The Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776

On 12 June 1776, weeks before the Declaration of Independence, Virginia's revolutionary convention adopted a Declaration of Rights drafted mainly by George Mason. It began by stating that all men are by nature equally free and independent and have inherent rights to life, liberty, property, happiness and safety. It declared that power is derived from the people, that government can be reformed or abolished if it fails, and it protected trial by jury, freedom of the press and the free exercise of religion.

Its wording influenced Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, other state constitutions, the US Bill of Rights and, through American contacts, French reformers in 1789. Yet the convention deliberately added the phrase 'when they enter into a state of society' to the opening, which slaveholding delegates believed would exclude enslaved people. The document thus captures both the power and the limits of revolutionary rights talk.