Mecklenburg Resolves
Open-knowledge reference entry
The Mecklenburg Resolves, or Charlotte Town Resolves, were a list of statements adopted at Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina on May 31, 1775; drafted in the month following the fighting at Lexington and Concord. Similar lists of resolves were issued by other local colonial governments at that time, none of which called for independence from Great Britain. The Mecklenburg Resolves are thought to be the basis for the unproven "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence". While not a declaration, the Resolves annulled and vacated all laws originating from the authority of the King or Parliament, and ended recognition of the Crown's power in the colony of North Carolina and all other American colonies. It became the first colony to formally do so, taking place about a year before the Halifax Resolves were passed by the Fourth North Carolina Provincial Congress.
Creating the "Resolves"
The Mecklenburg Resolves document was created by the Mecklenburg County Committee of Safety on or after May 20, 1775, and adopted by that same committee on May 31, 1775. This was just weeks after what is now considered the first battles in the American Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.
The Resolves proclaimed that "all Laws...derived from the Authority of the King or Parliament, are annulled and vacated," and that the Provincial government "under the Great Continental Congress is invested with all legislative and executive Powers...and that no other Legislative or Executive does or can exist, at this time, in any of these Colonies."
Captain James Jack is reputed to have relayed the Resolves document to the North Carolina delegation made up of Richard Caswell, William Hooper, and Joseph Hewes meeting at the Continental Congress. There, the delegates received it but decided not to present it at that time to the Congress as a whole. These resolves were drafted only a month following the outbreak of civil unrest at Lexington and Concord.
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