ABSTRACT
In June 1776, Virginia's constitutional convention adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights. French revolutionary Emmanuel-Joseph Sie-yes in the same year based the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen on the Virginia Declaration. The Virginia Declaration contributed greatly to the development of constitutionalism, the notion that written documents ratified by the sovereign people limit the power of government. Faced with armed resistance from the colonial militia, the royal governor of Virginia fled to a British warship in 1775, marking the end of British rule in the colony. Some civil liberties, which were later to be considered fundamental, are missing from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, most notably freedom of speech and a prohibition on government support for religious sects. The Episcopal Church was not disestablished until 1786 when the Virginia legislature passed Thomas Jefferson's Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom.
