Preamble to the Virginia Constitution, June 29, 1776
The Virginia constitution, adopted on June 29, 1776, consisted of three parts: (1) a declaration of independence; (2) the bill of rights; (3) the frame of government. The original intention (No. 135, close) had been to include the last two only, and to leave the declaration of independence to Congress. But on June 24, when the convention had nearly completed its consideration of the constitution, it received from Jefferson a draft of a constitution prefaced by a declaration of independence. Of the adoption of this preface, Jefferson wrote in 1825:
"I was then at Philadelphia ... knowing that the Convention of Virginia was engaged in forming a plan of government, I turned my mind to the same subject, and drew a sketch ... of a Constitution with a preamble, which I sent to Mr. Pendleton, president of the Convention ... He informed me ... that he received it on the day on which the Committee of the Whole had reported to the House the plan they had agreed to; and that it had been so long in hand, so disputed inch by inch ... that they were worried with the contentions it had produced, and could not, from mere lassitude, have been induced to open the instrument again; but that, being pleased with the Preamble to mine, they adopted it in the House, by way of amendment to the report of the committee [June 29]; and thus my Preamble was tacked to the work of George Mason, ... The Preamble was prior in composition to the Declaration [of July 4]."[132]
Whereas George Guelf, king of Great Britain ... and heretofore entrusted with the exercise of the kingly office in this government [Virginia], hath endeavored to pervert the same into a detestable and insupportable tyranny:
by putting his negative on laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good;
by ... [21 indictments follow—similar to the charges in the Declaration soon after adopted at Philadelphia] by which several acts of mis-rule the said George Guelf has forfeited the kingly office, and has rendered it necessary for the preservation of the people that he should be immediately deposed from the same....
Be it therefore enacted by the authority of the people that the said George Guelf be, and he hereby is deposed from the kingly office within this government, and absolutely divested of all its rights, powers, and prerogatives: and that he and his descendants, and all persons acting by or through him, and all other persons whatsoever, shall be and forever remain incapable of the same: and that the said office shall henceforth cease, and never more either in name or substance be reestablished within this colony.
138. Revolutionary State Governments
a. Recommendation of Congress, May 15, 1776
Journals of Congress (Ford edition), V, 357 ff.