Yet, on March 2, 1867, Congress passed "an act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States," to use the euphonious language of the Federal law-makers. (See U. S. Stat., Vol. 14, p. 428.) By this act and others, passed on March 23, and July 19, 1867, provision was made for the election by the people of Virginia, qualified to vote under the terms of said acts, of delegates to meet in Convention to frame a Constitution or form of government, for the territory of Virginia, in conformity with said acts, to submit such Constitution to the qualified voters for ratification or rejection, and to submit it to Congress for examination and approval. These Federal acts further provided that the State should not be entitled to representation in Congress, until the State adopted, by its Legislature, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States; and "that until the people of the State shall be by law admitted to representation in Congress, any civil government which may exist shall be deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States, at any time, to abolish, modify, control, or supercede the same." Thus, were provided the manner and terms of the readmissson of the Commonwealth into the United States, all of which were dictated by the Federal Government, and formulated and enforced by acts of Congress and the military dominance of the army, then encamped in her dominion.

Upon the cessation of hostilities, at the end of the Civil War, in 1865, the State of Virginia was made Military "District No. 1;" and was practically governed by a military satrap of the Federal Government. She had imposed upon her the sham government, under Governot Peirpont, which was a mere political device, as he possessed no real authority, and the civil polity of the old Commonwealth was prostrate before the martial rule of the National Government and the arbitrarily assumed powers of Congress; and, in fact, her statehood was annihilated and her Government determined at the fiat of the United States authorities. She became, under this regime, according to Federal assumption, a mere dependency of the General Government-a part of the territory of the nation-and her people were subject to martial law and the restrictive measures of Congress, enforced at the point of the bayonet, by military proconsuls of the Republican party. During the so-called administration of Governor Peirpont, the following commanding Generals had established headquarters at Richmond, with a supervisory power over the State Government, to keep not only the State in subjection, but also to act as a watch over Governor Peirpont-the Governor whom President Johnson, in his proclamation of May 9, 1865, declared "will be aided by the Federal Government, so far as may be necessay in the lawful measures which he may take for the extension and administration of the State Government throughout the geographical limits of the State"-to-wit:

Major-General Godfrey Weitzel, United States volunteers, from April 3, 1865, to April 13, 1865.

Major-General E. O. C. Ord, United States volunteers, commanding department of Virginia, April 13 to June 14, 1865.

Major-General H. W. Halleck, U. S. army, commanding military division of the James, April 22, 1865, to June 27, 1865.

Major-General Alfred H. Terry, United States volunteers, June 14, 1865, to August 16, 1866.

Major-General John M. Schofield, United States volunteers, August 16, 1866, to June 2, 1868, except during the month from September 26 to October 26, 1866, when Major-General Harry S. Burton, United States army, held command during his temporary absence.

Major-General George Stoneman, from June 2, 1868, to April 2, 1869.

Brevet Major-General Alexander S. Webb, from April 2, 1869, to April 20, 1869.

Major-General Edward R. S. Canby, from April 20, 1869, to January 28,

1870.

Therefore, Governor Peirpont was subject to the orders of military generals from the Evacuation of Richmond, on April 3, 1865, to the expiration of his official connection with the Government. And then, by appointment of General Schofield, on April 6, 1868, Henry H. (Happy) Wells became the nominal Governor of the State. This was the status of affairs, when this Constitutional Convention was ordered by proclamation of President, U. S. Grant, pursuant to the act of Congress. (See p. 130.)

