Author: Brent Tarter

founding editor of the Dictionary of Virginia Biography
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The Virginia Constitution of 1776

On May 15, 1776, the fifth and last of the Virginia Revolutionary Conventions instructed the Virginia delegates in the Continental Congress to introduce a resolution of independence and created a committee “to prepare a Declaration of Rights and such a plan of government as will be most likely to maintain peace and order in this colony and secure substantial and equal liberty to the people.” The Virginia Declaration of Rights was adopted on June 12 and the Virginia Constitution on June 29. The constitution begins with a preamble that Thomas Jefferson wrote that closely resembles the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution of 1776 enlarged the power of the General Assembly, created an elected Senate, and transformed the powerful office of governor into a weak administrative officer with almost no independent authority and no power to veto bills that the General Assembly enacted. It maintained the 1736 election law that restricted the vote to free adult white men who owned or possessed a long-term on property. The Constitution of 1776 remained in effect and unaltered until the Constitution of 1830 replaced it. The Declaration of Rights was changed to the Bill of Rights in 1864 and incorporated into the state constitution of 1869 as Article I.

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The Virginia Revolutionary Conventions (1774–1776)

In May 1774 Virginia’s political leaders created a new, extraconstitutional institution, the constituent convention, to act for them when the regular, constitutional institutions failed them. The First Convention met in the capitol in Williamsburg from August 1 to August 6, 1774. It appointed seven delegates to represent Virginia in the First Continental Congress and adopted a nonimportation agreement called the Virginia Association to pressure Parliament to repeal or relax the punitive measures. The Second Convention met from March 20 through March 27, 1775, in Henrico Parish Church. On March 23, Patrick Henry delivered his famous “Liberty or Death” speech in support of his measure to place the colony in a position of defense. The Third Convention met in Henrico Parish Church from July 17 through August 26, 1775. The convention created a two-regiment army with Henry as commander in chief, supplemented with county militia and a force of minutemen, and created the Virginia Committee of Safety to act as the executive arm of the revolutionary government. The Fourth Convention met from December 1, 1775, to January 20, 1776, in Henrico Parish Church and largely focused on defensive measures, including dispatching the Second Virginia Regiment to the outskirts of Norfolk to check the forces of the royal governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, and enlarging the colony’s armed force from two to nine regiments. The Fifth Convention met from May 5 to July 6 in the chamber of the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg. It unanimously adopted a resolution instructing the delegates to the Continental Congress to introduce a motion declaring the colonies “free and independent states” and to create a committee to prepare a declaration of rights and a plan of government. The convention unanimously adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights on June 12, the state’s first written constitution on June 29, and elected Henry as the first governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia on the same day.

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Gilbert Carlton Walker (August 1, 1832–May 11, 1885)

Gilbert Carlton Walker was a governor of Virginia and member of the U.S. House of Representatives who became a key figure in Virginia during Reconstruction. He was born on August 1, 1832, in Binghamton, New York to Matilda Galloway Walker Grant and her first husband, who was most likely Sabinas Walker. Walker attended Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York, from which he graduated in 1854 and received a master’s degree three years later. He settled near Binghamton, studied law, began his practice, and married Olive Evans on April 15, 1857. He relocated to Norfolk in the autumn of 1864 and became active in business and politics. He was elected governor of Virginia in 1869 as a moderate Republican backed by the Conservative Party. He supported African American suffrage, public education (including segregated schools), and refinancing the state’s large prewar debt through the Funding Act of 1871, which later led to financial and political problems. After serving one term as governor, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1875–1879) and focused on education and constitutional rights. He later moved to New York City, where he continued to practice law. Walker died of tuberculosis at his residence on May 11, 1885. He was buried in Spring Forest Cemetery in Binghamton.

