READING LEVEL
What Were the Fairfax Resolves?
In the summer of 1774, many people in Virginia were very angry at Britain. To show how they felt and what they wanted to do about it, citizens in different counties held meetings and wrote down their complaints in official statements. The most famous and most important of these statements was called the Fairfax Resolves.
The Fairfax Resolves were written mainly by a man named George Mason, with help from George Washington. They were officially approved by the citizens of Fairfax County, Virginia, on July 18, 1774. These resolves were so well written and so clearly argued that they influenced all of Virginia—and eventually all of the American colonies—in standing up to Britain.
Why Was Everyone So Angry?
To understand why the Fairfax Resolves were written, we need to go back a little bit.
For many years, Britain had been passing laws that taxed the American colonists—making them pay money to the British government—without ever asking for their permission. Colonists thought this was deeply unfair. Their argument was simple: you can’t make us pay taxes if we have no say in the decision.
Things got worse in 1773 when Britain put a tax on tea. Colonists in Boston were so angry that a group of them snuck onto a British ship at night and dumped all the tea into the harbor. This became known as the Boston Tea Party.
Britain was furious. As punishment, it passed a law called the Boston Port Act that completely shut down Boston’s harbor, meaning no ships could come in or go out. This was a huge deal because Boston depended on its harbor for food, supplies, and trade. Britain was essentially trying to starve the city into giving up.
Virginia Reacts
Even though the Boston Port Act only directly hurt people in Massachusetts, Virginians were alarmed. They thought: if Britain can punish Boston like this today, it can punish Virginia the same way tomorrow.
Virginia’s lawmakers, called the House of Burgesses, voted to declare June 1 a day of fasting and prayer to show support for Boston. Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, was so angry about this that he immediately shut down the Virginia legislature and sent everyone home.
But Virginia’s leaders refused to give up. They gathered at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg and kept right on meeting. They decided to ask each county to hold its own meeting and write down what it thought should be done. Then all those county representatives would meet together in August to decide on a plan.
The Meeting in Fairfax County
On July 14, 1774, the eligible voters of Fairfax County—at that time, only white men who owned land—met in the town of Alexandria. They chose George Washington and a man named Charles Broadwater to represent Fairfax County at the big Virginia meeting in August.
They also decided to meet again four days later to give Washington and Broadwater their instructions—a list of what they should argue for at the meeting. That list became the Fairfax Resolves.
George Mason was a brilliant thinker and writer who lived near Washington. He wrote most of the document. Washington visited Mason at his home, Gunston Hall, and helped revise it. Then, on July 18, the citizens of Fairfax County officially approved all 26 resolutions.
What Did the Fairfax Resolves Say?
The Fairfax Resolves covered a lot of ideas. The resolves started by saying that American colonists had the same rights as any British citizen. The most important right was that no one should be forced to follow laws or pay taxes they didn’t agree to. Since the colonists had no representatives in the British Parliament, the Resolves said Parliament had no right to tax them.
The resolves were careful to say that they still respected King George III. They blamed Parliament, Britain’s lawmaking body, for all the problems. Parliament had taxed colonists without their permission, taken away their right to a trial by jury, hurt their businesses with unfair trade rules, and punished all of Boston for the actions of a small group of protesters.
The resolves said that if Britain could bully one colony, it could bully all of them. So all the colonies needed to unite and stand together. An attack on Boston was an attack on everyone. The resolves called for a Continental Congress—a meeting of representatives from every colony—to make a plan together for defending everyone’s rights.
One of the most powerful weapons the colonists had was their money. The resolves called for a boycott—a promise to stop buying goods imported from Britain. If British businesses lost enough money, they would pressure the British government to back down. Colonists had used this strategy before, and it had actually worked when Britain canceled the Stamp Act in 1766.
Not only would colonists stop buying British goods, but they would also stop selling their own products, like tobacco, to Britain. Stopping exports would starve Britain of raw materials and damage the economy. This was a bigger sacrifice, but many Virginians were willing to do it.
One of the most creative ideas in the Resolves was to send food and supplies to Boston. Britain had said it would reopen Boston’s harbor only if Boston paid for the tea that was destroyed. But if colonists from other places helped feed and support Bostonians, Boston could hold out without giving in to Britain’s demands.
This worked! More than 200 towns and churches across the colonies sent donations to Boston. Fairfax County alone sent money, 38 barrels of flour, and 150 bushels of wheat to help their neighbors to the north.
