Mecklenburg Declaration

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

a popular myth relating to Revolutionary times. On May 31, 1775, the farmers of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina , held a county meeting at which they adopted vigorous resolutions, declaring that a state of anarchy existed, and providing a provisional government during the continuance of the disorder. Like many similar resolutions by other counties and towns at about the same date, the resolutions open with a strong statement of allegiance and devotion to the British crown, and they contain no hint of independence. But long after the Revolution all Mecklenburg records having been destroyed during the war, an old man's faulty memory distorted these resolutions into a " Declaration of Independence ." He dated the meeting May 20, 1775, and wrote out, "according to the best of his recollection," a series of resolutions that, if genuine, would have anticipated the real declaration of Congress by thirteen months. In spite of conclusive arguments by Thomas Jefferson at the time, this spurious declaration passed into sober histories as an undoubted fact. The first serious shock to its acceptance came about the middle of the nineteenth century, when the historian Bancroft discovered in an old newspaper a copy of the undoubtedly genuine resolutions of May 31st. As he at once pointed out, these were absolutely inconsistent with any declaration of independence by the same people eleven days earlier. Since that time scholarly inquiry has completely demolished the story, though North Carolina prejudice and ignorant "patriotism" keep it still on the pages of many books. The whole incident is exceedingly instructive as showing how, even in recent times, a fanciful legend may steal the mantle of history.