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The Virginia Constitution of 1971

By the closing years of the 1960s, the Virginia Constitution of 1902, explicitly created to limit the right of African Americans to vote and last revised in 1928, was clearly in need of revision. The rapid growth of urban and suburban centers in the commonwealth shifted the balance of power away from the long-dominant Byrd Organization and its limited-government philosophy, while new federal limits on voting rights restrictions and the demand for more and better public services signaled an opportunity to address evolving needs through a new constitution. In January 1968, Governor Mills Edwin Godwin Jr. proposed that the General Assembly revise the state’s constitution and submit a new document to the voters for ratification. Godwin appointed an eleven-member bipartisan commission to recommend revisions for the General Assembly to consider, and the commission delivered its 542-page report twelve months later. A special session of the General Assembly met from February 26 to April 25, 1969, to work through the commission’s proposals. It approved the main body of the constitution on April 25 and voted during the 1970 regular session to submit the constitution to the voters for ratification. On November 3, 1970, voters ratified the new constitution by a vote of 576,776 to 226,219. The new constitution was less than two-thirds the length of the Constitution of 1902, leaving more to the discretion of the General Assembly. The new document also omitted obsolete provisions, such as the poll tax, and enlarged Section 11 of the Bill of Rights. Among other changes, the Constitution of 1971 required approximate equality of population in all legislative and congressional districts; empowered the assembly to reform the state’s court system; guaranteed all children in the state the right to a high-quality public education; and added an article on conservation. Voters have subsequently ratified fifty-four amendments to the Constitution of 1971.

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William Harvey Patterson (February 3, 1810–May 24, 1895)

William Harvey Patterson was born free in New Kent County and served one term as a member of the House of Delegates (1871–1873). He married Mary Ann Dungey on November 22, 1832, and after her death married Lutilda Bailey on November 15, 1848. In 1866 Patterson was one of the founders of Second Liberty Baptist Church. The following year he received his license to preach. In the House of Delegates, Patterson served on the relatively inconsequential Committees on Public Property and on Resolutions. He successfully introduced a bill to prohibit cutting trees or other actions to obstruct the passage of boats or other vessels in the lower reaches of Sycamore Creek in New Kent County. He declined to run for a second term in 1873. William Harvey Patterson died at his home on May 24, 1895. He was buried in a family cemetery in New Kent County.

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Ross Hamilton (ca. January 1843–May 2, 1901)

Ross Hamilton was born into slavery in Mecklenburg County and served as a member of the House of Delegates (1870–1883). Hamilton had the longest legislative career of any African American in nineteenth-century Virginia one of the best-known African American legislators in Virginia. Hamilton was first elected to the House of Delegates in a special election on May 26, 1870, and took his seat on June 2, 1870. In 1877 the Speaker appointed Hamilton to the important Committee on Privileges and Elections as the least-senior member. He also served on the Committees on Claims, on Retrenchment and Economy, on Immigration, and on Labor and the Poor. Hamilton regularly attended county, district, and state Republican Party conventions, was a member of the Committees on Resolutions and on Finance at the state convention in August 1875, and was a delegate to Republican national conventions in 1872 and 1876. In 1883, Hamilton lost the party nomination for an eighth term in the House of Delegates. In November 1889, Hamilton won election again to the House of Delegates to represent Mecklenburg County by defeating a white man, which was the last nineteenth-century general election in which any African American won election to the General Assembly. On January 3, 1890, less than a month after the session began, the House declared Hamilton’s election improper and seated his opponent. Ross Hamilton died at his residence in Washington, D.C., on May 2, 1901, and was buried on the grounds of Boydton Institute in Boydton.

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Joseph B. Pope (1851–by 18 February 1884)

Joseph B. Pope, who has been mistakenly identified as African American in some sources, was a member of the House of Delegates (1879–1881) from Southampton County. Pope was almost certainly born in Southampton County and was the son of a prosperous planter, Harrison Peterson Pope, and his first wife, Virginia Ann Edwards Pope. On April 11, 1882, he married Jennie B. Prince. They had one son. In 1879, Pope won the nomination of the Readjuster Party for the Southampton County seat in the House of Delegates and defeated the Conservative incumbent. The only bill he introduced, to amend the charter of the town of Franklin, did not pass. Pope either did not run for or receive the nomination of the Readjuster/Republican coalition for a second term in 1881. Pope died, probably in Southampton County, on an unrecorded date early in 1884.

