Virginia Conventions
The Conventions of 1861 on the eve of the American Civil War were called in Richmond for secession and in Wheeling for government loyal to the U.S. Constitution.In the 20th century, limited state Conventions were used in 1945 to expand suffrage to members of the armed forces in wartime, and in 1955 to implement "massive resistance" to Supreme Court attempts to desegregate public schools.The Burgesses, convened as the First Convention, met on August 1, 1774, and elected officers, banned commerce and payment of debts with Britain, and pledged supplies.It was resolved that the colony be "put into a posture of defence: and that Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Robert Carter Nicholas, Benjamin Harrison, Lemuel Riddick, George Washington, Adam Stephen, Andrew Lewis, William Christian, Edmund Pendleton, Thomas Jefferson and Isaac Zane, Esquires, be a committee to prepare a plan for the embodying arming and disciplining such a number of men as may be sufficient for that purpose.[4] The Third Convention met on July 17, 1775, also at St. John's Church, after Lord Dunmore had fled the capital (following the rejection of North's resolution) and taken refuge on a British warship.[10] Back in Britain, in December 1775, the King's Proclamation of Rebellion had declared the colonies outside his protection,[11] but throughout the first four Virginia Conventions, there was no adopted expression in favor of independence from the British Empire.But Virginia bisected the new nation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River; its admission into the prospective union was critical if the United States as a nation-state were to have contiguous continental territory.[21] The Convention met from June 2–27, 1788, in the wooden "Old Capitol" building at Richmond VA, and elected Edmund Pendleton its presiding officer.Virginians reserved the right to withdraw from the new government as "the People of the United States", "whenever the powers granted unto it should be perverted to their injury or oppression," but it also held that failings in the constitution should be remedied by amendment.[30] Almost immediately, the Constitution of 1776 was recognized as flawed both for its restriction of the suffrage by property requirements, and for its malapportionment favoring the smaller eastern counties.[34] Conservatives among the Old Republicans such as John Randolph of Roanoke feared any change from the Founders' 1776 Constitution would lead to an ideological anarchy of "wild abstractions" imposed by egalitarian "French Jacobins" through "this maggot of innovation".In answer, John Marshall advanced his view with a petition from the freeholders of Richmond which observed that, "Virtue, intelligence, are not among the products of the soil.[39] The Convention delegates were a younger generation raised in the Second American Party System of Democrat Jefferson Davis and Whig Henry Clay.Unlike the three generation Convention of 1829–30, the delegates were primarily in their twenties and thirties at the beginning of their careers in the professions and industry, without large land holdings, and without gentry family ties.In the remaining two months of the convention, it was agreed to allow direct popular election of the governor, but each office holder would be limited to one term.[50] The next day, former Governor Henry Wise announced that he had set the "wheels of revolution" against the U.S. Government in motion with loyal Virginians seizing both the federal Harper's Ferry Armory and the Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk.On June 14 he expanded on his view of state and federal relations, " the people of Virginia in establishing government for themselves deemed it best to create two agents."For several days before the Convention passed the Ordinance of Secession, it was absolutely besieged; members were threatened with being hung to the lamp posts; their lives were jeopardized; the mob was marching up and down the streets, and surrounding the Capitol, and everything was terror and dismay.[60] Republican Francis H. Pierpont of Marion County was elected by the convention as Governor of the Restored Government of Virginia which was recognized by the Lincoln Administration.[61] Following the creation of West Virginia, the remnant of Restored Virginian government held a Convention of delegates from a few periphery counties occupied by Union forces.The Convention met in Alexandria's U.S. District Court Room from February 13 – April 11, 1864, and elected LeRoy G. Edwards, a slaveholder with three sons in the Confederacy as its presiding officer.Instead of the moderate Republican position limiting voter restrictions to former U.S. officeholders who had supported rebellion, they sought to guarantee a future government of Union men only.The convention wrote two "obnoxious clauses" as they were widely known, that went beyond federal requirements to deny the vote to any office holder in rebel government and an "iron-clad oath" testifying that a prospective voter had never "voluntarily borne arms against the United States.By 1890 Southern states began to hold conventions that constitutionally removed large numbers of whites and most blacks from voter registration.Reformers among the Progressive Democrats seeking to expand the influence of the "better sort" of voters gained a majority by appealing to the electorate to overthrow the 1868 Underwood Constitution, which the Richmond Dispatch characterized as "that miserable apology to organic law which was forced upon Virginians by carpetbaggers, scalawags and Negroes supported by Federal bayonets".Senator Thomas S. Martin manipulating poor white and black voters led to a narrow victory over his entrenched "court house crowd" in a referendum to call a constitutional convention.Progressives sought to reform corrupt political practices of the ruling Martin machine and to regulate railroads and big corporations.During World War II, Virginia held a constitutional convention called for the limited purpose of expanding the franchise to members of the armed forces during wartime.Two proposals for constitutional amendment since the 1960s that might have been passed by the General Assembly and sent to the voters for ratification referendum have failed to be enacted, but both remain current topics of periodic political discussion.[85] This Virginian constitutional provision ran afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in both its due process and equal protections clauses in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015).