The resolves also said that anyone who refused to follow the boycott would be publicly named as a traitor to the colonial cause. This was serious social pressure—nobody wanted to be publicly shamed in front of their neighbors.
What Happened Next?
When Virginia held its big colony-wide meeting in August 1774, which was called the First Virginia Convention, the ideas in the Fairfax Resolves had a huge influence on what was decided. Virginia adopted its own colony-wide boycott agreement that borrowed heavily from the Fairfax Resolves.
Then Virginia sent delegates, including George Washington, to a meeting of all the colonies called the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in September 1774. There, representatives from all thirteen colonies used Virginia’s agreement as the model for their own united plan of resistance against Britain.
So two Virginians—George Mason and George Washington—helped shape the response of all thirteen colonies to British oppression. George Mason never became as famous as George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, but the words he wrote in the summer of 1774 helped light the spark that became the American Revolution.
Overview
In the summer of 1774, colonists across Virginia were furious with Britain. In response, many counties held meetings and wrote formal statements of protest called resolves. The most detailed and influential of these was the Fairfax Resolves, written primarily by George Mason and revised with help from George Washington. Adopted by the citizens of Fairfax County, Virginia, on July 18, 1774, the Fairfax Resolves laid out the colonists’ rights, listed their complaints against Britain, and proposed a plan of action, including boycotts and a continental congress. These resolves went far beyond Fairfax County, heavily influencing Virginia’s colony-wide response and eventually the First Continental Congress.
Background: Why Were the Resolves Written?
By the spring of 1774, tensions between Britain and its American colonies had been building for years over taxes and representation. The breaking point came when news arrived that Britain had passed the Boston Port Act, which completely shut down Boston’s harbor as punishment for the Boston Tea Party. Colonists up and down the coast were alarmed. Even though the law only directly affected Massachusetts, colonists everywhere saw it as a dangerous example of British tyranny—punishing an entire city for the actions of a group of protesters.
Virginia’s House of Burgesses responded by declaring June 1 a day of fasting and prayer in solidarity with Boston. Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, was so angry that he immediately dissolved the House of Burgesses, shutting down the legislature and sending everyone home.
The dismissed lawmakers didn’t give up. They gathered at Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg and agreed to a limited boycott of British goods. But when they heard that colonists in Boston and Annapolis were calling for a much stronger and more complete stoppage of trade with Britain, they decided bigger action was needed. They called for a meeting of all former burgesses on August 1, which became the First Virginia Convention, and encouraged each county to gather first and decide what their representatives should stand for.
This was a new and radical idea for Virginia. While New England colonists had long held town meetings, large democratic gatherings were rare in Virginia’s southern counties. In June and July 1774, about two-thirds of Virginia’s counties held meetings to choose delegates and write instructions. Fairfax County’s meeting produced the most influential results of all.
Writing the Fairfax Resolves
On July 14, 1774, the eligible voters of Fairfax County—white men who owned enough property to vote, known as freeholders—met in Alexandria. They chose George Washington and Charles Broadwater as their delegates to the Virginia Convention and agreed to meet four days later to give those delegates their official instructions.
A committee prepared a draft of the resolutions sometime between July 5 and July 17. While we don’t know exactly who wrote every word, George Mason is believed to have done most of the writing. George Washington reviewed and helped revise the draft when Mason visited him at Mount Vernon on July 17.
On July 18, with Washington serving as chairman, the Fairfax County freeholders reviewed the 24 draft resolutions, added 2 more, and officially adopted all 26. Historian Jeff Broadwater has called the resulting Fairfax Resolves “the most detailed, the most influential, and the most radical” resolutions passed anywhere in Virginia that summer.
What the Resolves Said
The Fairfax Resolves covered a lot of ground. The first ten resolutions focused on the fundamental rights of British colonists in America. The most important principle was that people should not be governed by laws they didn’t agree to through their own freely elected representatives—in other words, no taxation without representation. The resolves made clear that while Virginians wanted to remain British subjects, they would resist becoming what they called “slaves” to an oppressive government.
Like most colonial protests of the time, the Fairfax Resolves were careful to express loyalty to King George III while placing all the blame for the abuses squarely on Parliament. The specific complaints included: taxing colonists without their consent, taking away the right to trial by jury, regulating trade in ways that hurt the colonial economy, punishing Boston by closing its harbor, and canceling Massachusetts’s charter, which essentially revoked the colony’s right to self-government
The next thirteen resolutions laid out a strategy to fight back. Key proposals included unity among all colonies. The resolves called for a “firm union” of all North American colonies, arguing that an attack on one colony was an attack on all. The resolves called for a Continental Congress — a meeting of representatives from every colony to plan a shared defense of colonial rights.
