Cold, gray skies settled over Virginia in the had served as a shadow — an extralegal — winter of 1775- 1776. Lord Dunmore, government for Virginians ever since. the royal governor, had left the capital of The debate over convention representation Williamsburg during the previous summer, became a local referendum on retreating to a small flotilla of British independence. " The old delegates were naval and Loyalist merchant ships. Royal left out ... and these new ones chose for governance had collapsed. this very Purpose of an entire independence," Independence stirred that dreary said Landon Carter, a member of winter and Virginians began to take upon the House of Burgesses — and an enthusiastic themselves responsibility for the future. supporter of independence. It began with preparations by Virginia The Fifth Virginia Convention freeholders to elect representatives to the resolved " unanimously, That the Delegates Fifth Virginia Convention, planned for appointed to represent this Colony the spring. The first convention had been in General Congress be instructed to called in 1774 after Dunmore dissolved the propose to that respectable body to House of Burgesses for protesting the closure declare the United Colonies free and of Boston Harbor, and the conventions independent States absolved from all TREND & TRADITION • SUMMER 2017 63 Live & Learn DEFINING PRINCIPLES allegiance to, or dependence upon, the and impracticable proposals." Crown or Parliament of Great Britain." He decided the only solution was to Having set a course for independence, get ahead of the problem and put his RELUCTANT the convention needed to decide — pen to paper. quickly — what kind of nation it There was precedence for a bill of would create. rights. Colonial Patriots often referenced Then the convention formed a the British constitution, Magna committee to " prepare a Declaration of Carta and the 1689 Bill of Rights in Rights and such a plan of Government their protest rhetoric. But these traditions as will be most likely to maintain peace and documents grew out of a and order in this Colony and secure substantial British history of limiting the authority and equal liberty to the people." of monarchs. In this conception of the There were more than 30 members, a world, God created monarchical rule who' s who of Virginia revolutionaries: and monarchs granted rights and privileges Archibald Cary, Henry Lee, Treasurer to their subjects. Robert Carter Nicholas, Patrick Henry, Americans were moving past these Edmund Randolph, Thomas Ludwell bulwarks. American political thinkers — Lee and Mann Page, just to name a few. led by the likes of Mason — built a new On May 16, a young James Madison was construct on the foundation of Enlightenment added to the committee. Two days later, philosophy. They believed God George Mason took his seat representing vested rights and privileges in the individual. Fairfax County and was appointed to Individuals created governments, the committee. and therefore governments were subject Virginians recognized Mason as one of to the citizenry. the foremost political theorists of his time. That May of 1776 in Williamsburg, No fan of the Williamsburg scene, his Mason gave expression to nascent American life at Gunston Hall plantation near the doctrine. Potomac River was preferable to politics. Mason did not simply list individual But his convention presence was fortunate rights or liberties in the Virginia Declaration for Virginia — indeed for America. of Rights. The document outlined Mason arrived in Williamsburg late, the principles on which Virginians would after the vote for independence, and found a new government. After that, what he found distressed him. The Mason enumerated individual rights and behemoth committee at work drafting a then — probably most important — he declaration of rights was " over charged defined civic responsibility. with useless Members" who would " in Mason originally penned 10 articles, all probability have a thousand ridiculous the bulk of which were written in his 64 TREND & TRADITION • SUMMER 2017 REVOLUTIONARY own hand. More articles were added as number of articles swelled to 18, including the document made its way through the provisions for free elections and the committee. Many now sound familiar. right to suffrage. The committee also There were key principles of self-government. added an article requiring legal warrants Mason began with the supported by evidence — for searching assertion " That all Men are born equally or seizing property or person. free and independent, and have certain The Declaration of Rights was presented inherent Rights." Government is the to the convention on May 27 by people' s servant, instituted for the " common committee chair Archibald Cary. When Benefit." There should be frequent debate opened two days later, Robert and regular elections. If the community Carter Nicholas objected to the very finds the government to be inadequate, first line of the first article: " That all it has a " Right to reform, alter or abolish men are born equally free and independent." it." Thomas Jefferson drew on