against the duty on tea retained when
the Townshend Acts were repealed. The Burgesses and merchants formed a
new association to replace the ineffective one of 1769. This time,
committees in each county were to take proper steps to see that the terms
of the association were abided by.
June 27, 1770. The members of the House of Burgesses agreed
unanimously to a new petition to the King asking for his interposition to
prevent Parliament levying taxes in America.
October 15, 1770. Lord Botetourt of necessity had often opposed
the colonists in their quarrel with the British Parliament, but he had
done so without losing their affection and respect. On October 15, 1770,
he died. William Nelson, president of the Council, then acted as Governor
until the fall of 1771 when Governor Dunmore arrived.
October 12, 1771. John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, dissolved the
General Assembly of 1769-1771 after coming to Virginia on September 25,
1771. Dunmore, Virginia's last British Governor, was an unperceptive and
timorous man, a man who could do nothing to still the coming storm that
rent an Empire.
February 10, 1772. The General Assembly of 1772-1774 met February
10-April 11, 1772; March 4-15, 1773; and May 5-26, 1774, when it was
dissolved. Meeting in an interlude of relative peace between Britain and
her colonies (1770-1773), the Assembly in its spring session of 1772
proceeded in a routine fashion and the Burgesses found no occasion to try
the mettle of the new Governor.
March 4, 1773. Governor Dunmore for the first time found reason to
complain of the General Assembly in its March meeting of 1773. He was
miffed by an implied rebuke of the House of Burgesses for his handling of
counterfeiters; but he had better reason to be disturbed by another
development. On March 12, the House revived its committee of
correspondence and extended its functions. As proposed by a
self-constituted meeting at the Raleigh Tavern and headed by Richard
Henry Lee, the House instructed its new committee of correspondence to
inquire into the Gaspée affair, to keep in touch with the
legislatures of the other colonies, and to correspond with the London
agent. A key factor in the transfer of power which was to come shortly,
the plan of a committee of correspondence was quickly adopted in the
other colonies. Before proroguing the Assembly on March 15, Governor
Dunmore signed the last Acts assented to by the royal Governor of
Virginia.
May 24, 1774. The May meeting of the Assembly was uneventful until
the news of the Boston Port Acts stirred up a hornets' nest in the House
of Burgesses. The House expressed alarm and promptly declared June 1, the
day the Acts were to go into effect, a day of fasting and prayer. Two
days later, May 26, Governor Dunmore dissolved the General Assembly of
1772-1774. One consequence of interrupting the Assembly before any
legislation had been completed was to put an end to civil actions in the
courts for the lack of a fee bill, which pleased many a debt-ridden
colonist.
May 27, 1774. On May 25, the day after the news of the Boston Port
Acts, Richard Henry Lee had ready his proposals for calling a Continental
Congress, but when he delayed presenting them to the House so as not to
invoke dissolution, he lost the opportunity of having the House of
Burgesses act upon them. The day after Dunmore had dissolved the
Assembly, the members of the House met in the Apollo room of the Raleigh
Tavern. After denouncing the "intolerable" Acts, they instructed the
committee of correspondence to write to the other colonies and propose a
Continental Congress.
May 30, 1774. Twenty-five Burgesses who were still in town met to
consider a packet of letters fresh from Boston. Massachusetts proposed
that all of the colonies suspend all trade with Britain. The Burgesses
agreed to send out notices to the members of the "late House" for a
meeting on August 1, 1774. During the next two months, the inhabitants in
the various counties met to elect delegates to the August Convention and
to prepare resolutions condemning the Boston Port Acts. Feeling was
running high and sympathy for Boston took the form of an outpouring of
gifts for the unfortunate city. Jefferson's Summary View published
at this time was intended as a guide for the August Convention, but it
was too advanced for the moment in its outright denial of all
Parliamentary authority in America.
