The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868, was an assembly of delegates elected by the voters to establish the fundamental law of Virginia following the American Civil War and the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. The Convention, which met from December 3, 1867 until April 17, 1868, set the stage for enfranchising freedmen, Virginia's readmission to Congress and an end to Congressional Reconstruction. [1]
| History of Virginia |
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 Virginiaportal |
After 1866, according to the Radical Reconstruction Acts of Congress, a rebelling state which had vacated its delegation in the U.S. Congress was required to constitutionally incorporate the 14th Amendment before it was allowed to participate again. That Amendment guarantees that all persons born in the United States are citizens both of the United States and of their state. States were no longer allowed either to curtail the privileges of their citizens or to deny equal protection of their laws to any citizen. The Radical Congressional Reconstruction legislation required the suffrage for black men. [2]
During Reconstruction, U.S. General John Schofield administered Virginia as Military District One. By the time he called a new state constitutional convention for 1868, three distinct parties had coalesced in Virginia. Radical Republicans included most ex-slave freedmen, and organized to advocate full political and social equality for blacks, but also wanted to exclude ex-Confederates from political participation either in government or at the ballot box. Moderate Unionists (including many pre-war Whigs), sought political equality for blacks, but believed that ex-Confederates had to be included in the political community because of the terms of surrender as well as majority among the white population. Conservatives wanted to ensure white control of the state (although crippled by former Confederates who urged a boycott of the nominating convention, and also opposed Radical influence on issues such as public education. [3]
In the elections for the Constitutional Convention, Radical Republican superior organization gained a surprise triumph over both Moderates and Conservatives, resulting in a majority of Convention delegates. The statewide majority of white ex-Confederates immediately organized Virginia's Conservative Party by meeting and forming the Committee of Nine shortly after the convention began meeting in December 1867. They incorporated the moderate former Unionists to seek white-only control of the state. [4]
The Convention's 104 delegates included 68 Republicans, among whom were 24 African Americans, 21 Virginia-born whites and 23 whites from out of state. [5] The remaining 36 Conservatives were mostly wealthy ex-Confederates. [6]
The Convention met from December 3, 1867 - April 17, 1868, at Richmond in the Capitol Building (with a holiday break during most of December). By a vote of 63 to 36, delegates elected federal Judge John Curtiss Underwood its presiding officer. [7] A Republican who had been living in Virginia since the 1840s, Underwood had become known for his speeches against slavery and later against Confederates, as well as for allowing expropriation of Confederate plantation lands (many later reversed on appeal) and initially refusing to grant Jefferson Davis bail when he was charged with treason after the war (the charges later quietly dropped). [8] Delegates included enfranchised Unionists (many ex-Whigs) as well as freedmen and ex-Confederates, but was dominated by Radical Republicans. [9]
After the Convention resumed from a recess over the Christmas holidays, Radical delegates caused a stir by allowing Union General Benjamin F. Butler (whom many Confederates considered a "beast" for his actions during the military occupation of New Orleans) to speak on January 14. [10]
Virginia's Constitution has begun with its Declaration of Rights since 1776. A radical proposed inclusive language to read, "All mankind, irrespective of race or color, are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights." But black floor leader Thomas Bayne of Norfolk had promised his voters that the Constitution would not have "the word black or the word white anywhere in it", that their children reading it in fifteen years would "not see slavery, even as a shadow, remaining in it…" and the measure was defeated by a coalition of black Republicans and Conservatives. Conservatives also objected to the Radical assertion that the right to vote was a natural right because they saw it as a social privilege meant to be restricted to the few. That provision was also defeated. [11]
