The Norfolk Resolves was the founding document of the People's Coalition. It was drafted by the founders of the original People's Party in Norfolk, Virginia, the capital of the Southern Confederation, in 1869. Although Sobel does not say so, it is likely that the echo of the name of the Suffolk Resolves from the North American Rebellion was deliberate.
The formation of the People's Party had its roots in the growing industrialization of both the S.C. and the Confederation of North America as a whole. With the Liberal Party identified with the wealthy cotton planters, and the Conservative Party seeking the votes of the industrial workers and business owners of the Tennessee Valley, small farmers, both white and Negro, felt that their own interests were being ignored.
Representatives of the small farmers, as well as some impoverished cotton planters, met in Norfolk to form a third party local to the Southern Confederation. The program of the new People's Party of the Southern Confederation, known as the Norfolk Resolves, were:
- Taxes would be raised on businesses and used to revive agriculture.
- Government banks would be established to offer farmers low interest loans.
- The government would guarantee the price of cotton.
- Railroads, turnpikes, and canals would be placed under the control of a government agency which would determine rates.
As word of the formation of the People's Party and the Norfolk Resolves spread to the rest of the C.N.A., dissaffected groups in other confederations formed their own People's Parties, which combined to form the People's Coalition. However, by the time the P.C. gained power in the 1888 Grand Council elections, the Norfolk Resolves had become outdated and irrelevant to the country's needs.
Sobel's source for the drafting of the Norfolk Resolves is Max Finnigan's "The Origins of the People's Party, and the Writing of the Norfolk Resolves", from The Journal of Politics, 4 December 1958.