Teaching the Virginia Resolves
Teaching the Virginia Resolves Against the Stamp Act
A Lesson That Concentrates the Mind
by Jeff Schneider
“In 1774 John Adams and Patrick Henry agreed that 'We must fight if we can't otherwise rid ourselves of British taxation, all revenues and the constitution or form of government enacted for us by the British Parliament.'”*
In order to get through to the end of the Civil War in the fall semester it is time to catch up on the content for the narrative. The introductory lessons have have given you a sense of the intellectual project I am describing in my essays, so I will now give you some lessons I taught in that sequence. You will see that this lesson not only concentrates the mind of the students, but it also keeps the teacher on her toes. It is another one-period lesson, but finishing it is important despite the density of the material. The pace of the lesson is rapid and it is exciting both for the teacher and the students to get through it all. When I figured out how to make this go in 40 or 45 minutes, it was a joy to teach, despite the energy it took to complete. The drive forward was exciting and rewarding intellectually for the students.
There have been sharp disagreements among historians about the causes of the American Revolution, the latest is the 1619 Project's assertion that (some) Americans fought to defend slavery and another debate 10 years ago in William and Mary Quarterly that considered the question: Did economics cause the Revolution? The late Princeton historian, John Murrin argued that there was a process of Anglicization: That the Americans saw themselves as English and the English saw them as a new nationality. Bernard Bailyn argued in some ways similarly years before Murrin that the American Revolution was triggered by a misunderstanding of British political behavior and the well respected intellectual historian J.G.A. Pocock claimed that it was the "last act of the Renaissance." All that aside, John Adams himself asserted that the Stamp Act protests embodied all the elements of the Revolution: All the questions except the fighting had been settled in 1765!**
This lesson goes back to basics. How did the English colonists turn into Americans? What made the signers of the Declaration of Independence "pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor" to fight Great Britain? The Virginia Resolves was a powerful example of that process. Some of my Advanced Placement US History students told me that analyzing the resolves cemented their understanding of how to read a document. It gave them a concentrated experience in taking apart a short text and putting it back together in a form that explains a major cause of the American Revolution. When I was observed on this lesson my chairman said, “ I understand what you are doing. You are trying to make them think!”
One
This is a group work lesson, that I found it was possible to use in gifted and AP classes, because when I wrote the ideas in each one of the resolves on the board as the groups reported their findings, when we analyzed them as a whole, the students could see the resolves explain themselves before their eyes. There is a rush in getting to the end, but the purpose and the conclusion are intellectual rewards that the students appreciate. Once a leader in an AP workshop I attended told us that "you can always teach faster than the students can learn." That is a danger, but getting to the end creates the understanding. Here are the Virginia Resolves from May 20, 1765, by Patrick Henry:
The Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions
Resolved, that the first adventurers and settlers of His Majesty's colony and dominion of Virginia brought with them and transmitted to their posterity, and all other His Majesty's subjects since inhabiting in this His Majesty's said colony, all the liberties, privileges, franchises, and immunities that have at any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great Britain.
Resolved, that by two royal charters, granted by King James I, the colonists aforesaid are declared entitled to all liberties, privileges, and immunities of denizens and natural subjects to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the Realm of England.
Resolved, that the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, or the easiest method of raising them, and must themselves be affected by every tax laid on the people, is the only security against a burdensome taxation, and the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, without which the ancient constitution cannot exist.
Resolved, that His Majesty's liege people of this his most ancient and loyal colony have without interruption enjoyed the inestimable right of being governed by such laws, respecting their internal policy and taxation, as are derived from their own consent, with the approbation of their sovereign, or his substitute; and that the same has never been forfeited or yielded up, but has been constantly recognized by the kings and people of Great Britain.
Resolved, therefor that the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and exclusive Right and Power to lay Taxes and Impositions upon the inhabitants of this Colony and that every Attempt to vest such Power in any person or persons whatsoever other than the General Assembly aforesaid has a manifest Tendency to destroy British as well as American Freedom.
Resolved, That His Majesty's liege people, the inhabitants of this Colony, are not bound to yield obedience to any law or ordinance whatever, designed to impose any taxation whatsoever upon them, other than the laws or ordinances of the General Assembly aforesaid.
Resolved, That any person who shall, by speaking or writing, assert or maintain that any person or persons other than the General Assembly of this Colony, have any right or power to impose or lay any taxation on the people here, shall be deemed an enemy to His Majesty's Colony.
