Existing comment:
Declaring Independence:
Once word of the battles of Lexington and Concord reached North Carolina, many of its patriots clamored for independence. On May 31, 1775, the Mecklenburg County Committee of Safety drafted a resolution known as the Mecklenburg Declaration -- somewhat shrouded in mystery because no contemporary documents survives -- calling for an end to the king's authority over North Carolina. Almost one year later, the Fourth Provincial Congress, meeting in Halifax on April 12, 1776, passed a resolution empowering North Carolina's delegates to the Continental Congress "to concur with the delegates of the other Colonies in declaring Independency,... reserving to this Colony the Sole and Exclusively right of forming a Constitution and Laws for this Colony." The resolution, considered to be the first official action for independence by an American colony, became known as the Halifax Resolves.
On July 2, Continental Congress delegate Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed a resolution that the American colonies separate from Great Britain. North Carolina's delegates -- Joseph Hewes, William Hooper, and John Penn -- wished to avoid war, but could not escape the desire and right of the citizens of North Carolina to be free. The delegates cast North Carolina's vote for independence as the Halifax Resolves had instructed and the resolution passed. News of the Declaration of Independence reached the North Carolina Council of Safety nearly three weeks later. on August 1, Cornelius Harnett, the council's president, read the Declaration to a crowd in Halifax -- the first public reading of the document in North Carolina. By the end of the year, the Old North State had approved its first constitution and Declaration of Rights and called for a general assembly to meet under the new state government. |