Virginia Declaration of Rights

The Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted in 1776, proclaimed inherent rights and principles of government for Virginia. It influenced later American and international declarations of rights.

Natural rights: Rights understood as inherent in human beings rather than granted by governments. The declaration presents certain rights as inherent and not subject to surrender.
Free exercise of religion: The liberty to practice religion without coercive government interference. Its religious-liberty provision rejects coercion and grounds religion in reason and conviction.
George Mason: An American political thinker and Virginia statesman who drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Mason wrote the declaration’s initial draft for Virginia’s constitutional convention.
United States Bill of Rights: The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1791. Several protections in the federal Bill of Rights parallel provisions first stated in Virginia’s declaration.
Popular sovereignty: The principle that political authority ultimately rests with the people. Its account of government makes the people the source of political power.
Freedom of the press: The liberty to publish and circulate information and opinions without prior government restraint. The declaration calls a free press a safeguard of liberty.
Virginia Convention of 1776: The assembly that declared Virginia independent and established its state government in 1776. The convention debated and adopted the declaration while constructing Virginia’s new political order.
French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: A 1789 French revolutionary statement of individual and civic rights. Its authors encountered the Virginia declaration’s ideas through the wider Atlantic exchange of rights principles.
Social contract: A theory that political authority arises from an agreement among people to form a society and government. The declaration treats government as accountable to those whose rights it is meant to secure.
Right to bear arms: A claimed individual or collective right to possess and carry weapons, defined differently across legal systems. Its militia provision links arms-bearing to the security of a free state.

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