Edmund Pendleton
Virginia politician, lawyer and judge
1721 CE to 1803 CE
Edmund Pendleton (September 9, 1721 – October 23, 1803) is a Virginia politician, lawyer and judge, active in the American Revolutionary War.
He is a member of the Virginia legislature before and during the War.
Pendleton attends the First Continental Congress alongside George Washington and Patrick Henry as Virginia's delegates and he leads the conventions wherein Virginia declares independence and adopts the U.S. Constitution.
Unlike Henry, Pendleton is a moderate who initially hopes for reconciliation, rather than revolt.
With Thomas Jefferson and George Wythe, he revises Virginia's law code after the break with Britain.
He serves as the first President of the Supreme Court of Virginia.
On his death, Congress passes a memorial to "another star from the splendid constellation of virtue and talents which guided the people of the United States in their struggle for independence."
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Dabney Carr proposes the formation of a permanent Committee of Correspondence before the Virginia House of Burgesses in March 1773.
Virginia's own committee is formed on March 12, 1773 and members consist of Peyton Randolph, Robert Carter Nicholas, Richard Bland, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Dudley Digges, Dabney Carr, Archibald Cary, and Thomas Jefferson.
The Virginia Declaration of Rights is drafted in 1776 to proclaim the inherent rights of men, including the right to reform or abolish "inadequate" government.
The Declaration is adopted unanimously by the Fifth Virginia Convention at Williamsburg, Virginia on June 12, 1776, as a separate document from the Constitution of Virginia, which will later be adopted on June 29, 1776.
It will influence a number of later documents, including the United States Declaration of Independence (1776) and the United States Bill of Rights (1789).
Ten articles were initially drafted by George Mason circa May 20–26, 1776; three other articles were added in committee, seen in the original draft in the handwriting of Thomas Ludwell Lee, but the author is unknown.
James Madison later proposed liberalizing the article on religious freedom, but the larger Virginia Convention made further changes.
It was later amended by Committee and the entire Convention, including the addition of a section on the right to a uniform government (Section 14).
Patrick Henry persuades the Convention to delete a section that would have prohibited bills of attainder, arguing that ordinary laws could be ineffective against some terrifying offenders.
Edmund Pendleton proposed the line "when they enter into a state of society" which allows slave holders to support the declaration of universal rights which would be understood not to apply to slaves as they were not part of civil society.
The Declaration can be considered the first modern Constitutional protection of individual rights for citizens of North America.
It rejects the notion of privileged political classes or hereditary offices such as the members of Parliament and House of Lords described in the English Bill of Rights.
The Declaration consists of sixteen articles on the subject of which rights "pertain to [the people of Virginia]...as the basis and foundation of Government."
In addition to affirming the inherent nature of rights to life, liberty, property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety, the Declaration both describes a view of Government as the servant of the people, and enumerates its separation of powers into the administration, legislature, and judiciary.
Thus, the document is unusual in that it not only prescribes legal rights, but it also describes moral principles upon which a government should be run.