A convention of three generations, the last gathering of Revolutionary era giants [ 1 ]
First Virginia Convention met here, 1774
Virginia Capitol
, Williamsburg VA
where the Fourth and Fifth Conventions met
where the Fourth and Fifth Conventions met
Alexandria City Hall
, where loyalist (Union) government business was conducted during the Civil War
Richmond, VirginiaHistory of VirginiaColony of VirginiaAmerican RevolutionU.S. Civil WarSlaveryEastern ShoreTidewaterPiedmontBlue Ridge MountainsAppalachiansWest VirginiaCommonwealth of VirginiaKentuckyAmerican Revolutionary Warconstitutional conventionsAmerican Civil WarRichmondmassive resistanceProvincial CongressColonial WilliamsburgLord DunmoreHouse of BurgessesBoston, MassachusettsBoston Port ActfreeholdersRaleigh TavernContinental CongressPeyton RandolphSpeaker of the House of BurgessesSt. John's Episcopal ChurchPatrick HenryVirginia militia"Give me liberty or give me death!" speechRichard Henry LeeRobert Carter NicholasBenjamin HarrisonGeorge WashingtonAdam StephenAndrew LewisWilliam ChristianEdmund PendletonThomas JeffersonIsaac ZaneSt. John's ChurchGunpowder IncidentLord NorthConciliatory ResolutionCommittee of SafetyGeorge MasonJohn PageRichard BlandThomas Ludwell LeePaul CarringtonWilliam CabellCarter BraxtonJames MercerDunmore's ProclamationRoyal Ethiopian RegimentKing's Proclamation of RebellionPhilip P. BarbourJohn Y. MasonJohn JanneyArthur I. BoremanFrancis PierpontJohn C. UnderwoodJohn Goode Jr.Harry F. Byrd Sr.Thomas B. StanleyMills E. Godwin Jr.Fifth Virginia ConventionFirst Continental CongressBattle of Great BridgeVirginia CapitolWilliamsburgRobert Carter Nicholas Sr.George WythePhiladelphiaDeclaration of IndependenceDeclaration of RightsUnited States Bill of RightsConstitution of VirginiagovernorVirginia Ratifying ConventionConstitutional ConventionArticles of Confederation CongressBill of RightsFirst Congress"Old Capitol"Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829–1830CapitolChief JusticeJohn MarshallJohn Randolph of RoanokeThomas Jefferson Randolphconvention floorVirginia Constitutional Convention of 1850planter eliteSecond American Party SystemJefferson DavisHenry ClayJohn Minor BottsRichard L.T. BealeHenry A. Wiseviva voceVirginia Secession Convention of 1861Abraham LincolnStephen A. DouglasJohn BellJohn C. BreckinridgeConfederate States of AmericaFort SumterFort PickensWaitman T. WilleyMonongalia CountyJohn S. Barbour Jr.Culpeper Countycall for 75,000 for three monthsHenry WiseHarper's Ferry ArmoryGosport Navy YardWheeling ConventionRestored Government of VirginiaKanawhaIndependence HallAlexandria