August 1, 1774. With the meeting of the August Convention,
Virginia took a big step toward revolution and began to build an
extra-legal framework which would take over the functions of government
when British authority collapsed. The Convention agreed to import no more
from Britain after November 1 and to export no more after August 10,
1775. It chose as delegates to the Continental Congress Peyton Randolph,
Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland,
Benjamin Harrison, and Edmund Pendleton. The Convention instructed each
county to appoint a committee of correspondence. The amazing
effectiveness with which the committees organized the counties helps to
explain Virginia's smooth transition from colony to commonwealth.
1775. With an estimated population of 550,000, Virginia had 61 counties
on the eve of the Revolution. Ten of these were formed since the
departure of Governor Dinwiddie in 1758: Fauquier in 1759; Amherst and
Buckingham in 1761; Charlotte and Mecklenburg in 1765; Pittsylvania in
1767; Botetourt in 1770; and Berkeley, Dunmore, and Fincastle in 1772.
March 20, 1775. Peyton Randolph, moderator of the August
Convention, called for a meeting at Richmond in March. The March
convention, dominated by members of the House of Burgesses, approved the
work of the Continental Congress, but foremost in the minds of the
delegates was the problem of defense. After Henry's "Give me liberty or
give me death" speech, the delegates made provisions for developing a
military establishment. What they in fact did was to undermine the
regular militia through the formation of "Independent Companies" in the
counties. The revolutionary government which was evolving became a little
more clearly defined when the Convention instructed each county to elect
two delegates to sit in future Conventions.
April 20, 1775. Lord Dunmore watched the events of 1774-1775 with
helpless alarm. Particularly frightening for him was the formation of the
"Independent Companies" in the spring of 1775. On the night of April 20
he took the precaution of having the small store of arms and ammunition
in the magazine at Williamsburg removed and placed on H.M.S. Fowey
in the York River. On the morning of the 21st, the people of Williamsburg
learned what the Governor had done during the night and were vastly
excited. An incredible wave of fury spread through the Colony and
everywhere men took up arms. All the pent up passion of the past months
was turned against the unfortunate Governor.
April 28, 1775. At the height of the excitement over the powder
magazine affair, news came from the northward that colonials had engaged
British regulars at Concord and Lexington.
May 3, 1775. Thoroughly frightened, Lord Dunmore made a public
proclamation on May 3 in which he attempted to justify his actions of
April 20 and to pacify the people. Beyond being pacified, the people
cheered Patrick Henry who marched upon Williamsburg with the Hanover
Independent Company and stopped short of the town only because Governor
Dunmore sent him 300 pounds to pay for the powder taken from the public
magazine.
June 1, 1775. Fortified with Lord North's conciliatory proposals,
Dunmore made his last bid to regain control of the colony by recalling
the General Assembly to Williamsburg on June 1, 1775. The Burgesses
refused to re-open the courts as Dunmore asked; they approved the
proceedings of the Continental Congress and the colonial Conventions
without a dissenting vote; and then they allowed Jefferson to reply to
North's proposal in terms of his Summary View of the year before.
June 8, 1775. Lord Dunmore wrote the Assembly that he considered
Williamsburg no longer safe for him and his family and that he had taken
up residence in the Fowey in the York River. When the General
Assembly refused to do business with him there and proceeded to operate
independently of the Governor, royal government in Virginia was virtually
at an end. The General Assembly adjourned itself on June 24 to October
12, 1775, and then to March 7, 1776, and finally to May 16, 1776, but a
quorum never appeared.
July 17, 1775. The July Convention completed the transfer of power
from the royal government to the revolutionists. It sought to legalize
its control by providing for the proper election of its members. The
Convention became the successor of the colonial General Assembly. When
the rumor went about on August 16 that Dunmore was going to attack
Williamsburg, the Convention appointed a Committee of Public Safety of 11
members. This Committee acted as the executive of the Colony until after
the adoption of the constitution in 1776. The Convention also set up the
basic structure for the defense establishment and for taxation.
November 7, 1775. The main threat to the revolutionary regime in
1775 came from Lord Dunmore who remained at Norfolk with his small fleet
and a detachment of British regulars. Despite the "chicken stealing"
raids of the ships in the late summer and fall, the Committee of Public
Safety made no move against Dunmore until after he had declared martial
law on November 7 and it had become apparent that disaffection was
growing in Norfolk.