The Convention concerned itself with federal-state relations, with the Convention's Committee on the Preamble and Bill of Rights initially stating that "the General Government of the United States is paramount to that of an individual state, except as to rights guaranteed to each State by the Constitution of the United States." But ex-Confederate Jacob N. Liggett of Rockingham County voiced the ex-Confederate doctrine that "the Federal Government is the creature of the acts of the States." Christopher Y. Thomas of Henry County proposed a compromise, to simply assert Article VI. of the U.S. Constitution for Virginia's Bill of Rights, Section 2, that "the Constitution of the United States, and the laws of Congress passed in pursuance thereof, constitute the supreme law of the land, to which paramount allegiance and obedience are due from every citizen…"
That was not enough for the Radical majority, Linus M. Nickerson of Alexandria and Fairfax County who had served as chaplain of a New York infantry regiment, as well as taught under the Freedmen's Bureau, successfully added that, "this State shall ever remain a member of the United States of America…and that all attempts from whatever source, or upon whatever pretext, to dissolve said Union… are unauthorized, and ought to be resisted with the whole power of the State." [12]
One of the Convention's two major innovations was providing for public education, which was common in New England which Thomas Jefferson had originally advocated but had been opposed by the planter class elite. However, the Radicals failed in their efforts to secure a Constitutional mandate for racial integration of the schools. Some delegates believed that allowing segregated schools would end the objections to public schooling which had been resisted in the General Assembly since Jefferson's proposals in the 1700s. However, like Bayne, but delegate Peter G. Morgan of Petersburg did not want any mention of race in the document, and succeeded. Black delegates at the Convention were divided nearly equally between supporting mandatory integration and leaving the issue for the General Assembly. [13]
The Constitution's other innovation was allowing the governor to veto laws passed by the legislature. That proved problematic in the following decades, since the first legislature after adoption of the Constitution adopted measures reaffirming Virginia's prewar debt, at those interest rates (much higher than postwar) and other favorable terms. Moreover, Virginia was much poorer after the war, and tax revenues were insufficient to fund that debt. Legislation refinancing that debt would be vetoed by conservative governors several times in the next decade.
General Schofield addressed the Convention in April 1868, notifying members that by continuing to meet through March, they had exceeded their budget, and that he would not authorize expenditures after April 6. He also thought little of the Convention's Radicals, particularly two measures to disenfranchise the white ex-Confederate majority in the state, and urged members to rescind them before presenting their work to voters. [14] [15] The two "obnoxious clauses" as they became called, sought to guarantee only Union men would thenceforth hold office, and went beyond federal requirements (as well as the conditions of surrender at Appomatox Court House. One required an "iron-clad oath" testifying that a prospective officeholder had never "voluntarily borne arms against the United States" and another denied the vote to any person who had joined or aided the rebellion after having previously sworn an oath as a federal or state officeholder. [16]
When delegate Hine had proposed denying former Confederates future governmental positions, J. Henry Williams of Amherst County strongly protested they exceeded the Convention's authority. Delegate Liggett followed up in a hostile tone on March 7, which caused his expulsion by a vote of 56 to 15. However, Hine's proposal initially failed on March 13 by an unrecorded vote, and on March 26 passed by a vote of 56 to 32. In the interim, Hine had secured approval of an alternate measure, requiring an additional "test oath" of future public office holders by a vote of 40 to 32. General Schofield believed those two measures too restrictive and addressed the convention on April 17, requesting their repeal, but instead the delegates voted to endorse the entire document as written by a vote of 51 to 26. [17]
