1864 Virginia Constitutional Convention
The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1864, called by the loyal Restored government meeting in Alexandria during the American Civil War (1861–1865), adopted the Constitution of 1864, which finally accomplished a number of changes that reformers had agitated for since at least the 1820s. It abolished slavery, provided a way of funding primary and free schools, and required voting by paper ballot for state officers and members of the General Assembly. It also put an end to longstanding friction over regional differences by recognizing the creation of West Virginia as a separate state. Members of the convention proclaimed the new constitution in effect, rather than submitting it to voters for approval in a popular referendum. Initially only the areas of northern and eastern Virginia then under Union control recognized the authority of the Constitution of 1864, but after the fall of the Confederacy in May 1865 it became effective for all of Virginia and remained in effect until July 1869.
Virginia Bill of Rights (1864)
This handwritten parchment document is the first page of the Virginia Bill of Rights adopted on March 14, 1864, by the delegates to the Virginia Convention held in Alexandria. The original Bill of Rights, drafted by George Mason, had remained largely unchanged since 1776. As this document notes, “The delaration as it passed was adopted without alteration by the Convention of 1829–30, and re-adopted with amendments by the Convention of 1850–51. The Convention which assembled at Alexandria on the 13th day of February, 1864, made no change in the bill of rights.” The declaration of rights begins, “That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights.”
Original Author: Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1864
Adopted March 14, 1864
Medium: Parchment document
Courtesy of the Virginia Historical Society
Francis Harrison Pierpont, governor of the Restored government of Virginia during the Civil War and governor of Virginia in the immediate postwar years, is the subject of this signed carte-de-visite photograph.
Original Author: Partridge’s Gallery, Wheeling
Created: ca. 1864–1865
Medium: Carte-de-visite photograph
Courtesy of Library of Virginia
Calling the Convention
West Virginia’s impending statehood on June 20, 1863, forced Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont to move the seat of the Unionist government from Wheeling to Alexandria effective August 26, 1863. When the General Assembly convened on December 7, Pierpont requested that it call a constitutional convention to meet two compelling needs. First, because several of the prescribed judiciary districts now lay in West Virginia, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals could not organize and meet until a constitutional convention altered the district boundaries. Second, Pierpont believed that the state must abolish slavery. Because the Emancipation Proclamation had freed the slaves in all but a few Virginia counties, the Unionist counties in northern Virginia, on the Eastern Shore, and around Norfolk were in an anomalous position. As long as slavery remained legal, Pierpont warned that he would have to enforce warrants seeking the return of runaways, which he knew the Union army would resist. The General Assembly immediately passed enabling legislation on December 18, 1863, calling for the election of convention delegates to take place on January 21, 1864.
Members of the Convention
At the convention, seventeen delegates represented the counties of Accomack, Alexandria (later Arlington), Charles City, Elizabeth City, Fairfax, James City, Loudoun, New Kent, Norfolk, Northampton, Princess Anne, Warwick, and York, and the cities of Alexandria, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Williamsburg. None of the members had sat in the constitutional convention of 1850–1851 or in the secession convention, and only five had previous legislative service. At least four delegates owned or had at one time owned slaves, three of them as late as 1860.
Convention Proceedings
The delegates convened in Alexandria on February 13, 1864, in the U.S. District Court Room, where they met through April 11. One of their first acts was to deny access to the convention to newspaper reporters who had refused to take an oath of loyalty to the Restored government. There is only limited knowledge of what went on at the convention. A fifty-two-page journal recording the convention business and roll-call votes was published, but no formal record of the debates and proceedings was published. The editor of the Virginia State Journal, W. J. Cowing, also served as secretary of the convention and published accounts of some of the debates in his own newspaper; but very few issues of the paper survive, and only one for the time when the convention met.
LeRoy G. Edwards, a slaveholder from Norfolk County whose three sons were serving in the Confederate army, was elected president of the convention. The convention created four standing committees, each with five members: the Committee on the Bill of Rights and Qualification of Voters, the Committee on the Legislative Department, the Committee on the Executive Department and the Judiciary, and the Committee on Emancipation and Education. Later the convention also established a special committee of five to confer with U.S. president Abraham Lincoln on emancipation and compensation.
The delegates debated whether the abolition of slavery should be gradual or immediate, and whether it should be compensated in any way. On March 10 they voted on the unanimous adoption of the committee report abolishing slavery, which became Article IV, sections 19 through 21 of the new constitution. The final vote was 15 to 1, with William Moore, a Northampton County farmer, casting the lone negative vote and John Stone, a Princess Anne County farmer, not recording a vote at all. The four delegates who are known to have held slaves before 1860 all voted to abolish the institution. The New York Times reported that 100 guns fired in the city and that bells rang throughout Alexandria in honor of the event.
“To the Justices of the County Courts of Virginia.” In this official broadside published in August 1865, Virginia governor Francis H. Pierpont (here misspelled as Peirpont) warns justices of the county courts that former Confederate officials are not permitted under the state constitution to vote or hold office unless they have been “relieved by acts of the General Assembly.” Pierpont has received “reliable information” that throughout the state a number of former members of the Confederate government have been elected to positions such as sheriff, commissioner of revenue, clerk of courts, and to the office of the commonwealth’s attorney. Pierpont directs the justices to consider any positions currently being held by disqualified officials as vacant and to immediately order elections to fill the posts.Original Author: Governor Francis H. Pierpont Created: August 2, 1865 Medium: Broadside Courtesy of Library of Virginia
After some contentious debate, the convention agreed by a vote of 16 to 1 to modify the voting qualifications established in the Constitution of 1851. Under what became Article III of the new constitution, all adult white men age twenty-one or older who had resided in Virginia for one year (reduced from three years in the 1851 constitution) and in their county, city, or town for six months were eligible to vote if they had not held civilian office or served in the pro-Confederate state legislature meeting in Richmond or in the Confederate Congress.
