He and his neighbors of Fairfax County, Virginia, took the trouble to tell the world by formal resolution on July 18, 1774, that they were descended not from a conquered but from a conquering people, that they claimed full equality with the people of Great Britain, and like them would make their own laws and impose their own taxes.

They were not democrats; they had no theories of equality; but as "gentlemen and men of fortune" they would show to others the right path in the crisis which had arisen.

In this resolution spoke the proud spirit of Washington; and, as he brooded over what was happening, anger fortified his pride.

Of the Tories in Boston, some of them highly educated men, who with sorrow were walking in what was to them the hard path of duty, Washington could say later that "there never existed a more miserable set of beings than these wretched creatures." The age of Washington was one of bitter vehemence in political thought.
In England the good Whig was taught that to deny Whig doctrine was blasphemy, that there was no truth or honesty on the other side, and that no one should trust a Tory; and usually the good Whig was true to the teaching he had received.

In America there had hitherto been no national politics.