this language If all men are equal, what about a few weeks later as he drafted the enslaved Africans? Did the convention Declaration of Independence. Mason mean, Nicholas asked, to abolish went further: No group of individuals slavery? Would the language encourage deserved special privileges from the and condone slave insurrection? The community. And there would be no question so stymied the convention hereditary offices. Americans would that the Declaration was tabled until suffer no aristocratic class. June 3. When it reconvened, Edmund Other articles focused on individual Pendleton, president of the convention rights. A person' s property could not be and one of Virginia's most able lawyers, taken without the consent of the owner. offered a modifying phrase. The new In criminal prosecutions, individuals article read: had the right to know the nature of the charges, meet " Accusers or Witnesses" That all men are by nature equally free in court and present evidence to a jury. and independent, and have certain No one could be compelled to give inherent rights, of which, when they self-incriminating evidence. Mason also enter into a state of society, they cannot, included language to ensure toleration by any compact, deprive or divest in the exercise of religion. their posterity; namely, the enjoyment Two articles in the original draft of life and liberty, with the means appear in a hand other than Mason's. of acquiring and possessing property, The freedom of the press provision is in and pursuing and obtaining happiness Thomas Ludwell Lee' s handwriting, as and safety. is a provision to prohibit ex post facto laws — or laws that make illegal an It was a lawyer's sleight of hand. action that was legal when committed. Enlightenment philosophy held that The convention would later strike this individuals voluntarily entered into a state article completely. of society. Slaves were chattel and therefore Committee members suggested excluded. The compromise did not additions and elaborations to Mason' s explain how a free republic could tolerate draft, though it seems that Mason the institution of slavery. Instead, it skirted served as the editor and drafted most of the issue completely and, as a result, the revised language. At one point, the allowed the convention to move on. TREND &TRADITION • SUMMER 2017 Live & Learn DEFINING PRINCIPLES African Americans and critics of discharging it, can be directed by reason slavery did not move on, however. The and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally RELUNTANT statement that all were " equally free and independent" echoed in the Declaration entitled to the free exercise of religion, of Independence. It echoed on the Revolutionary according to the dictates of conscience; War battlefield. It challenged and that it is the mutual duty of all to courts and slaveowners to justify themselves. practice Christian forbearance, love, It buoyed the abolitionist movement, and charity towards each other. and four score and seven years later, it echoed from Abraham Lincoln' s Ten years later, in 1786, the Virginia lips as he dedicated the Gettysburg battlefield General Assembly would enact Thomas cemetery and called on America Jefferson's Statute for Religious Freedom to embrace the long-withheld promise of declaring that "Almighty God hath created freedom and equality. the mind free." Some delegates in the convention also For George Mason, the principles of challenged Mason' s provision for religious government and individual freedoms enumerated tolerance. Mason based the article on in a document were insufficient Great Britain's 1689 Toleration Act. But guarantees. The guarantee of freedom toleration of religion was not freedom of rested with the people and Mason included religion. Government and religion were civic responsibility in his earliest draft. intertwined in the British Empire. The It became the 15th article. Toleration Act confirmed the Church of England as the state church but tolerated That no free government, or the non- Anglican Christians. Virginia blessings ofliberty, can be preserved required non- Anglicans to license and to any people but by a firm adherence register meetinghouses and ministers. Dissenters to justice, moderation, temperance, were also required to support the frugality, and virtue, and by frequent Anglican vestry. Non-Anglicans were, in recurrence to fundamental principles. other words, second- class citizens. Baptists in Virginia had long refused the authority Mason defined citizenship by responsibility. of government to dictate or regulate their The people do not simply receive relationship with God. Mere toleration blessings — they work to guarantee them was not enough to secure the support of for themselves and the whole community. religious dissenters for a new government. Justice denied to one damages the The young James Madison drafted an freedoms of all. Personal moderation amendment granting freedom of conscience and self-restraint benefit the community. that effectively disestablished the And public virtue — which the Founders Anglican Church. It was a step too far.