Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress - Milestone Documents

Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress

( 1774 ) Commentary by John R. Vile, Middle Tennessee State University
  • “The good people of the several colonies … justly alarmed at these arbitrary proceedings of parliament and administration, have severally elected, constituted, and appointed deputies to meet, and sit in general Congress, in the city of Philadelphia, in order to obtain such establishment, as that their religion, laws, and liberties, may not be subverted.” - Paragraph 5
  • “That the inhabitants of the English colonies in North-America, by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English constitution, and the several charters or compacts, have the following RIGHTS.” - Paragraph 6
  • “They are entitled to life, liberty and property: and they have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.” - Paragraph 7
  • “The foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council: and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances, cannot properly be represented in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed.” - Paragraph 10
  • “They have a right peaceably to assemble, consider of their grievances, and petition the king.” - Paragraph 14
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John Sullivan, who prepared the first draft of the Declaration and Resolves (Library of Congress)

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