Virginia history scholar Hugh Blair Grigsby states the Augusta Declaration "deserves to be stereotyped as the Magna Charta of the West" for its precedent in calling for this governmental mode.
[2] The abstract of the document was recorded in the journal of the Convention as such: A representation from the committee of the county of Augusta was presented to the Convention, and read: setting forth the present unhappy situation of the country, and, from the ministerial measures of vengeance now pursuing, representing the necessity of making the confederacy of the United Colonies the most perfect, independent, and lasting; and of framing an equal, free, and liberal government, that may bear the test of all future ages.This was the first official proposal for the creation of a permanent and independent union of states and national government from any of the Thirteen Colonies.
The first was mainly made up of wealthy planters, who sought to continue their hold on local government as it had grown up during colonial Virginia's history.
This party, which saw little to gain and much to lose from a separation from Great Britain, dominated the convention by a malapportionment that lent an advantage to the slaveholding east.
[16] The following day, May 15, the committee came to a unanimously agreement "to propose to Congress to declare the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain".
[18] These resolutions were forwarded to Richard Henry Lee, the Virginia representative to the Continental Congress, who introduced them to that body on June 7, almost verbatim: Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.
These efforts resulted in the creation of the United States Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776; the Model Treaty (foreign policy), September 17, 1776; and the Articles of Confederation (first U.S. constitution), March 1, 1781.
In October, 1774, the First Continental Congress directed that a committee of safety be appointed in "every county, city, and town" for the primary reason of monitoring imports and exports to ensure compliance with a boycott of British goods.
[24] Over the next year the roles of the county committees expanded to include the raising of militia units, providing local government, and implementing and upholding new policy from the Continental Congress.
[27] The Augusta County committee's revolutionary activity continued throughout the next year, organizing militia and functioning as an extralegal local government.
This memorial, dated November 9, 1776, and which relates to religion and taxation, is signed by the following: Several contemporary references to the Augusta Declaration exist outside of the journal of the Fifth Virginia Convention.
"It [the Augusta Declaration] is the first deliberate expression of the policy of establishing an independent state government and a permanent confederation of the States which our parliamentary journals contain; for, although several counties had expressed a resolution to sustain the Conventions in all measures which should be deemed necessary for the public weal, and had shown a spirit equal to every emergency, none had made so direct and so explicit a representation of the mode of redress which the crisis required .
A resolution he authored for the Fifth Virginia Convention and debated May 15 called for the independence of all thirteen colonies, which he intended to be a step toward confederation.
[43][44] Grigsby states that this declaration is analogous to England's Magna Carta, which concerned the medieval relationship between English monarch and barons, but has come to be seen as an iconic statement of the rights of ordinary people.
""[46] Grigsby indeed notes that the Buckingham County statement, published June 14, 1776, but probably written May 13,[47] is "the only paper which can stand near [the Augusta Declaration].