Virginia Constitution, May 1776 (I.1.4)

The list of authors of the document includes Jefferson, Madison, and Mason. A long list of complaints, angrily expressed at the beginning of it, lay out the injustices done by the Crown to the colonies: obstruction of Americans' giving themselves the law, quartering troops in American towns and making the military superior to the civil powers, taxing without consent, violently "destroying the lives of our people," etc. Virginia will be ruined unless an "adequate mode of civil polity is speedily adopted."

The document sets up independent executive, legislative and judiciary branches of government. The legislative was to be bicameral, with a house of delegates and a senate. The legislators would elect a governor. There was to be an eight-member administrative Council of State elected by the members of the legislature. The Governor would command the military, with advice from the Council. Judges would be appointed by the legislature and commissioned by the governor, who, with advice from the Council, would appoint justices of the peace for the counties. The House of Delegates may impeach the governor or the judges for crimes endangering the state.