Augusta County Committee of Safety
The Augusta County Committee of Safety was the shadow government of
Background
After Parliament passed the
- Sampson Mathews
- Alexander McClanahan
- Samuel McDowell
And:
- Michael Bowyer (alternate)
- Thomas Lewis (alternate)
- George Moffett (alternate)[4]
Silas Hart was elected to chair the committee.[5]
The committee's independence proposal is believed to have been written between August 1, 1775 and the date of its presentation, May 10, 1776. It is unknown whether the paper itself is still extant, and is currently a lost work as the specifics of the proposal are unknown.[6] However, the presentation of the proposal was documented in the journal of the Fifth Virginia 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 ministereal 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."[7]
Hugh Blair Grigsby, Virginia historical scholar, states that the paper presented by Lewis was, "the first distinct and responsible proposition in favor of independence and of a federal union which I have met with."[8]
References
Bibliography
- OCLC 3886825.
- Grigsby, Hugh Blair (1890). The History of the Virginia Federal Convention of 1788: with some account of some eminent Virginians of that era who were members of the body. Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Historical Society.
- Virginia House of Delegates (1816). The Proceedings of the Convention of Delegates Held at the Capital, in the City of Williamsburg, in the Colony of Virginia, on the 6th of May, 1776 (reprint). Richmond, Virginia: Virginia House of Delegates.
- Waddell, Joseph A. (1902). Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871. OCLC 3880311.
- Proceedings of the Virginia Historical Society at the Annual Meeting Held December 21-22, 1891: With Historical Papers Read on the Occasion, and Others, Volume 6. Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Historical Society. 1887.