Fairfax County Resolves

The Fairfax County Resolves, written primarily by George Mason and issued at the former Fairfax County Courthouse on July 18, 1774, objected to the Coercive Acts of 1774 and declared that the colonies had the right to govern their own affairs and could not be taxed by Parliament without their consent through freely chosen representatives. Supported by Alexandrians including George Washington, John Carlyle, and Charles Alexander and signed by 25 landowning men of the county, the Resolves called for the colonies to unite and went further than other county resolves by urging the permanent abolition of the slave trade, which they argued Britain had forced on the colonies to keep them dependent on the empire. As precursors to what ultimately became the Declaration of Independence, they set the template for the language of the First Continental Congress when it met in September 1774, reflected Mason's prioritization of individual liberties that later contributed to the Bill of Rights, and were later invoked by generations seeking those rights for all citizens, even though their writers had intended them only for people like themselves.

Alexandria, Virginia · United States