lutions asking Congress for a Declaration of Independence, afterwards moved by R. H. Lee and drafted by Jefferson. On June 15th the convention adopted Mason's famous Virginia Declaration of Rights. This was followed by the adoption of a constitution on the 29th. Patrick Henry became Governor, and Jefferson afterwards secured acts for religious freedom and the abolition of entails. Virginia troops won distinction in the battles of Brandywine and Saratoga, and George Rogers Clark captured (1778 and 1779) the Northwest Territory for Virginia, furnishing the United States its title by conquest against British claims. Virginia was invaded in 1781. Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, and Tarleton's cavalry devastated the James River region and nearly captured Governor Jefferson and the Assembly at Charlottesville. Finally Cornwallis was penned in at Yorktown and surrendered. The conflicting claims of other colonies and land companies, and the refusal of Maryland otherwise to join the Confederation, led Virginia (1781-83) to cede her Northwest Territory to the Union, reserving only a small portion for her veterans. The transfer was conditioned on the erection therein of new States and was formally executed March, 1784.
Virginia was prominent in advocating a general convention to make necessary changes in the Articles of Confederation. When that body produced the Constitution of the United States, many able patriots, Lee, Mason, Monroe, and particularly Patrick Henry, bitterly opposed its ratification as destructive to State rights. Finally, after long debate, it was ratified, June 25, 1788, but by only ten majority, and chiefly through the ardent championship of James Madison. The addition of a Bill of Rights and 20 amendments was recommended. Lee, Grayson, and Madison helped to secure the first ten amendments to the Constitution. The State was jealous of its rights, and on account of the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts (q.v.) in 1798, put forward Madison's Virginia Resolutions (see Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions), which declared for a strict construction of the Constitution. Priority of settlement, character and amount of population, valuable staples, and distinguished men made the colony powerful and kept the State prominent in the early years of the Republic. During the first thirty-six years of the nation a Virginian was President for thirty-two, and the proportion of her citizens in other high offices was very large. The title ‘Mother of Presidents’ as well as ‘Mother of States and Statesmen’ seems deserved. The famous trials of John T. Callender and Aaron Burr at Richmond in 1806 intensified issues between Federalists and Republicans and brought into prominence John Marshall and John Randolph of Roanoke. The burning of the Richmond Theatre marked 1811 with public mourning. In 1813 Admiral Cockburn was repulsed at Craney Island and Norfolk saved from the British. The University of Virginia, planned by Thomas Jefferson and founded in 1819, was the first American university for advanced work. Slavery had been recognized by statute in 1661, but Virginia's first Assembly had prohibited the slave trade (1778), and Jefferson in his joint revision of the Virginia Code with Wythe and Pendleton in 1779 proposed emancipation and colonization of slaves. Saint George Tucker in 1796 offered another plan for the abolition of slavery, while Monroe, Randolph, and the Legislature promoted the African Colonization Society (1800-16). A slave, Gabriel, futilely plotted (1800) to massacre the whites of Richmond. In 1831 an insurrection (see Turner, Nat) by 40 negroes in Southampton County killed 60 persons, alarming Virginia and the South. Thomas Jefferson Randolph's bill for emancipation was fully and freely discussed with other plans and lost by a mere majority. In the Federal convention Virginia had fought for the immediate prohibition of the slave trade against a combination of New England and the extreme South demanding extension. A new or amended Constitution, adopted by the State convention (1830), extended the suffrage, and its work was continued by a similar convention in 1850. This emphasized the opposition between eastern and western Virginia on the question of a mixed basis or white basis for representation, and, reagitated by the Legislature (1845-46), hastened their separation in 1862. During Nullification Virginia opposed the coercion of South Carolina, but endeavored to act as a pacificator.
In spite of the capture of Harper's Ferry in 1859 by John Brown (q.v.), and his plan to raise a general slave insurrection, the State opposed secession. It suggested the peace convention of the States and sent commissioners to Washington to endeavor to prevent hostilities. The State convention met February 13, 1861, and as late as April 1st it voted (89 to 45) against secession. Two days after President Lincoln's call for troops to coerce the seceding States, an ordinance of secession and adhesion to the Confederacy was voted (88 to 45), April 17th, which was ratified by a popular majority of 16,241. Meanwhile a ‘temporary convention’ was formed with the Confederate Government in July, 1861. Robert E. Lee followed his State and became commander-in-chief of the Confederate Army. Richmond became the strategic capital, and Virginia a great battleground of the Confederacy. Western Virginia had little sympathy with secession, and on May 13th delegates from 25 counties met at Wheeling, declared the ordinance of secession null anil void, and called a convention to meet June 11th, which elected Francis H. Pierpont (q.v.) Governor. Later the Restored Government of Virginia was established. Pierpont continued to exercise his office until the establishment of West Virginia (q.v.) as a separate State. In 1863 he moved his government to Alexandria under the guns of Washington and asserted authority over those counties within the Federal lines, and in 1864 a new Constitution was adopted by these counties. At the close of the war Pierpont was recognized by the Federal authorities as the lawful Governor, and moved to Richmond; he put the Constitution of 1864 into limited effect, military authority still being paramount.
The Reconstruction Acts gave negroes the right to vote for convention delegates and a new Constitution was adopted in 1868 embodying negro suffrage and other new features, but so great was the popular feeling against it that it was not submitted to the people until a new act of Congress allowed a separate vote on the disfranchising clauses. These were rejected, but