The resolves called for a boycott of British goods and a ban on importing enslaved people— this was partly political and partly economic, as Virginia’s House of Burgesses had tried to limit the slave trade several times before.
Stopping exports to Britain was a newer and more radical step. Colonists had boycotted imports before, but stopping exports was a bigger step. Stopping exports would starve Britain of raw materials and damage the economy. Many Virginians supported it partly out of political principle and partly because the economy was in a recession, and they were already struggling financially.
The resolves also described how the boycott would be enforced. Anyone who refused to follow the nonimportation and nonexportation agreements would be publicly named as a traitor to the colonial cause. Any colony or town that broke the agreement would be cut off from trade with Virginia.
One of the most creative ideas in the Fairfax Resolves was a call for colonists to donate food and supplies to the people of Boston to help them survive the harbor blockade. Britain had said it would reopen Boston Harbor once Boston paid for the destroyed tea. But if other colonists helped support Bostonians financially, Boston could hold out without giving in. This was both a political statement and a humanitarian effort. More than 200 towns and churches across the colonies eventually donated goods to Boston. Fairfax County alone sent 273 pounds of money, 38 barrels of flour, and 150 bushels of wheat.
Impact and Legacy
When the First Virginia Convention met in August 1774, it adopted its own colony-wide agreement, the Virginia Association, which drew heavily from the Fairfax Resolves. The resolves’ combination of clear constitutional arguments, practical strategies, and forceful writing made it stand out from other county resolutions.
Virginia then sent delegates to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in September 1774. There, representatives from all the colonies used Virginia’s association as the main model for the Continental Association—a unified colonial boycott of British goods. The Fairfax Resolves’ ideas about colonial rights, unity, and resistance strategy thus shaped the response of all thirteen colonies to British oppression and helped set the course for the entire American resistance movement — and ultimately for the Revolution itself.
Background
Britain’s American colonies rumbled with political discontent in the spring of 1774. When news of the Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, reached American shores in mid-May, colonists up and down the Atlantic coast mobilized for opposition. Though the Boston Port Act did not affect anyone outside of Massachusetts, colonists elsewhere were alarmed at the seeming tyranny of Parliament in indiscriminately punishing Bostonians for the actions of the protesters who destroyed approximately forty-five tons of tea rather than pay a tax levied by the British without representation.
To protest Parliament’s overstep, the Virginia House of Burgesses voted to enact a day of fasting and prayer on June 1, the day Boston Harbor was slated to be closed. This incited the royal governor, John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, to dissolve the House of Burgesses on May 26. The next day, eighty-nine of the dismissed burgesses met at Raleigh Tavern to discuss next steps, and entered into an “Association.” This was a relatively weak nonimportation agreement that boycotted some goods imported by the East India Company, which imported the tea whose tax Bostonians had been protesting. They also called for a meeting of delegates from every colony to decide upon a joint strategy to protest the “heavy hand of power now lifted against North America.” A few days later, however, the burgesses received news that gatherings of colonists in Annapolis and Boston had voted for the immediate suspension of trade with Britain, with few caveats, and had urged their neighbors to do the same.
The twenty-five burgesses who were still in Williamsburg met again at the Raleigh Tavern to take further action. While those present supported the more radical boycott, they agreed that such a step needed to be agreed to by a larger, more representative group. Thus, as George Washington wrote to George William Fairfax, they called for a meeting of all members of the dismissed House of Burgesses on August 1, after they had “an Opportunity of collecting the Sense of their respective Counties” about how to respond to the Boston Port Act.
This response was unprecedented in the colony. Colonists in New England had long gathered into committees to make their voices heard, but these democratic gatherings were a relatively new phenomenon in the southern colonies, outside of the major trading cities. In June and July, approximately two thirds of the sixty-five jurisdictions represented in the House of Burgesses, including Fairfax County, held meetings to appoint delegates to the Virginia Convention. Though Fairfax County was not the first to hold a meeting, the results of its meeting would heavily influence colonists in Virginia and elsewhere.
Fairfax Resolves
The Fairfax County freeholders (white men who owned enough property to vote) met in Alexandria on July 14. They chose George Washington and Charles Broadwater as their delegates to the Virginia Convention and agreed to meet four days later to agree to their instructions for Washington and Broadwater—what came to be known as the Fairfax Resolves. In addition to providing a set of guiding principles for the delegates to share and consult in deliberations, the resolves were also an official statement of political opinion that colonists throughout Virginia and North America could reference.