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Robert M. Smith (d. February 13, 1923)

Robert M. Smith represented Elizabeth City and Warwick Counties in the House of Delegates from 1875 to 1877. He was born free in New Kent County and was apprenticed to become a blacksmith. About 1863 he fled to Hampton as a refugee. After the American Civil War (1861–1865) Smith attended night school, later becoming a church and fraternal leader. In 1875 he won election to represent Elizabeth City and Warwick Counties in the House of Delegates. He unsuccessfully sought financial appropriations for Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. Smith worked as a wheelwright and blacksmith in Hampton for many years, may have operated a carriage manufacturing business, and operated a grocery store with a brother-in-law. He served as commissioner of revenue for Elizabeth City County, but resigned after an investigation found that his records were incomplete, costing the county perhaps $20,000. Smith became an inspector at the customs house in Hampton by 1891 and was deputy collector by decade’s end. He filed for divorce from his first wife on the grounds that she was legally married to someone else. Smith suffered from kidney disease and died at his home in Hampton on February 13, 1923, and was buried in Elmerton Cemetery in that city.

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Archer Scott (ca. May 1836–1909)

Archer Scott represented Amelia and Nottoway Counties in the House of Delegates from 1879 to 1884. Born into slavery of mixed-race ancestry, he was identified in the U.S. Census records as a farmer. Scott won election in 1875 to a two-year term representing Nottoway County in the House of Delegates. He proposed an unsuccessful measure to require sheriffs to summon equal numbers of white and Black registered voters when assembling panels of potential jurors. He was not a candidate for reelection in 1877, but he won election again in 1879 after Amelia County was added to the district. Allied with the emerging Readjuster Party, Scott won reelection in 1881 as a coalition of Republicans and Readjusters won majorities in the General Assembly. Among the many reform measures were a constitutional amendment to abolish the poll tax and laws to establish a college for African Americans (what became Virginia State University), and to abolish the whipping post. Scott won another term in 1883, but the Readjusters lost their majority and influence. He was elected an overseer of the poor in Nottoway in 1891 and deeded a half acre of property to the New Yielding Zion Church in 1893. Archer Scott died probably before July 31, 1909, when his name was not included on the personal property tax records for that year.

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John William Poindexter (ca. 1848–February 16, 1889)

John William Poindexter represented Louisa County in the House of Delegates from 1875 to 1877. Born free, little is known about his childhood. By 1860 he may have been working as a stemmer for a tobacconist near Louisa Court House. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), he became a teacher sponsored by the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society in schools operated by the Freedmen’s Bureau. He reportedly attended the teacher preparatory department at Howard University, in Washington, D.C. In 1875 he won election to a term representing the county in the House of Delegates. He opposed a poll tax requirement to vote, spoke in support of allocating funds to the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, and argued against requiring payment for services at the state school for the deaf and blind. Poindexter refused the Republican nomination for another House term in 1877 and while receiving the nomination again in 1879 he lost in the general election. He remained active in the Republican Party during the 1880s, being part of a delegation that visited President James A. Garfield, attending the national convention as an at-large delegate in 1880, and holding a patronage position as a deputy collector of taxes. Poindexter continued to teach in Louisa County until he died of tuberculosis in 1889.

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William Roscoe Davis (d. 1904)

William Roscoe Davis was an important African American leader in Elizabeth City County (later the city of Hampton) during the American Civil War (1861­–1865), and served as doorkeeper for the Constitutional Convention of 1867­–1868. Born into slavery, Davis was noted for his intelligence and received permission to work as a boat operator. He spent a considerable amount of his money paying for a lawsuit to defend his wife‘s manumission, but a local judge refused to enforce the couple’s legal victory. Davis was among the first slaves to find freedom at Fort Monroe. A Baptist exhorter before the conflict, he became an ordained minister by 1863. His charisma was so impressive that he became a paid orator who toured Northern states. Later in life he claimed credit for the creation of Hampton Normal and Collegiate Institute (later Hampton University), telling people that his request for a new teacher led to the arrival of the institution’s founder, Samuel Chapman Armstrong. He remained a leader in the community and respected elder in his family, also serving as the Old Point Comfort lighthouse keeper and buying property in Hampton. He died in 1904.

