Mecklenburg Resolves

The Mecklenburg Resolves, or Charlotte Town Resolves, was a list of statements adopted at Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina on May 31, 1775; drafted in the month following the fighting at Lexington and Concord. Similar lists of resolves were issued by other local colonial governments at that time, none of which called for independence from Great Britain. It is argued that the Mecklenburg Resolves have been mistaken for the unproven "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence."

The Mecklenburg Resolves document was created by the Mecklenburg County Committee of Safety on or after May 20, 1775 and adopted by that same committee on May 31, 1775. This was just weeks after what are now considered the first battles in the American War for Independence at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.

The Resolves proclaimed that "all Laws...derived from the Authority of the King or Parliament, are annulled and vacated," and that the Provincial government "under the Great Continental Congress is invested with all legislative and executive Powers...and that no other Legislative or Executive does or can exist, at this Time, in any of these Colonies."

Captain James Jack is reputed to have relayed The Resolves document to the North Carolina delegation made up of Richard Caswell, William Hooper, and Joseph Hewes meeting at the Continental Congress. There, the delegates received it, but decided not to present it at that time to the Congress as a whole. These resolves were drafted only a month following the outbreak of civil unrest at Lexington and Concord. Similar lists of resolves were issued by other localities at the time and throughout the next 14 months (such as the Tryon Resolves in then neighboring Tryon County). None of these actually called for independence.

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