"A—ms I Wou'd Beg Leave to Add, Should Be the Last Resource": The Virginia Gentry's Ordered Resistance to British Imperial Policy, 1765–1775

Abstract: During the Imperial Crisis, the slaveholding planter gentry of coastal Virginia considered themselves loyal, peaceable subjects committed to Britain's constitutional system and Virginia's socio-economic status quo. Tidewater gentlemen feared the new imperial policy as a danger to their rights as British subjects and their interests as the colony's ruling class. They did not, however, consider armed resistance justified until non-violent options had been exhausted. Fearing both anarchy from below and tyranny from above, the gentry organized resistance to the new imperial policy in such a way as to preserve social order in Virginia and prevent civil war within the British Empire. This article examines the legislative resolutions which provided an operational framework for the gentry's strategy of "ordered resistance" as it evolved from 1765 to 1775. The article focuses on four sets of resolutions, namely the Virginia Resolves of 1765 and Leedstown Resolutions of 1766 (against the Stamp Act), the Williamsburg Resolutions of 1769 (against the Townshend Acts), and the Fairfax Resolves of 1774 (against the Coercive Acts). The tactics proposed by these resolutions included non-compliance with unconstitutional acts, ostracism and intimidation directed against enforcers and collaborators, and non-importation of British goods, implemented by an innovative network of political associations. Developed by such statesmen as Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, George Mason, and George Washington, gentry strategy secured short-term successes and gave rise to a new popular politics. By March 1775, though, it had proven insufficient to deter the British state, leaving military mobilization the only remaining alternative to submission.