All the other Constitutional Conventions of the State had been called into existence by the sovereign power of the people of the Commonwealth, directly exercised by the people, or by their delegates duly elected by their vote. This Convention-known as the "Underwood Convention," taking its name from the notorious John C. Underwood, who was President of the Convention, and became United States District Judge of the Eastern District of Virginia—was in reality the creation of the Federal Government, as Congress, by these acts, dictated the terms and conditions of readmission into the Union; the character and time of the election of delegates to the Convention; the qualifications of the persons permitted to vote; and the entire modus operandi of the procedure terminating in Virginia again becoming a State in the American Union. The election of delegates to this Convention was held, October 22, 1867; the time and place for the assembling of the Convention being fixed by the commanding general, Edward R. S. Canby, pursuant to these acts of Congress; and the election being conducted by Boards of Registration, also appointed by the commanding general. When this election became imminent, and the people of the Commonwealth perceived that they had before them a great struggle for self-preservation and their future welfare, and the perpetuity of the institutions of the State, the leaders in the State manfully worked to combine all of the better and purer elements in the followers of the various parties, and called the organization thus formed the Conservative party. The supreme effort of this organization was to preserve the State and her people from the control, the indignity and the evils of the Radicals who sought to fasten their violent, rapacious and lawless domination upon the old Commonwealth. They made

an heroic effort to maintain White rule. The election of delegates to the Convention occurred, October 22, 1867, and resulted in the election of eighty White men and twenty-five Negroes to the assembly. Of the one hundred and five delegates in this Convention thirty-three (all whites) were Conservatives, and seventy-two Radicals, thus giving a large and overwhelming majority to the Radical or Republican element in the body. The voting was done by ballot, and the election held by Boards of Registration appointed by the United States military power in the State, at the time.

The Convention met, Tuesday, December 3, 1867, and was dominated by newly emancipated negroes, Northern adventurers, and renegade Virginians; though there was a most respectable element of white Virginians in the body, who sought to ameliorate the hard conditions imposed upon the people, and in some instances succeeded in softening the asperities of the situation. These gentlemen deserve credit for their admirable conduct and courage. They were but few in number and could not stem the tide of opposition, but they maintained with reputation and honor the prestige of the Commonwealth, and vindicated her fair name and glorious history; and with eloquence and able argumentation refuted the calumnies of her traducers, and the base pleas made to enthrall, by test-oaths and restrictive legislation, the flower of the intellect, intelligence, virtue, and manhood of the State, and the owners and controllers of her wealth and resources. True and competent men, like Eustace Gibson, James C. Southall, James M. French, John L. Marye and J. C. Gibson, were capable of presenting the opinions of the Conservatives in the State, and defending the State from the aspersions of the ignorant and designing men in the opposition ranks. This was all they could do except to get concessions and agreement, which, to a great extent, they succeeded in accomplishing.

The cause of the lack of able men from every district, and proper representation of the white citizens of the Commonwealth, was not the scarcity of capable and distinguished men, who were willing to serve their ancient Mother, but the exclusion of these gentlemen from election to the Convention, by the restrictive and inhibitory provisions of the acts of Congress concerning the persons who could be voted for as delegates to this Convention; by the imposition of the "Iron-Clad Oath," which took its name from its searching severity, and other Governmental and political enormities and outrages. This unjust and harsh oath was in these words: "You do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be), that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America; that you have not, without duress and constraint, taken up arms, or joined any insurrection or rebellion against the United States; that you have not adhered to any insurrection or rebellion, giving it aid and comfort; that you have not, directly or indirectly, given any assistance in money, or any other thing, to any person or persons whom you knew, or had good ground to believe, had joined, or was about to join, said insurrection and rebellion, or had resisted, or was about to resist, with force of arms, the execution of the laws of the United States; and

that you have not counselled or advised any person or persons to join any rebellion against, or to resist with force of arms, the laws of the United States."

