In 1768, Virginia applauded Massachusetts for her stand; re-affirmed the
position that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies; and directed
that these resolutions of her House of Burgesses be communicated to all
the colonies with the insistence that they should unite in opposition to
every attempt of Great Britain to levy taxes upon the American people.
In 1769, her House of Burgesses again asserted its position in a series
of resolutions which Mr. Bancroft declares were "so calm in manner and
so perfect in substance that time finds no omission to regret, no
improvement to suggest. The menace of arresting patriots lost its terror
and Virginia's declaration and action consolidated union."[342] Though
dissolved by the Royal Governor because of this action, the members of
the body immediately assembled, and under the leadership of Washington,
an agreement was entered into providing against the importation of goods
from Great Britain until all unconstitutional acts should be repealed.
Resistance to British tyranny continuing unabated, a yearning for union
sprang up among all the colonies. "Whether that great idea," says Mr.
Bancroft, "should become a reality, rested on Virginia."[343] Her House
of Burgesses assembled in March, 1773, when, under the leadership of
Dabney Carr, Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry, resolutions were
adopted providing for a system of inter-colonial committees of
correspondence. "Carr's plan," says Mr. Bancroft, "included a thorough
union council throughout the land. If it should succeed and be adopted
by the other colonies, America would stand before the world as a
confederacy." Copies of these resolutions were sent to every colony,
with the request that each would appoint a committee to communicate from
time to time with that of Virginia. "In this manner," says Mr. Bancroft,
"Virginia laid the foundation of our Union."[344]
In May, 1774, the Virginia House of Burgesses by a resolution called
upon their fellow-citizens to set apart the day on which the act closing
the port of Boston was to take effect:
"As a day of fasting and prayer, devoutly to implore the divine
interposition for averting the dreadful calamity which threatened
destruction to their civil rights and the evils of a civil war, and to
give to the American people one heart and one mind firmly to oppose,
by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights."
Upon the adoption of this resolution, the Royal Governor dissolved the
Assembly, but the members immediately met and resolved "that an attack
made on one of our sister colonies to compel submission to arbitrary
taxes is an attack made on all British America, and threatens ruin to
the rights of all unless the united wisdom of the whole be
applied."[345] These sentiments of fraternity and union were re-echoed
in the words of Washington: "I will raise one thousand men, subsist them
at my own expense, and march at their head for the relief of Boston," a
declaration soon followed by the march of Virginians under Daniel Morgan
to the succor of that besieged city.