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Burwell Bassett (1764–1841)

Burwell Bassett was member of the House of Delegates (1787–1790, 1820–1821), the Senate of Virginia (1793–1805), and the U.S. House of Representatives (1805–1813, 1815–1819, 1821–1829). Born in New Kent County, he was educated at the College of William and Mary before inheriting his family’s land. Bassett won election to the House of Delegates in 1787 and then succeeded his father in the Senate of Virginia in 1793. He supported Thomas Jefferson in the presidential election of 1800 and later won a congressional seat as a Jeffersonian Republican. In three different stints in the House, Bassett generally supported states’ rights but only spoke occasionally. He also was a prominent and active lay leader of the Episcopal Church in Virginia. He died in 1841.

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The Establishment of the Public School System in Virginia

The first statewide system of free public schools in Virginia was established in 1870 after the ratification of a new constitution and was one of the most important and enduring accomplishments of Reconstruction. Prior to the American Civil War (1861–1865), education had been reserved mostly for elite white families; Virginia had no statewide system of free public schools. In Virginia, the education of free and enslaved African Americans had been discouraged and, in some forms, made illegal. After the abolition of slavery, the federal Freedmen’s Bureau established the first statewide system of schools, but only for African Americans; other, biracial systems were set up, but only in Petersburg, Richmond, and Norfolk. The new constitution created a new statewide system that, in spite of protests by African American members of the General Assembly, segregated black and white students. The first state superintendent, William Henry Ruffner, set about building the system’s infrastructure—creating more than 2,800 schools and hiring about 3,000 teachers by August 1871—and building political support for its funding. In debates over how to pay off Virginia’s large antebellum debt some politicians advocated reducing funding for public schools, although the system became more stable when the biracial Readjuster Party took over government in 1881, appointed R. R. Farr superintendent, and increased appropriations. By the turn of the century, public schools had attained broad social and political support.

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Frank Moss (d. by August 6, 1884)

Frank Moss was a member of the Convention of 1867–1868, the Senate of Virginia (1869–1871), and the House of Delegates (1874–1875). Records of his early life do not exist, but he likely was born in Buckingham County sometime in the mid-1820s. Local tradition holds that he was born into a free family but evidence also exists that he was enslaved. In 1867, he won election as a delegate to the constitutional convention required in order for Virginia to gain admittance into the United States after the American Civil War (1861–1865). Described by an American general as “energetic and enterprising,” he supported radical reformers on all major issues. His speeches, however, were considered so divisive that the Freedman’s Bureau ordered him arrested. A charge of breaching the peace was later dropped. A Republican, Moss served in the Senate of Virginia and voted to ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution and later was elected to the House of Delegates. Just after the election, in November 1873, he was arrested and tried for beating a man who voted against him, but the jury deadlocked. A national, pro-Republican newspaper denounced Moss as a laughingstock in 1875 and he lost reelection. In his later years, Moss supported the biracial Readjuster Party, although by 1883 he opposed its leader, Senator William Mahone. The circumstances of Moss’s death are unknown.

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Joseph T. Campbell (1827–1876)

Joseph T. Campbell was a lawyer, commonwealth’s attorney for Washington County (1863–1865), and a member of the Convention of 1867–1868. Born in Washington County and educated at the University of Virginia, Campbell practiced law in Abingdon. At the start of the American Civil War (1861–1865) he accepted a commission and served briefly in the 37th Virginia Infantry Regiment before falling ill. He returned home and served as commonwealth’s attorney. After the war Campbell was elected to represent Smyth and Washington counties at a state constitutional convention and was a conservative voice during the proceedings. He voted against the constitution that was ratified in 1869. He died in 1876.

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