Note: In working on a project involving my newspaper column, I found this piece about The Halifax Resoloves. This story appeared in part in The Nashville Graphic in June, 2005.
It shouldn’t surprise that a document from Halifax County often gets overlooked. Many people have never heard of The Halifax Resolves, and many who have are not exactly sure what it was.
In a sense it created the original Independence Day.
If you take a close look at the state flag of North Carolina, you will see the date April 12, 1776 on the left third of the flag. This is the day that got the “radicals” really moving on finally severing ties with Britain and moving towards independence.
Following the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge in February of 1776, many colonists were finally starting to realize the hope for reconciling with Britain was not going to happen.
North Carolina’s 83-member Fourth Provincial Congress met at Halifax on April 4, 1776, and appointed a committee to make a report on the grievances the colony had against the Crown. Halifax was far from the quaint, sleepy town it is today; it was the county seat, a river port and a major “place to be” in the late 1700s. Big things happened in Halifax. Later, North Carolina’s first state constitution would be created in Halifax.
Eight days after being given their assignment, the state Congress unanimously adopted the report of the committee — the first official document by a colony to press for full and final independence. This was The Halifax Resolves.
The document — much like the Declaration of Independence, listed grievances against Britain and highlighted the wrongs committed against the colonies, justifying the move towards revolution.
Impressive also is how The Halifax Resolves got the point across in a relatively short-winded way:
“The Select Committee taking into Consideration the usurpations
and violences attempted and committed by the King and Parlia-
ment of Britain against America, and the further Measures to be
taken for frustrating the same, and for the better defence of this
province reported as follows, to wit,
It appears to your Committee that pursuant to the Plan con-
certed by the British Ministry for subjugating America, the King
and Parliament of Great Britain have usurped a Power over the
Persons and Properties of the People unlimited and uncontrouled
and disregarding their humble Petitions for Peace, Liberty and
safety, have made divers Legislative Acts, denouncing War
Famine and every Species of Calamity daily employed in destroying
the People and committing the most horrid devastations on
the Country. That Governors in different Colonies have declared
Protection to Slaves who should imbrue their Hands in the Blood
of their Masters. That the Ships belonging to America are declared
prizes of War and many of them have been violently seized and
confiscated in consequence of which multitudes of the people
have been destroyed or from easy Circumstances reduced to the
most Lamentable distress.
And whereas the moderation hitherto manifested by the United
Colonies and their sincere desire to be reconciled to the mother
Country on Constitutional Principles, have procured no mitigation
of the aforesaid Wrongs and usurpations and no hopes remain of
obtaining redress by those Means alone which have been hitherto
tried, Your Committee are of Opinion that the house should enter
into the following Resolve, to wit
Resolved that the delegates for this Colony in the Continental
Congress be impowered to concur with the other delegates of the
other Colonies in declaring Independency, and forming foreign
Alliances, resolving to this Colony the Sole, and Exclusive right
of forming a Constitution and Laws for this Colony, and of
appointing delegates from time to time (under the direction of a
general Representation thereof to meet the delegates of the other
Colonies for such purposes as shall be hereafter pointed out.“
North Carolina directed its representatives to the Second Continental Congress to encourage and promote independence for the colonies. A month later, Virginia followed our lead by submitting a resolution for independence, and things started moving rapidly. The Virginia resolution —introduced by Richard Henry Lee — had the interesting wording that the colonies “are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”
Just a couple of months after The Halifax Resolves, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of Thomas Jefferson (the most junior member), John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman to draft the Declaration of Independence. It is interesting to note that document was finished on July 2, edited and then approved on July 2, but that the official parchment was not signed until August 2.
It’s also worth noting that the document was approved unanimously by Congress — a feat almost unimaginable with anything legislation drawn today.
(Note: Many thanks to the state library for assistance with the documents and fact-checking related to today’s column.)