page_title: Virginia Conventions
section_title: Fifth Revolutionary convention (1776)
hierarchical_section_title: Virginia Conventions / Fifth Revolutionary convention (1776)
caption_attribution_description: English: An image of Colonial Williamsburg
context_page_description: The Virginia Conventions have been the assemblies of delegates elected for the purpose of establishing constitutions of fundamental law for the Commonwealth of Virginia superior to General Assembly legislation. Their constitutions and subsequent amendments span four centuries across the territory of modern-day Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.
  The first Virginia Conventions replaced the British colonial government on the authority of "the people" until the initiation of state government under the 1776 Constitution. Subsequent to joining the union of the United States in 1788, Virginia's five unlimited state constitutional conventions took place in 1829–30, 1850, around the time of the Civil War in 1864, 1868, and finally in 1902. These early conventions without restrictions on their jurisdiction were primarily concerned with voting rights and representation in the General Assembly. The Conventions of 1861 on the eve of the American Civil War were called in Richmond for secession and in Wheeling for government loyal to the U.S. Constitution.
context_section_description: By the new year of 1776, George Washington, a delegate in the Virginia Convention and in the Continental Congress, had been appointed in Philadelphia from the First Continental Congress as commander of Continental troops surrounding Boston. Virginia patriots had defeated an advancing British expeditionary force at the Battle of Great Bridge southeast of Norfolk in December.
  The newly elected Fifth Convention met in Williamsburg from May 6 to July 5, 1776. It elected Edmund Pendleton its presiding officer after his return as president of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. There were three parties in the Fifth Convention. The first was mainly made up of wealthy planters, including Robert Carter Nicholas Sr. The second party was made up of the more intellectual types. These included the older generation of George Mason, George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, and the younger Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The third party was a minority of young men mainly from western Virginia. This party was led by Patrick Henry and included "radicals" who had supported independence earlier than 1775.
  On May 15, the Convention declared that the government of Virginia as "formerly exercised" by King George in Parliament was "totally dissolved". The Convention adopted a set of three resolutions:  one calling for a declaration of rights for Virginia, one calling for the establishment of a republican constitution, and a third calling for federal relations with whichever other colonies would have them and alliances with whichever foreign countries would have them. It also instructed its delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to declare independence.
  On June 7, Richard Henry Lee, one of Virginia's delegates to Congress, carried out the instructions to propose independence in the language the convention had commanded him to use: that "these colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states." The resolution was followed in Congress by the adoption of the American Declaration of Independence, which reflected its ideas.
  The convention amended, and on June 12 adopted, George Mason's Declaration of Rights, a precursor to the United States Bill of Rights. On June 29, the convention approved the first Constitution of Virginia. The convention chose Patrick Henry as the first governor of the new Commonwealth of Virginia, and he was inaugurated on June 29, 1776. Thus, Virginia had a functioning republican constitution before July 4, 1776.
caption: Virginia Capitol, Williamsburg VA
  where the Fourth and Fifth Conventions met
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