Fairfax Resolves - Background and Drafting

Background and Drafting

After Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party, the Virginia House of Burgesses proclaimed that June 1, 1774, would be a day of "fasting, humiliation, and prayer" as a show of solidarity with Boston. In response, Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, dissolved the House of Burgesses. The burgesses reconvened at the Raleigh Tavern on May 27 and called for Virginia's counties to elect delegates to a special convention to meet in August. George Washington and Charles Broadwater were elected as Fairfax County's representatives to the convention.

On July 5, 1774, Washington and others from Fairfax County met in Alexandria, Virginia, to appoint a committee to draft a statement that would, as Washington described it, "define our Constitutional Rights." The statement would also formally serve as instructions to Fairfax County's delegates to the Virginia Convention. The committee wrote a draft that was, in all likelihood, primarily the work of George Mason. Mason and Washington met at Washington's Mount Vernon home on July 17, and perhaps revised the resolutions. The following day in Alexandria, the Fairfax Resolves were endorsed in a meeting of freeholders chaired by Washington.