The last two were not passed or perhaps not introduced at the House of Burgesses, but all 7 were printed in newspapers from New Hampshire to Georgia. There are complicated stories of what happened to the resolves on May 21 the next day in the House of Burgesses. **(Read the references in the note at the end of this article to get sense of the confusion in the historical record.) Whatever the details of the votes in the Virginia House the effect of the 7 separate resolves that were printed in the colonial newspapers is the version we will consider here.The effect was dramatic: In his famous account of the Stamp Act protests Governor Bernard of Massachusetts called the Virginia Resolves “the alarm bell” that touched off the action in the streets of Boston on August 14, 1765. Within weeks Newport, RI, and New York City took up the protest movement.
In order to teach this lesson, I gave an identification assignment for the Stamp Act and asked the students to write a two or three sentence "definition" of Patrick Henry. In my AP classes the IDs were 100 word paragraphs (not lists) with the following information: A definition, a year, 3 examples of what the Stamp Act and its effects were and a last sentence that must literally say: "The importance of the Stamp Act was ...." I told the students that it was the only mechanical exercise I asked them to do. In my AP classes I had the students upload them to Turnitin.com so they could not just copy their IDs from the web or the textbook. For the gifted students the format was the same, with 2 examples and 75 words. My students never answered questions from a textbook. They had to make up their own responses.
Two
When the students came to class they handed in their homework and then I asked them to take out their documents and number the resolutions 1 – 7. I asked them to explain who Patrick Henry was and describe the Stamp Act. Henry was a member of the House of Burgesses, the General Assembly of Virginia, and a very powerful speaker who was an important leader in the Revolution. He was famous for the speech that called for war in 1776: “Give me Liberty or Give me Death!” Some of them might have found out that he was an early revolutionary which will become obvious during this lesson. The Stamp Act was passed by Parliament on March 22, 1765. It was meant to tax the colonists on all licenses, bills of lading, leases, deeds and contracts and it had to be paid in hard currency – not paper money. The money was to be used to pay off the deficit from the French and Indian War for which Prime Minister William Pitt had spent enough to nearly double the size of the English debt. The most famous slogan against the Stamp Act was “No Taxation without Representation.” If you wish you can elicit that for an aim. I might ask, What question can we ask about Patrick Henry, the Virginia Resolves and the famous slogan “No Taxation without Representation?
Aim: How did Patrick Henry argue for “No Taxation without Representation” in the Virginia Resolves?
Then I formed 6 groups or 7 groups. Each group had the assignment of reading two consecutive resolves and figuring out what each meant separately and how the two differed. They were to read each resolve silently then discuss them. There should be groups for (1&2), (3&4), (5&6), (6&7) and then (2&3), (4&5), (5&6). Make sure you have two groups covering 5. and two groups covering 3. It is important that the groups working on 3 and 5 have at least one outstanding student.
Before the students begin reading the resolves in their groups, I tell them that the short-looking sentences are deceptive: They look easy, but they have meanings not directly obvious on first or second reading. This is true especially in 1 and 2. Students are not used to reading for the meaning in detail. The purpose of this lesson is to show the students that the meaning emerges from the words in the resolves, when they read it carefully. The documents are the basis of history not the textbook or whatever teachers say in class. My classes were literally document based. Most of the learning came from the documents and they were tested on the documents not “textbook learning.”
While the students are figuring out the answers, wait a couple of minutes and speak to each group, asking whether they understand all the words and what they have come up with so far. Ask them questions to make sure they are approximating a useful interpretation of the task. The students sometimes have trouble finding the differences between the resolves they are reading: They jump to the “point” of the sentence and leave out how the sentences make sense. This part of the lesson up to now should take up about 15 minutes out of 40 or 45.
Three
When the students have given it a good try and you are sure you have some answers you need to move forward, ask someone from each group to volunteer to read their resolve for the class. Make sure that they are reading slowly and clearly. The groups should read only one each because the resolves are spread out over two groups at least. I tried to make sure to give each group a chance. It is not necessary to to get perfect answers in the following discussion. I found questions to ask that combined the various versions coming from the groups. The key is to get to the end so all 7 become a unit. This is the bulk of the time in the lesson.
In the First Resolve the adventurers and settlers(?) are the men and women from 1607: Why do they have the rights of Englishmen? Because they were English. They came across the Atlantic with those rights: They were inherent. The two Charters in the Second Resolve are the 1606 Virginia Company Charter and the Royal Charter of 1624; both gave the colonists and their descendants those same rights.
