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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Declaration of rights by Virginia. (search)
Declaration of rights by Virginia. George Mason drafted for Virginia a declaration of rights, and on May 27, 1776, Archibald Carey presented it to the Virginia convention. On June 12 it was adopted. It declared that all men are by nature equally free, and are invested with inalienable rights—namely, the enjoyment of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness and safety; that all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit and security of the people, nation, or community, and that when government shall fail to perform its required functions, a majority of the people have an inalienable right to reform or abolish it; that, public services not being descendible, the office of magistrate, legislator, or judge ought not to be hereditary; that the legislative and executive powers of the state should be distinct from the judicature, and that the members of the first two should, at fixed