December 1, 1775. The December Convention acted as the legislative
body for the government of Virginia.
1776. Hampden-Sydney, a school for men, was founded under the auspices of
the Hanover Presbytery.
January 1, 1776. The provincial forces skirmished with Dunmore's
at Great Bridge on December 9 and took Norfolk on December 14. The guns
of Dunmore's ships set Norfolk afire on January 1, 1776, and colonial
troops, with connivance of officers, added to the conflagration by
setting fire to the houses not hit by the ships. Lord Dunmore finally
sailed away in May, 1776.
May 6, 1776. The revolutionary Convention met for the last time in
May and June of 1776. It proceeded to draw up a constitution for
Virginia, which it adopted on June 28. It incorporated in the
constitution George Mason's famous Bill of Rights and provided that the
legislature should dominate the new government.
May 15, 1776. The Convention adopted Richard Henry Lee's
resolution instructing the delegates to the Continental Congress to urge
the Congress "to declare the United Colonies free and independent
States."
June 29, 1776. The Convention chose Patrick Henry to be the first
Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. A skilled agitator, a great
orator, and a radical-turning-conservative, Henry made but an indifferent
Governor.
July 8-9, 1776. At the battle of Gwynn's Island, Dunmore's fleet
was so severely damaged that he soon left the coast of Virginia, never to
return.
1776. During the Revolution, nineteen counties were formed:
Monongalia, Ohio, and Yohogania in 1776; Henry, Kentucky, Montgomery,
Washington, Fluvanna, and Powhatan in 1777; Greenbrier, Rockbridge,
Rockingham, Shenandoah, and Illinois in 1778; Fayette, Jefferson, and
Lincoln in 1780; Greensville in 1781; and Campbell in 1782.
October 7, 1776. The first session of the new legislature was
dominated by Thomas Jefferson, who replaced Henry as the leader of the
more radical elements in Virginia. Jefferson began a needed revision of
the laws. In the next two decades, the colonial codes and laws were
adapted to the needs of an independent state. In this same session, he
also secured the abolition of primogeniture and entail, humanized the
criminal code, and began his attack upon the church establishment.
July 4, 1778. George Rogers Clark captured Kaskaskia. On the
strength of this victory, the Virginia legislature created Illinois
county, thus providing the first American administrative control in the
Northwest Territory.
February 25, 1779. The dramatic capture of Vincennes by George
Rogers Clark on this date secured the Northwest Territory from British
control.
May 9, 1779. For the first three years of the Revolutionary War,
Virginia was spared invasion because the British were concentrating their
efforts in the northern colonies; but on May 9, 1779, Admiral Sir George
Collier anchored in Hampton Roads with a British fleet. After capturing
Portsmouth with little trouble, he sent out raiding parties and then
departed. Naval stores in large quantity and thousands of barrels of pork
were destroyed.
June 1, 1779. Thomas Jefferson was elected Governor to replace
Patrick Henry. Weakened by a conservative shift in opinion and unable to
cope with invasion which came in 1780, Governor Jefferson left office
with a tarnished reputation, June 12, 1781. He was replaced by Thomas
Nelson who served only until November 30, 1781. Benjamin Harrison was the
last of the war Governors.
April, 1780. The capital was moved from Williamsburg up to
Richmond.
October, 1780. The British recaptured Portsmouth, this time
primarily for the purpose of establishing communication with General
Cornwallis in South Carolina. General Leslie remained in Portsmouth with
his 3000 men for one month.
January 5, 1781. The third and most serious British attack upon
Virginia was carried out by General Benedict Arnold who sailed through
the Capes on December 30, 1780. Instead of stopping at Portsmouth, he
continued on up the James to capture Richmond, the new capital, on
January 5, 1781. After Arnold had set up his headquarters at Portsmouth,
two attempts to launch a sea and land attack against him failed to
materialize. Cornwallis marched into Virginia in late spring and in May
crossed the James and entered Richmond. During the summer of 1781, the
main achievement of Lafayette and the continental forces in Virginia was
to avoid destruction.