Following the Convention, in November 1868 former Union General Ulysses S. Grant was elected, though Virginia, Mississippi and Texas did not participate as "unreconstructed" states. General Schofield successfully negotiated with President Grant to propose the referendum on the Radical "Underwood" Constitution, but separating its two disenfranchisement "obnoxious clauses", allowing voters to decide on them apart from the Constitution. [18] While the referendum on the main body of the Constitution was overwhelmingly approved, the two "obnoxious clauses" were defeated. [19]
In the subsequent elections, the moderate Republican Gilbert Carlton Walker won the governorship. The General Assembly elections returned a two-thirds veto proof Conservative majority and twenty-nine black delegates and state senators. [20] Both the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment enfranchising African Americans were ratified by the General Assembly, and on January 26, 1870, President Grant signed the legislation seating Virginia's delegation in Congress. [21]
The delegates to the Virginia Convention of 1867-1868 were elected on October 22, 1867 and are set out below. (One hundred and five members, from constitutional convention districts drawn by General Schofield) [22]
| Convention District | Name | Party; [23] Further General Assembly (House or Senate) or U.S. Congress sessions, [24] * = African-American |
|---|---|---|
| Accomac and Northampton | Edward K. Snead | Republican |
| Accomac and Northampton | James C. Toy | Republican H. 69/70, 70/71 |
| Albemarle | Clifton L. Thompson | Republican H. 69/70 |
| Albemarle | James T. S. Taylor | Republican * |
| Alexandria | John Hawxhurst [25] | Republican |
| Alexandria and Fairfax | Linus M. Nickerson | Republican |
| Amherst, Buckingham, Nelson | J. Henry Williams | Conservative |
| Amelia | Samuel R. Seay | Conservative |
| Amherst | John W. Broadus | Conservative |
| Alleghany, Craig, Roanoke | Hugh H. Lee | Conservative |
| Augusta, Albemarle, Louisa | James C. Southall | Conservative |
| Augusta | Powell Harrison | Conservative |
| Augusta | Joseph A. Waddell | Conservative H. 65/66, 66/67, S.69/70, 70/71 |
| Bedford | Gaston G. Curtiss | Republican |
| Bedford | David Staley | Republican |
| Botetourt | Lewis Linkenhoker | Conservative |
| Brunswick | William Leahy | Republican |
| Bath, Highland, Rockbridge | William McLaughlin | Conservative H. 69/70 |
| Bath, Highland, Rockbridge | Joseph Mayse | Conservative |
| Bland and Tazewell | James M. French | Conservative S. 69/70, 70/71, 71/72, 72/73 |
| Buckingham | Frank Moss | Republican * S. 69/70, 70/71; H. /74, 74/75 |
| Campbell | Samuel F. Kelso | Republican * |
| Campbell | Samuel D. Williamson | Republican |
| Campbell and Pittsylvania | William H. Lydick | Republican |
| Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania | John Lawrence Marye, Jr. | Conservative H./63, 63/64, 64/65, Lieutenant Governor 1870-74 |
| Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania | Frederick S. C. Hunter | Conservative H. 63/64, 64/65 |
| Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania | John [26] J. Gravatt | Conservative |
| Carroll, Floyd and Grayson | William R. Dickey | Republican |
| Carroll, Floyd and Grayson | F. A. Winston | Republican |
| Charles City and New Kent | Lemuel E. Babcock | Republican |
| Charlotte | Edward Nelson | Republican * |
| Charlotte and Halifax | Joseph R. Holmes | Republican * |
| Chesterfield and Powhatan | Samuel F. Maddox | Republican H. 69/70, 70/71; S. /74, 74/75, 75/76 |
| Chesterfield and Powhatan | James B. Carter | Republican * |
| Chesterfield and Powhatan | Charles H. Porter | Republican |
| Clarke and Warren | Joseph McK. Kennerly | Conservative |
| Culpeper | Fayette Mauzy | Conservative |
| Cumberland | John Robinson | Republican * S. 69/70, 70/71, 71/72, 72/73 |
| Elizabeth City and Warwick | David B. White | Republican H. 69/70, 70/71 |
| Fairfax | Orrin E. Hine | Republican |
| Fluvanna | James D. Barrett | Republican * |
| Frederick | Norval Wilson | Conservative |
| Fauquier and Rappahannock | R. Taylor Scott | Conservative H. 81/82 |
| Fauquier | Jonathan C. Gibson | Conservative H. 79/80, 83/84, 84/, 89/90, 91/92, 93/94, 48th Congress |
