The Virginia Declaration of Rights

Summary

The Virginia Declaration of Rights was adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention at Williamsburg on 12 June 1776, three weeks before the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. On 15 May 1776 the same convention had instructed Virginia's delegates in Congress to propose independence and appointed a committee to prepare a declaration of rights and a plan of government. George Mason, who joined the committee late in May, wrote the first draft almost alone. The committee reported a revised version on 27 May, the convention debated it for about two weeks, and the final text of sixteen sections was followed on 29 June by Virginia's first constitution. The document states principles rather than grievances. Section I holds that all men are by nature equally free and independent and have inherent rights, namely life, liberty, the means of acquiring property, and the pursuit of happiness and safety. Mason's draft had said men are born equally free; the convention changed that wording and added the phrase about entering a state of society, a qualification usually credited to Edmund Pendleton after delegates such as Robert Carter Nicholas worried about how the sentence bore on slavery. Section II places all power in the people and calls magistrates their trustees and servants. Section III says government exists for the common benefit and that a majority may reform, alter or abolish a government that fails that purpose. Sections IV through VII forbid hereditary offices, separate the legislative and executive powers from the judicial, require free elections and consent to taxation, and forbid suspending laws without the people's representatives. Sections VIII through XI protect the accused and the courts: notice of the charge, confrontation of witnesses, a speedy trial by a jury of the vicinage, no compelled self-incrimination, no excessive bail or cruel and unusual punishments, no general warrants, and the ancient civil jury. Section XII calls the freedom of the press a great bulwark of liberty; Section XIII prefers a militia to standing armies and subordinates the military to civil power; Section XIV asks for uniform government within Virginia. Section XV says free government survives only by justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, virtue and a frequent return to first principles. Section XVI, on religion, was amended at the motion of the young James Madison, who replaced Mason's promise of the fullest toleration with the equal right of all to the free exercise of religion, and it closes with the mutual duty of Christian forbearance, love and charity. The Declaration influenced Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, the declarations of rights in other states, and the amendments Madison proposed to Congress in 1789. The library text, from the Avalon Project, begins directly with Section I.

Top Lessons

• Magistrates as trustees and servants

  Section II turns the usual picture of rulers upside down: power comes from the people, and officials hold it in trust and answer to them. Sections IV and V follow from this, forbidding hereditary offices and sending lawmakers back to private life at fixed periods so that they share the burdens they impose.

• Fair trials before liberty can be taken

  Sections VIII through XI gather old English protections into a short list: knowing the charge, facing accusers, a speedy jury trial, no forced self-accusation, no excessive bail, no general warrants. Section VIII ends with the law of the land and the judgment of peers, words that reach back to Magna Carta.

• Virtue as the keeper of free government

  Section XV says no paper guarantee can keep a people free without justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue, and a frequent return to first principles. The Declaration places the safety of its other rights in the character of citizens.

• From toleration to free exercise

  Mason's draft promised the fullest toleration in religion; Madison's amendment changed it to an equal right to the free exercise of religion according to conscience. Toleration is something a government grants; free exercise is a right the government recognizes. Section XVI then asks citizens to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity toward one another.

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Medical Lens

The Declaration is a statement of political and legal principles with no medical content; its sections concern rights, offices, trials, the press, the militia, virtue and religion.