James Miller Leake Ph.d.

The Virginia Committee System and the American Revolution James Miller Leake Ph.d.

This study of the Virginia committee system in its relationship to the American Revolution has been made in the main from source material, much of which has been utilized by writers who have studied these committees as isolated units rather than as parts of a well developed system. The author believes that an institutional and historical continuity runs through the committee system of the Virginia legislature, and that these committees are connected in a vital and intimate way with the so-called revolutionary committees of the transition period from colony to commonwealth. To show the continuity, to explain the organization of the committees of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and to show their part in the calling of the first Continental Congress is the purpose of this study. It was at first intended to include the results of an investigation of the so-called revolutionary committees (the Virginia Committee of Safety and the local committees) ; but any adequate treatment of these organizations would have carried this study far beyond the usual limits of a dissertation. I have followed out the activities of these committees and hope soon to publish my findings as a continuation of this study.