Virginia

The Struggle for Independence.

The struggle with England reached a crisis. Virginia, supporting with zeal the revolutionary movement, took the lead in the Continental Congresses which directed the succeeding war (see UNITED STATES : History). In April 1775, Patrick Henry at the head of the Hanover minute men, who had been joined by others, compelled Governor Dunmore (q.v.) to pay for the Colony's powder removed by the governor's order to a British war vessel. On June 8, Lord Dunmore and his family took refuge aboard an English man-of-war lying off York town. When the Continental Congress issued the famous Declara tion of Independence, Virginia had already assembled in conven tion to draft a new Constitution. A draft of a Constitution con taining universal suffrage, proportional representation and religious freedom was sent to the convention by Jefferson, but the conven tion rejected it. The system which was adopted allowed the older counties a large majority of the representatives in the new assem bly, on the theory that the preponderance of property (slavery) in that section required this as security against the rising democ racy. The franchise, though not universal, was generously bestowed ; it was a very liberal freehold system.

Of actual fighting there was not a great deal in Virginia till the later years of the war, for Lord Dunmore was soon driven out of the State, not, however, before he had done much damage along the seaboard and the largest town in the State, Norfolk, had been burned. The British came again in May 1779, took Portsmouth and Suffolk, burning the latter and plundering the surrounding country. In Jan. 1781, Benedict Arnold captured Richmond, now the capital. His force was not large but it was composed of regu lars, and Jefferson, who was then governor, found it impossible to collect a sufficient force in time to offer effective resistance. Later in the year, Cornwallis came up with his troops from the south and made a junction with the British already in Virginia. A Masterly campaign by the Americans, supported by a French army and fleet, resulted in the surrender of Cornwallis and his forces at Yorktown on Oct. 19, 1781. This was the closing scene of the struggle of American independence. In the meantime George Rogers Clark, in command of Virginians, had conquered that vast domain known later as the North-west Territory.

Virginia and the Federal Constitution.

Virginia leaders, including Henry, were the first to urge the formation of a national government with adequate powers to supersede the lame confed eracy. In 1787, under the presidency of Washington, the National Convention sat in Philadelphia, with the result that the present Federal Constitution was submitted to the States for ratification during 1787-89. In Virginia the tidewater leaders urged adoption, while the up-country men, following Henry, who thought that the Federal Government was given too much power, opposed; but after a long and bitter struggle, in the summer of 1788 the new instrument was accepted, the low-country winning by a majority of ten votes, partly through the influence of James Madison.

In 1784, Virginia ceded to the Federal Government the North west Territory, which it held under the charter of 1609 and also by conquest; in 1792 another large strip of the territory of Vir ginia became an independent State under the name of Kentucky. But the people of these cessions, especially of Kentucky, were closely allied to the great up-country party of Virginia, and altogether they formed the basis of the Jeffersonian democracy, which from 1794 opposed the chief measures of Washington's administration, and which on the passage of the alien and sedition laws in 1798 precipitated the first great constitutional crisis in Federal politics by the adoption in the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures of resolutions strongly asserting the right and duty of the States to arrest the course of the National Government whenever in their opinions that course had become unconstitu tional. The election of 1800 rendered unnecessary all further agitation by putting Jefferson in the president's chair. The up country party in Virginia, with their allies along the frontiers of the other States, was now in power, and the progressives of 1776 shaped the policy of the nation during the next 25 years. Virginia held the position of leadership in Congress, and controlled the cabinet. Virginia also gave to the Supreme Court its greatest chief justice, John Marshall.

A Constitutional Convention was called in 1829 to revise the fundamental law in such a way as to give the more populous counties of the west their legitimate weight in the legislature. The result was failure, for the democracy of small farmers which the east feared would have taxed slavery out of existence was denied proportionate representation. The slave insurrection under Nat Turner in 1831 led to a second abortive effort, this time by the legislature, to do away with the fateful institution. The failure of these popular movements led to a sharp reaction in Virginia, as in the whole South, in favour of slavery.

Secession and Reconstruction.

In the national elections of 186o Virginia returned a majority of unionist electors as against the Democratic candidates, Breckinridge and Lane. The governor of Virginia called an extra session of the legislature soon after the Federal election, and this in turn called a convention to meet on Feb. 13, 1861. The majority of this body consisted of Unionists, but the convention passed the ordinance of secession when the Federal Government (April i7) called upon the State to supply its quota of armed men to sup press "insurrection" in the lower Southern States. An alliance was made with the provisional gov ernment of the Confederate States on April 25, without wait ing for the vote of the people on the ordinance. The Convention called out io,000 troops and ap pointed Col. Robert E. Lee of the United States army as com mander-in-chief. On May 23, the people of the eastern counties almost unanimously voted ap proval of the acts of the conven tion, and some of the people of the north-western counties took steps to form the State of West Virginia. Richmond soon became the capital of the Confederacy.