There were but few white Virginians who could take the oath, and, therefore, most of her able and patriotic citizens were disfranchised, by these rigid laws, emanating from a hostile and partisan Congress Moreover, the United States troops were in force in the State, and the election of delegates was under the control and management of the officers and military of the Federal Government, and the people were overawed by their presence and interference. It is remarkable that there were any worthy and respectable native-born Virginians, who were eligible to be elected to this Convention; but the presence of many most respectable and intelligent gentlemen in the body is attributable to the united efforts of the better element in the State to elect suitable members; the organization of what was called the Conserva tive party, in the Commonwealth, and its noble work; the determined endeavors of the white people to defeat the designs and machinations of the Republicans; the election of Union men to the Convention; timely amnesty proclaimed by the President; the "registered oath," which modified the “Iron-clad " oath, and pardons which many Virginians procured before the election took place. In many instances the gentlemen elected on the Con servative ticket were Union men and were selected on account of their eligibility, and because they could take the oath required; and, being known as men of respectability and worth, could be entrusted with the delicate and responsible task of framing the organic law, and holding tight reins upon the ignorant and fanatical members of the ultra-Radical party, who were candidates for election to the Convention.

Although this Conservative element in the Assembly, struggled to prevent extravagant and partisan legislation from being embodied in the Constitution; the Convention, under the malign influences of the political leaders of the North, and the adventurers in the State, assisted by negroes and a few native malcontents, framed a Constitution based upon new theories of government and foreign to the ancient polity of the Commonwealth. Instead of following the old Constitutional formulas, which had been sanctioned and reverenced by her people, from the foundation of the Commonwealth, in 1776, to the destruction of her Government, in 1865, they mixed up with her old Constitutional foundations many of the new-fangled vagaries and governmental anomalies imported from Northern States. (See a most excellent treatise and historic sketch of the New England and Virginia Systems of Government, in Fiske's Civil Government, pp. 16-80) They also incorporated into this Constitution a recognition of the Fourteenth and Ffteenth Amendments, at the dictation of the Federal Congress. But when we consider the circumstances existing, at the time, and the environment of the Convention, and the personnel of the Radical majority in the body; its work, exclusive of some few objectionable features (notably the provisions to disfranchise certain white people), was remarkably free from flagrantly obnox

ious provisions. The Constitution thus formed and adopted by the Convention, was submitted to the registered voters of the State for ratification or rejection, in pursuance of these reconstruction acts of Congress, a proclamation of President U. S. Grant, made May 14, 1869, and the military orders of Major-General Edward R. S. Canby, commanding "District, No. 1," at an election held July 6, 1869, and ratified by the people. (See below p. 131, for the vote.) In the President's Proclamation were these clauses:

"And I submit to a separate vote the fourth clause of section one, of article three, of said Constitution, which is in the following words:

"Every person who has been a senator or representative in Congress, or elector of president or vice-president, or who held any office, civil or military, under the United States, or any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.'

"This clause shall include the following officers: Governor, lieutenantgovernor, secretary of state, auditor of public accounts, second auditor, register of land office, state treasurer, attorney-general, sheriffs, sergeants of a city or town, commissioner of the revenue, county surveyors, constables, overseers of the poor, commissioner of the board of public works, judges of the supreme court, judges of the circuit court, judges of the court of hustings, justices of the county courts, mayor, recorder, aldermen, councilmen of a city or town, coroners, escheators, inspectors of tobacco, flour, &c., clerks of the supreme, district, circuit, and county courts, and of the court of hustings, and attorneys for the commonwealth; provided, that the legislature may, by a vote of three-fifths of both houses, remove the disabilities incurred by this clause from any person included therein by a separate vote in each case.

"And I also submit to a separate vote the seventh section of article three of the said Constitution, which is in the words following:

"In addition to the foregoing oath of office, the governor, lieutenantgovernor, members of the General Assembly, secretary of state, auditor of public accounts, state treasurer, attorney-general, and all persons elected to any convention to frame a Constitution for this State, or to amend or revise this Constitution in any manner, and mayor and council of any city or town, shall, before they enter on the duties of their respective offices, take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation, provided the disabilities therein contained may be individually removed by a three-fifth vote of the General Assembly: 'I, do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel or encouragement, to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have never sought nor accepted, nor attempted, to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority, in hostility to