A draft of the resolutions was prepared by a committee sometime between July 5 and July 17. While the exact authorship of these resolutions is unknown, George Mason likely played a large role in their authorship, with revisions from Washington when the two met at Mount Vernon on July 17. On July 18, with Washington serving as chair, the Fairfax County freeholders accepted the twenty-four draft resolutions and added two more. The resulting Fairfax Resolves were, according to historian Jeff Broadwater, “the most detailed, the most influential, and the most radical” of the resolutions passed in Virginia.
The first ten resolves asserted the rights of the inhabitants of Virginia to the constitutional protections due subjects of the Crown, most importantly “the fundamental Principle of the People’s being governed by no Laws, to which they have not given their Consent, by Representatives freely chosen by themselves.” The resolves further asserted that while the colonists wished to remain subjects of the British government, “we will use every Means which Heaven hath given Us to prevent our becoming it’s Slaves.”
As in other county resolutions, the Fairfax Resolves were careful to proclaim loyalty to the king, while blaming Parliament for the overreach of authority in the colonies. In addition to taxing the colonists without representation, other parliamentary abuses listed included removing the right to trial by jury, regulating trade and commerce to the economic disadvantage of the colonists, the “Act inflicting ministerial Vengeance upon the Town of Boston,” and abrogating Massachusetts’s charter as punishment for the tea protest.
The next thirteen resolutions detail a strategy to defend colonial rights, including a call for “a firm Union” of the North American colonies “who ought to regard every Act of Violence or Oppression inflicted upon any one of them, as aimed at all.” The resolves also called for appointment of a congress of representatives from each colony to create a “Plan for the Defence and Preservation of our common Rights.” Key to this defense was a boycott of most British goods, including a ban on the importation of enslaved people to the North American British colonies and a nonexportation agreement for key exports like tobacco.
The nonimportation resolutions had precedent: colonists had used similar nonimportation associations to protest the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts, and the House of Burgesses had attempted to ban the importation of enslaved people for political and economic reasons several times in the past decade. New to the colonists’ resistance strategy was a nonexportation agreement detailed in resolutions eighteen through twenty. While colonists previously had not rallied around nonexportation as a resistance strategy, there was a growing movement promoted by the Boston Committee of Correspondence to halt both incoming and outgoing trade with Britain. Stopping exports would starve Britain of raw materials and damage the economy. As historian Woody Holton has shown, Virginians across the socioeconomic spectrum were willing to support this more radical political stance—and the call for the abandonment of “all Manner of Luxury and Extravagance”—because it alleviated economic pressures during a recession.
The resolves also detailed enforcement mechanisms, including the publication of the names of any “Traitors” who refused to abide by the nonimportation and nonexportation agreements and the severing of trade with provinces or towns that did the same.
Another novel resistance tactic suggested by the Fairfax Resolves was resolution ten, which encouraged Virginians to donate provisions to Bostonians to help alleviate the economic hardship caused by the blockade of Boston Harbor. This signified political solidarity by enabling Bostonians to stand strong and avoid paying the East India Company for the tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party, which was Parliament’s price to reopen Boston Harbor. In an unprecedented political and humanitarian effort in the American colonies, more than 200 municipalities and churches donated goods, food, and money to Bostonians between 1774 and 1776. Fairfax County residents sent 273 pounds sterling, 38 barrels of flour, and 150 bushels of wheat to their northern neighbors.
Resolve twenty-four appointed Washington and Broadwater to the Virginia Convention and authorized them to present the resolves. The final two resolves added at the July 18 meeting created a twenty-five-member committee, including Washington, Mason, and Broadwater, that was empowered to call a meeting of the county and to adopt any measures that were expedient and necessary and instructed that a copy of the Fairfax Resolves be sent to Williamsburg for publication in the newspapers.
Legacy
When the Virginia Convention met in August 1774, they agreed to their own association, which superseded the suggestions contained in county resolves. This association, and the constitutional reasoning behind it, however, was heavily influenced by the Fairfax Resolves. While encompassing resistance strategies that had been previously employed or were under discussion by other colonists, the Fairfax Resolves were broadly encompassing, logically organized, and forcefully written, which led to their influence during the convention and throughout the colonies. The Virginia Convention also elected delegates to the First Continental Congress, which met in September 1774 and used the Virginia Association as the template for its own
Continental Association. The timing and specific goods excluded from the nonimportation and nonexportation agreements varied, but the political worldview and strategy of the Fairfax Resolves remained.