July 25, 1781. Cornwallis, marching from Richmond, reached
Williamsburg on June 25. He remained there until July 5, when he moved
toward the James River where transports awaited to take him to the Surry
side. Before he was able to make the crossing, he was attacked by
Lafayette, at Green Spring. After successfully repelling the American
forces, he crossed the river and pushed on to Portsmouth. In August he
crossed Hampton Roads and marched to Yorktown, which he fortified.
August 30, 1781. The stage was being set for the destruction of
Cornwallis's army when the French fleet under Admiral de Grasse sailed
through the Virginia Capes on August 30, 1781. General Washington was
hurrying with his army from New York and Lafayette was bringing up his
troops preparatory to bottling up Cornwallis on the Yorktown peninsula
where he had encamped with his army.
September 5, 1781. One avenue of escape for Cornwallis's army was
shut off when De Grasse assured French control of the river and bay by
repulsing the British fleet commanded by Admiral Graves.
September 28, 1781. The surrender of Cornwallis became only a
matter of time when Washington brought his army up to reenforce the
besieging forces of Lafayette.
October 19, 1781. General Cornwallis surrendered his army at
Yorktown. With the aid of the French, General Washington had won for the
colonies their independence. The independence of America became official
with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783.
October 20, 1783. Virginia, agreeing to the terms of Congress,
ceded her claims to territory north of the Ohio, and the deed passed
March 1, 1784. Virginia was shrunken to the limits contained in the
present States of Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky.
Declaration of Independence
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a
decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to
secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of
government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the
people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government,
laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is
their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for
their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these
colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter
their former systems of government. The history of the present King of
Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpation, all
having, in direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over
these states. To prove this let facts be submitted to a candid world:
He has refused to assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the
public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be
obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to
them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and
formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records,
for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with
manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others
to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation,
have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State
remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from
without and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that
purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing
to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the
conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent
to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of
officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the
consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to,
the civil power.
He has combined, with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to
our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to
their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them by a mock trial from punishment, for any murders
which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses.
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province,
establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its
boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for
introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws and
altering fundamentally, the powers of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested
with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection,
and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our people.
He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to
complete the work of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with
circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas,
to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their
friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to
bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages,
whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all
ages, sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the
most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have
warned them, from time to time, of attempts made by their legislature to
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of
the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed
to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, by
the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would
inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have
been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them,
as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war--in peace, friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in
General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World
for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by authority of
the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare, That
these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent
States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown,
and that all political connection between them and the State of Great
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as free and
independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace,
contract alliances, establish commerce and to do all other acts and
things which independent States may of right do. And for the support of
this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and
our sacred honor.
Suggested Questions for Exploring Virginia's
Role in the Winning of Independence
Questions may serve to identify a problem or topic, and also serve as a
means to dissect and analyze the topic. The narrative section of this
publication entitled, THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE: VIRGINIA, 1763-1783,
deals with selected aspects of questions contained in this
section. However, in order to expand the scope and understanding of
Virginia's role in the winning of independence, as well as to provide an
improved perspective for students to see new meaning in familiar events,
the following questions have been prepared for the classroom teacher.
1. How did the "Intellectual Awakening" in Europe reflect the changing
image of man in relation to economic organization, religious reforms,
political activities, and social changes? How did this intellectual
ferment influence the American Revolution and the "American Experience"?
2. How will a study of the following topics establish a framework for an
inquiry into the Colonial Period?
(a) Historical forces which gave rise to exploration and which were
influencing European civilization centuries before Columbus' journey.
(b) Various reasons for colonization and objectives and methods of
colonization for different nations.
3. What contributions will an analysis of the emergence of capitalism
(with its wage system, market economy, banking structure, and corporate
organization) and the impetus which capitalism provided for
colonization make to the development of insights into the nature of
European society and the Colonial Period?
4. How did capitalism influence the American Revolution and how was
capitalism influenced and/or changed by the American Revolution?
5. Was there a discrepancy between the objectives of the European
colonizers and the growth and development of the Virginia colony? In what
ways can a study of Virginia illustrate the beginnings of the "American
Experience"?