Another issue of serious contention was the method of bringing the new constitution into effect. The Constitutions of 1830 and 1851 and the Ordinance of Secession had all been submitted to the electorate for approval. On April 4 the convention delegates on a vote of 7 to 10 rejected a resolution to submit the constitution to the voters for ratification and instead chose to proclaim it in force. In this case the vote split along regional lines. All three Eastern Shore delegates and four of the six northern Virginia delegates preferred ratification, while the eight Norfolk-area delegates voted solidly for proclamation.
On April 7 the convention voted 13 to 4 to adopt the new constitution and consequently put it in force. All four delegates who voted against the final document (two from the Eastern Shore and two from northern Virginia) had supported submitting it to the voters for ratification, and one of them (William Moore, of Northampton County), had also been the sole negative vote on abolishing slavery. Twelve of the seventeen delegates signed the constitution the next day. The convention concluded on April 11 with a unanimously adopted resolution asking the General Assembly to pass a homestead exemption and another one endorsing Lincoln for president in that autumn’s election.
The Constitution of 1864
The new constitution recognized the creation of West Virginia as a separate state both directly (by authorizing the General Assembly to agree with West Virginia on how to pay off the shared antebellum public debt) and indirectly (in establishing House and Senate districts that did not include the West Virginia counties, except for Berkeley and Jefferson counties, which had not yet joined West Virginia). It also instituted a change reformers had long sought in requiring voting by paper ballot for state officers and members of the General Assembly. It did not set up a public school system, but it did provide a method of funding primary and free schools through a poll tax. It reduced from five to three the number of judges on the Supreme Court of Appeals.
Although the constitution did abolish slavery, it did not address the status or rights of African Americans, so Governor Pierpont requested several actions from the first General Assembly that met after the constitution went into effect. Because labor and business transactions would require blacks and whites to enter into contracts with one another, Pierpont instructed the assembly to pass laws allowing blacks to testify in contract cases and at trials for injury of person or property. He further suggested that all laws prohibiting testimony by black witnesses needed to be abolished; otherwise he feared that military courts would claim exclusive jurisdiction in a large class of criminal cases. Pierpont also suggested that previously unrecognized slave marriages ought to be considered legal and binding under the common law.
Oath of Amnesty
Initially only the areas of the state then under Union control recognized the authority of the Constitution of 1864, but after the defeat of the Confederacy in May 1865 it became effective for all of Virginia. A five-day extra session of the General Assembly met in Richmond in June 1865 and, at Pierpont’s urging, restored voting rights to most supporters of the Confederacy, provided they took the amnesty oath or received special pardon from the president. The Constitution of 1864 remained in effect until July 6, 1869, when voters ratified the so-called Underwood Constitution of 1869 and rejected separate provisions that would have disfranchised men who had held civil or military office under the Confederacy.
~ Time Line ~
August 26, 1863 – The Restored government of Virginia, which refuses to recognize the state’s secession from the Union, moves its capital from Wheeling to Alexandria.
December 7, 1863 – Francis Harrison Pierpont, governor of the Restored government of Virginia, asks the General Assembly in Alexandria to call a constitutional convention. The delegates will draw new judicial districts in anticipation of West Virginia’s statehood and consider the abolition of slavery.
December 18, 1863 – The General Assembly of the Restored government of Virginia, which refuses to recognize the state’s secession from the Union, calls for an election of delegates to a constitutional convention. The election is to be held January 21, 1864.
January 21, 1864 – Seventeen delegates are elected to a state constitutional convention, sponsored by the Restored government of Virginia, which refuses to recognize the state’s secession from the Union.
February 13, 1864 – The Virginia Convention convenes in Alexandria. The seventeen-delegate gathering, sponsored by the Restored government of Virginia, which refuses to recognize the state’s secession from the Union, seeks to redraw judicial districts in the wake of West Virginia statehood and to abolish slavery.
March 10, 1864 – The Virginia Convention, comprised of seventeen delegates called by the Restored government of Virginia, votes 15 to 1 to abolish slavery. Delegates vote 16 to 1 to give the vote to all adult white men who have resided in Virginia for a year and in their current residence for six months. Confederate officeholders are excluded.
April 4, 1864 – The Virginia Convention, comprised of seventeen delegates called by the Restored government of Virginia, votes 7 to 10 to reject a resolution to submit the new constitution to voters for ratification.
April 7, 1864 – The Virginia Convention, comprised of seventeen delegates called by the Restored government of Virginia, votes 13 to 4 to adopt the new constitution and consequently to put it in force.
April 11, 1864 – The Virginia Convention, comprised of seventeen delegates called by the Restored government of Virginia, unanimously endorses Abraham Lincoln for U.S. president. Having drafted and proclaimed a new constitution, it concludes its business.
June 1865 – A five-day extra session of the General Assembly meets in Richmond and, at the urging of Governor Francis Harrison Pierpont, restores voting rights to most Confederate supporters, provided they take an amnesty oath or receive a special presidential pardon.
July 6, 1869 – Voters ratify a new state constitution, often called the Underwood Constitution, rejecting separate provisions that would have disfranchised men who had held civil or military office under the Confederacy. The new constitution supplants the former one, proclaimed on April 7, 1864.
Written by Sara B. Bearss for The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography ~ April 29, 2010
Sara B. Bearss, was senior editor of the Dictionary of Virginia Biography and author of The Story of Virginia, an American Experience (1995). She died in 2012.