| Goochland | William S. Moseley | Republican * or Wm. P. Moseley [27] |
| Greensville and Sussex | Peter K. Jones | Republican * H. 69/70, 70/71, 71/72, 72/73, /74, 74/75, 75/76, 76/77 |
| Gloucester and Mathews | J. W. Dixon | Republican |
| Hanover | William R. James | Republican |
| Hanover and Henrico | Burwell Toler | Republican * |
| Halifax | David Canada | Republican * |
| Halifax | William L. Owen | Republican H. 65/66, 66/67 |
| Henry | Christopher Y. Thomas | Republican S. 59/60, /61, 61/62, 62/63; H. 69/70, 70/71 |
| Henrico | George W. Swan | Republican |
| Isle of Wight and Surry | William H. Andrews | Republican * H. 69/70, 70/71 |
| James City and York | Daniel M. Norton | Republican * S. 71/72. 72/73, 77/78, 79/80, 81/82, 83/84, 84/, 85/86, /87 |
| King and Queen and King William | Edmund W. Massey | Republican S. 69/70, 70/71, 71/72, 72/73, /74, 74/75 |
| Lee,Scott and Wise | Andrew Melbourn | Republican |
| Lee, Scott and Wise | Charles T. Duncan | Conservative |
| Loudoun | Norborne Berkeley | Conservative |
| Loudoun | George E. Plaster | Conservative H. 81/82 |
| Louisa | John B. Eastham | Republican |
| Lunenburg | Samuel Fuqua | Republican |
| Madison and Greene | Robert S. Beazley | Conservative S. 69/70, 70/71, 71/72, 72/73, /74, 74/75, 76/77 |
| Mecklenburg | Sanford M. Dodge | Republican * H. 69/70, 70,71 |
| Mecklenburg | John Watson | Republican * H. 69/70 |
| Middlesex and Essex | William Breedlove | Republican * |
| Montgomery | Adam H. Flanagan | Republican |
| Nansemond | William J. Parr | Republican |
| Nottoway | William H. Robinson | Republican |
| Norfolk City | Henry M. Bowden | Republican H. 69/70, 70/71 |
| Norfolk City | Thomas Bayne | Republican * |
| Norfolk County and Portsmouth | James H. Clements | Conservative |
| Norfolk County and Portsmouth | Luther Lee, Jr. | Conservative H. 69/70 |
| Norfolk County and Portsmouth | George Teamoh | Republican * S. 69/70, 70/71 |
| Nelson | Adolphus W. Harris | Republican |
| Northumberland, Lancaster, Richmond County, Westmoreland | Ephraim Nash | Republican |
| Northumberland, Lancaster, Richmond County, Westmoreland | Richard S. Ayer | Republican 41st Congress |
| Orange | Frederick W. Poor | Republican * |
| Page and Shenandoah | Moses Walton | Conservative H. 63/64, 64/65 |
| Page and Shenandoah | George W. Rust | Conservative H. 63/64, 64/65 |
| Patrick and Franklin | W. F. B. Taylor | Republican * H. 65/66, 66/67, 69/70, 70/71 |
| Patrick and Franklin | M. F. Robertson | Republican |
| Petersburg | James H. Platt, Jr. | Republican 41st, 42nd, 43rd Congresses |
| Petersburg | Peter G. Morgan | Republican * H. 69/70, 70/71 |
| Prince Edward and Appomattox | Edgar Allan | Republican S. /74, 74/75, 75/76, 76/77 |
| Prince Edward and Appomattox | James W. D. Bland | Republican * S. 69/70 |
| Prince George and Dinwiddie | David G. Carr | Republican S. 69/70, 70/71 |
| Prince George and Dinwiddie | William Reed | Republican |
| Princess Anne | Willis A. Hodges | Republican * |
| Pittsylvania | Levi C. Thayer | Republican |
| Pittsylvania | Herbert A. Wicker | Republican |
| Pulaski and Giles | Eustace Gibson | Conservative |
| Richmond City | James W. Hunnicutt | Republican |
| Richmond City | James Morrissey | Republican |
| Richmond City Convention President | John Curtiss Underwood | Republican, U.S. District Judge, elected U.S. Senator to 39th Congress, but not seated |
| Richmond City | Lewis Lindsay (Lindsey) | Republican* |
| Richmond City | Joseph Cox | Republican * |
| Rockingham | John C. Woodson | Conservative H. 61/62, /63, 65/66, 66/67 |
| Rockingham | Jacob N. Liggett | Conservative |
| Russell and Buchanan | George R. Cowan | Conservative |
| Smyth and Washington | J.H. Thompson | blank |
| Smyth and Washington | Joseph T. Campbell | blank |
| Southampton | John Brown (Virginian) | blank * |
| Stafford and Prince William | B.F. Lewis | blank |
| Wythe | James Gibbony | blank |
The 1868 United States presidential election was the 21st quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1868. In the first election of the Reconstruction Era, Republican nominee Ulysses S. Grant defeated Horatio Seymour of the Democratic Party. It was the first presidential election to take place after the conclusion of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. It was the first election in which African Americans could vote in the reconstructed Southern states, in accordance with the First Reconstruction Act.