6. How will a study of the acceptance, rejection, or modification of
European ideas and institutions by the colonies establish a framework
for analyzing the unique nature of the "American Experience"? How
"American" were the colonies? How "American" was the Revolution?
7. What environmental factors influenced colonial settlements? How will a
study of these factors help to explain the differences which developed in
the thirteen colonies? (Example: economic differences) What was the
influence of environment in the colony of Virginia? How would these
differences influence the nature of the participation of the thirteen
colonies in the Revolution?
8. How did the Colonial Period provide a foundation for the "American
Experience" by the development of a system of free enterprise and a
constitutional democracy?
9. From an analysis of the "Colonial Mind", how can insights be gained
and relationships established for patterns of national character,
cultural institutions, religious thought, and educational practices?
10. How did the first representative assembly at Jamestown reflect the
needs of a group of people for government? What factors were involved in
the formation of this representative assembly? In what ways will a study
of the formation of this government serve as a basis for comparing and
contrasting other efforts at establishing governments at a later date?
11. What distinctive political, intellectual, and economic modes of life
began to develop in the different colonies? How will a study of the
similarities and differences help to explain the character of the
American Revolution and the "American Experience"? What was the nature of
these developments in Virginia and why?
12. What early experiences did the colonies have which led them to
formulate the type of state constitutions which they adopted? What
foundations were being established which would be reflected in the years
ahead? What was the nature of Virginia's first state constitution?
13. In an analysis of the art, music, architecture, literary works, and
other means of expression in the Colonial Period, how can an awareness
and perspective be developed which will allow for an involvement with a
"people and their times"? How do man's varied forms of expression reflect
"the spirit of an era"? What is the role of primary sources in developing
empathy for a period?
14. In what ways did the "European Enlightenment" influence American
thought after 1700? What were the significant contributions of American
writers to colonial thought and political maturity?
15. What impact did writers have on the American Revolution?
16. How will an analysis of the factors which produced the movement for
the American Revolution illustrate the idea that historical causation is
complex and multiple? What was the nature of the movement in Virginia?
17. What was significant about colonial cooperation in resisting British
measures? In what areas was there cohesiveness and what were the factors
which contributed to the development of this situation? What was the
nature of the movement in Virginia?
18. By what means can the concept of liberty be studied so as to develop
an understanding of the "seeds of revolution which were inherent in the
Colonial Period" and to develop an insight into liberty as a force which
would permeate all periods of United States history? How can this theme
of liberty be integrated so as to serve to link all facets of the
"American Experience" to a common chain? What role do ideas play in a
study of history?
19. How will a study of the ideas and institutions of the Colonial
Period, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Revolution
establish a framework for inquiring into the natural rights philosophy,
the justification of the Revolution, and the principal components of our
modern day social, political, and economic system? How can Virginia serve
as one illustrative study of these factors?
20. In what ways did the colonial rebellion become an avenue for
nationalism?
21. How will a study of the American Revolution illustrate self-interest
versus concern for principle?
22. Can the American Revolution be termed a social movement? What were
the effects on the institutions of society?
23. How did the Founding Fathers exemplify the young nation's aspiration?
24. In what ways can one account for the impact of the Declaration of
Independence on modern day political thought?
25. Why is it that the state constitutions are often considered one of
the most important developments in the aftermath of the Revolution? How
did these constitutions reflect the "spirit of the American Revolution"
and the foundations of the Colonial Period? How could a case study of
Virginia during this period illustrate these developments?
26. How can the Colonial Period serve as a foundation for developing
those threads which are inherent in a study of Virginia and United States
history? How can the following themes be used to coordinate various
aspects of the American Revolution and the "American Experience"?
a. Nature and influence of geography
b. Economic themes
c. Intellectual themes
d. Nature and composition of society
e. Manifestation of political ideas
Suggested Student Activities
Student activities and other learning experiences are dependent upon the
objectives selected by the teacher, the abilities and needs of the
students, materials and resources available, and the organizational
pattern of the course. The suggested student activities in this
publication have been prepared to serve as a catalyst for developing
appropriate programs and learning experiences in exploring Virginia's
role in the winning of independence. Suggested activities include:
... Select one word concepts, such as liberty, freedom, power, justice,
that may be derived from great documents of the period and write an essay
on what the term meant when the document was written and what it means
today.
