Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Virginia Declaration of Rights

Statement of rights adopted by the colony of Virginia in 1776, which served as the model for the U.S. Constitution's BILL OF RIGHTS.

The Virginia Declaration of Rights is an important document in U.S. constitutional history. Adopted by the Virginia Constitutional Convention on June 12, 1776, its sixteen sections enumerated specific civil liberties that government could not legitimately take away. The declaration was adopted during the last months of British colonial rule. THOMAS JEFFERSON used parts of it in the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, and it later served as a model for the Bill of Rights that was added to the U.S. Constitution.

In the spring of 1776 the Virginia...