The Reconstruction era was a period in United States history and Southern United States history that followed the American Civil War and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the abolition of slavery and the reintegration of the eleven former Confederate States of America into the United States. During this period, three amendments were added to the United States Constitution to grant citizenship and equal civil rights to the newly freed slaves. To circumvent these legal achievements, the former Confederate states imposed poll taxes and literacy tests and engaged in terrorism to intimidate and control people of color and to discourage or prevent them from voting.
In United States history, the pejorative scalawag referred to white Southerners who supported Reconstruction policies and efforts after the conclusion of the American Civil War.
The Reconstruction Acts, or the Military Reconstruction Acts, were four statutes passed during the Reconstruction Era by the 40th United States Congress addressing the requirement for Southern States to be readmitted to the Union. The actual title of the initial legislation was "An act to provide for the more efficient government of the Rebel States" and was passed on March 4, 1867. Fulfillment of the requirements of the Acts was necessary for the former Confederate States to be readmitted to the Union from military and Federal control imposed during and after the American Civil War. The Acts excluded Tennessee, which had already ratified the 14th Amendment and had been readmitted to the Union on July 24, 1866.
The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia is the document that defines and limits the powers of the state government and the basic rights of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Like all other state constitutions, it is supreme over Virginia's laws and acts of government, though it may be superseded by the United States Constitution and U.S. federal law as per the Supremacy Clause.
The Committee of Nine was a group of conservative political leaders in Virginia, led by Alexander H. H. Stuart, following the American Civil War, when Virginia was required to adopt a new Constitution acknowledging the abolition of slavery before its readmission into the Union. They engineered the federal and state political machinery so that separate votes would be taken on the constitution and provisions restricting voting and office-holding rights of former Confederates.
The New Orleans Massacre of 1866 occurred on July 30, when a peaceful demonstration of mostly Black Freedmen was set upon by a mob of white rioters, many of whom had been soldiers of the recently defeated Confederate States of America, leading to a full-scale massacre. The violence erupted outside the Mechanics Institute, site of a reconvened Louisiana Constitutional Convention. According to the official report, a total of 38 were killed and 146 wounded, of whom 34 dead and 119 wounded were Black Freedmen. Unofficial estimates were higher. Gilles Vandal estimated 40 to 50 Black Americans were killed and more than 150 Black Americans wounded. Others have claimed nearly 200 were killed. In addition, three white convention attendees were killed, as was one white protester.
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The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901–02 was an assembly of delegates elected by the voters to write the fundamental law of Virginia.
Thomas Bayne was an African American Republican politician. Born a slave, he became a dental assistant and Underground Railroad conductor in Norfolk, Virginia, before escaping to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he changed his name to Thomas Bayne.
Jonathan Catlett Gibson, Jr. was a nineteenth-century Virginia lawyer, farmer and Confederate soldier who represented Fauquier County in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868 and later Culpeper County in the Virginia House of Delegates.
Jacob Nicholas Liggett was a Virginia lawyer, Confederate officer, farmer and politician from Virginia.
John Hawxhurst was a nineteenth-century American Quaker from New York who moved to Fairfax County, Virginia, where he and his younger brother Job Hawxhurst farmed and operated a grist mill beginning in 1846. As Union men, they fled Virginia temporarily as the American Civil War began in April 1861. John Hawxhurst helped Union forces as a guide, lived in Alexandria, Virginia and was active in the Restored Government of Virginia.
Burwell Toler was an African American carpenter, minister and Republican politician.