... Through research have students write an essay describing the
personalities of great Virginians such as Washington, Jefferson, and
others, and compare them with their contemporaries.
... Role-play Virginians who made outstanding contributions to the
development of America.
... Compare the American Revolution with other revolutions in the world
so as to ascertain similarities and differences.
... Given the Proclamation of 1763, students could draw the western
boundary of Virginia on a current topographic map. What have been the
different boundaries of Virginia? Why?
... From copies of selected estate assessments and wills from local
courthouses, a number of activities could be developed.
A confirmation or refuting of hypotheses of what artifacts or
personal property would be found in homes and on farms during this
historical period may be suggested. Occupations can be suggested by
the list of personal property. e.g. What percent of the people were
self-sufficient on the frontier?
Early industries and occupations can be compared with current
industries and occupations for the same area. e.g. What public
demands are reflected in continuing industries?
Students may draw interior scenes of homes showing artifacts listed
in the inventories. e.g. Do articles listed together say something
about the use of a room?
Scenes may be painted of homesteads, depicting personal property
listed in estate assessments and the inventory may be listed beside
the painting. e.g. What do "Folk Art" paintings and other art forms
tell us about the period?
Religious commitment can be inferred from wills. e.g. What role did
religion play in the life of a person during this time?
How do wills reflect the status of humans in a household. e.g. How
were males, females, indentured servants, and slaves treated in
wills?
Photos and slides of restored rooms can be compared with selected
inventories. e.g. Are restorations in agreement with the written
records?
... Students could assume a role and write a seven-day diary describing a
week in each season.
... Write lyrics portraying the spirit and events of the times and put
the lyrics to music using a melody of the period.
... Using primary sources, have students research information on various
accounts of what happened at Lexington. The research may include:
An account of a member of the British force
Report of the captain of the Lexington Minutemen
Letter(s) of the British expedition leaders
... Have student research information on Indian tribes, their location,
and their impact of life in Virginia.
... Select a date between the period 1763-1783, and have students find
out the following about their town, city, or county.
What was the town, city, or county like then?
Where did the first settlers of your town come from?
What are the most famous streets in town? Who are those named for?
What, if any, battles were fought in or near your town?
What is the town's most famous landmark?
... Prepare a cross word puzzle using such words as:
liberty
justice
freedom
equality
democracy
representative
independence
unalienable
... Research styles of dress worn during the period 1763-1783. Contrast
functions of dress, costumes, and the like with today's living and style
of dress.
... Have the students prepare a research paper of changes in the culture
of the country then and now and their impact on families and individuals.
... Have students develop a colonial Almanac to include such items
as information about the tides, the weather, changes of the moon,
anniversaries of historical events, recipes, folk tales, jokes, health
hints, and advice in the form of proverbs. (A review of the most popular
Almanac of this time, Poor Richard's Almanac, may assist
students with this project.)
... Students may prepare a film depicting an historical event which
occurred in or near the town, city, or county in which they live.
... Have students construct a painting depicting a famous scene or event
of the Revolutionary period.
... Students may collect artifacts of the period for display and
discussion of colonial life styles.
... Have students develop an architectural blueprint for restoring an
18th Century home, including grounds of the gentry, planter, or
frontiersman.
... Research the role of black churches in Virginia between 1763-1783.
This should be followed by classroom discussion.
... Research the role of contributions of the "common" man in the making
of Colonial America.
Students may choose to review the roles and contributions of such
groups as the farmer, shopkeeper, cabinet maker, and others.
Have students identify the contributions of other social groups in
the making of Colonial America.
... Compare the customs and mores of blacks in Virginia from 1763 through
1783 and 1953 through 1973.
... Construct a bulletin board listing the colonies vertically and
significant events under specific years horizontally.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Road to Independence: Virginia
1763-1783, by Virginia State Dept. of Education
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