The Third Resolve gives an example of one of those rights: Only the people themselves or their representatives have the right to pass taxes for the Virginians. The Ancient Constitution is common law and a tradition deriving from the Magna Carta in 1215, which the barons forced Bad King John to sign. He agreed that he would not raise money without their consent that was the first description of the powers of Parliament. Taxes were a gift of the people to the king. This is called self-taxation which I stated as a kind of conclusion. It is plainly the key term in the whole discussion. For the Fourth Resolve: His Majesty's liege people are the Americans, who of course owe alleigance to the king. As you see, the Virginia Resolves are aimed at Parliament, not the king. It is only later in the Declaration of Independence that the king is attacked directly.*** Yielded up means given away and forfeited means to have lost them somehow: as when a team forfeits a game by not showing up. When the students have gotten the meaning of this resolve I ask them what they would say if their parents told them they now had to come home at 9:30 on a Saturday nights instead of later which they had been always allowed to do. I would stamp my foot, and the students would say, “That's not fair!”
The Fifth Resolve is the most difficult because it contains more than one idea in it. The General Assembly is the legislature of Virginia – the House of Burgesses, to which they elect representatives. According to the right in 3 the house should be the only body that taxes Virginians. The second idea is that the British as well as the American (?) people's freedoms tend to be endangered if some other body taxes the Virginians. What is that other body? The English Parliament. I make sure they know what tendency means.
The last two resolves state what the Virginians will do if their rights of representation are usurped or taken over by Parliament. They will not obey is the Sixth and the Seventh Resolve and whoever passes a tax on Virginians other than the Virginia Assembly will be their enemy. I ask, what are the key words in 6 and 7? Yield obedience and enemy.
Here are examples of the sentences I write on the board:
The first adventurers or “settlers” (Invaders?) have the rights of Englishmen because they were English people transplanted to America.
The two charters of 1606 and 1624 granted the rights of Englishmen to all Virginians and their descendants.
The taxation of the people by themselves (self-taxation) is a key element of English rights.
Virginians have continuously enjoyed these rights and they have never given them up or had them taken away. They have always been recognized by the King and his representatives.
The people of Virginia or their representatives have the exclusive right to tax Virginians and whoever tries to tax Virginians other than the Assembly tends to go against British as well as American freedom.
Virginians will not yield obedience to any one or body other than the General Assembly to tax them.
Anyone who writes or states a right to or passes taxes instead of our General Assembly is an enemy of the people of Virginia.
Four
Once these are all on the board, I ask: What do notice about these? The answer usually comes fairly quickly: They become more radical from 1 – 7. I tell the class that the House of Burgesses passed only five of them. Which two do you think were not passed? The answer is #6 and #7 because they call for resistance or revolution. Patrick Henry was ready for a revolution, but many of the other delegates were not. Some of them opposed the the idea that the “General Assembly of this Colony have the only and exclusive Right and Power to lay Taxes...” He was more radical than most people in the colonies in 1765. 5 was initially passed after a firey speech by Patrick Henry, but then striken from the record the next day. Why was it passed at first? What is in there that made it sound more acceptable besides the persuasive powers of its sponsor? It might take a while to elicit, but the resolve links Britain with America. But it does refer to America which was an implication of independence or at least a difference from Britain. Now that we understand the sequence, I ask: What do you call these sentences as a whole? This takes a while. Sometimes I have to ask in which class have you seen something like this before? Geometry. Eventually, the students realize that it is a formal proof: 1 and 2 are givens. They are simply statements of fact. 3 is a special case of the Rights of Englishmen: self-taxation. 4 is a statement about the character of that special case. 5 takes the argument further into how British (and American) Rights are threatened by Parliament taxing the Virginians. Then 6 and 7 are conclusions or calls to action based on the previous 5 statements. 7 is clearly an intensification of 6.
The Virginia Resolves call for revolution or at least active resistance to the powers of Parliament on the basis of the Rights of Englishmen. Then I go to the blackboard and draw a line down the center of the Atlantic Ocean on a projection on the white board. Consider this:
I ask, What is the problem presented in this map? Can you have self-taxation on both sides of the Atlantic and still maintain the British Empire?
What can we conclude from this proof and the drawing?
Conclusion: Patrick Henry's Virginia Resolves as printed in the newspapers up and down the coast of the thirteen colonies called for revolution on the basis of self-taxation or famously, “No Taxation without Representation,” one of the Rights of Englishmen. Therefore an English right based on the Ancient Constitution caused the Stamp Act protests, and was a major cause for the Revolution itself.
If everything works out the bell rings now. It is a class filled with ideas that moves rapidly, but the answers to all the questions are right on the board and in the document itself. QED.
*Note: From Resistance to Revolution, by Pauline Maier, page 254.
**Note In 2016 I sent version of this lesson to the AP US History Community website in answer to a question by Elizabeth T. Harris on Anglicization. Her question was in response to information and links sent by John Maunu. By then I had been using the lesson for over ten years.
***Note: If you are interested you can read conflicting stories in these three sites. For example:
https://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/vsa65.html
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0369-0002
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0403
****Note: See my article “On Teaching All Men are Created Equal” elsewhere on this site