The Bill of the Virginia General Assembly, of December 17, 1785, slightly modified and pushed through by James Madison and Patrick Henry, became the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
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CHAPTER VIII.—The Awakening of Virginia.
The result of the French-Indian war destroyed the chance of France to dominate America; and gave birth to a new issue; whether America should be a British Colony or an independent sovereignty.
Virginia had always been the most favored of the colonies and responded with the kindest feeling for the Mother Country. Long after Massachusetts had proven a refractory daughter, Virginia, better satisfied, seemed to New England to lack independence of spirit, political skill, and to possess only a dormant sense of liberty.
The propaganda of the non-conformists, declaring for civil and religious liberty, suddenly gripped most potently the conformist or Tidewater families, who overnight, seemed to throw off their lethargy; and thenceforth exhibited such valor, high patriotism and broad statesmanship as to give them first place in the struggle for liberty and domination of America for the next two generations. History, however, shows that there was no sudden change of sentiment.
Gradual and ever-breaching causes, preceded the transition; among them the Stamp Acts, the Boston Port Bill, the enactment of laws by Parliament directing that colonists charged with treason should be transported to England for trial, and Lord Dunmore’s mistaken policies while Governor of the colony. The colony as early as 1624, by its Assembly had declared: “* * * that it and none other” had power to levy colonial taxes. Charles II in 1676 had conceded this by declaring that “taxes ought not to be laid on the inhabitants of the colony except by its own general assembly.” This policy had [pg 138] never been questioned nor violated until the advisers of George III in 1764 proposed that the colonies should pay a portion of the debt incurred by the war with France; which they said was but fair as a portion of the debt accrued from aid given the colonies. The proposition, met with indignant protest and opposition.
In March, 1765, the Stamp Act was passed by Parliament. When it came up for discussion in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the division was a close one and great excitement prevailed. Patrick Henry offered a resolution, that: “The General Assembly of this Colony has the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this Colony.”
His speech in favor of the resolution was frequently interrupted by cries of “Treason,” “Traitor.” In closing these cries caused him to exclaim: “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.” The resolution carried by a bare majority.
When Virginia’s action was officially noticed, Pitt speaking against the Act said: “I rejoice that America has resisted! Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to have made slaves of all the rest. I know the valor of your troops, the force of this country; but in such a case success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like a strong man; she would embrace the pillars of the state and pull down the constitution with her.”