The constitution of 1830 admitted to the suffrage, in addition to
property-owners, only the citizen "who for twelve months next
preceding (the election) has been a housekeeper and head of a family
... and shall have been assessed with a part of the revenue of the
commonwealth within the preceding year and actually paid the same."
But this constitution retained in the hands of the General Assembly
the election of all the state officials, including the Governor, and
continued in force the "mixed basis" in apportioning representatives
among the several cities and counties.[209] With suffrage thus
restricted, with a General Assembly in which property in slaves
secured for the slaveholders and their counties an additional
representation over that of the non-slaveholders, and with every
officer of the state government elected by the Legislature thus
constituted, the political dominance of the slaveholding counties over
the non-slaveholding counties will be readily appreciated. The scheme
was alike inequitable and un-Republican, yet it was not until the
Reform Convention of 1850-51 that white manhood suffrage was
established, the privilege of electing all state officials accorded to
the people, and the changes made with respect to the basis of
representation which would have eventually accorded to all the
counties and cities representation in the General Assembly in
proportion to their white populations.[210] To strip the slaveholding
counties of their political power, to admit on an equal basis to the
suffrage every white man in the commonwealth, and to accord to the
electorate thus constituted the privilege of electing every high state
official did not indicate the growth of pro-slavery sentiment. These
achievements of the Convention were confessedly the most signal
victories for liberty and progress which had marked the history of
Virginia since her liberation from British rule. These fundamental
changes in the constitution and in the relative rights and powers of
the slaveholders and the slaveholding sections, as compared with the
non-slaveholders and non-slaveholding sections, were ratified by the
people by a vote of 75,748 to 11,063—only five counties in the state
out of the one hundred and forty-eight giving majorities in the
negative.[211]
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Footnote 197:
_Old Virginia and Her Neighbors_, Fiske, Vol. II, p. 191.
Footnote 198:
_Abraham Lincoln, A History_, N. & H., Vol. III, p. 413.
Footnote 199:
_Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers_, Adams, p. 425.
Footnote 200:
_Thomas H. Benton_, Roosevelt, p. 34.
Footnote 201:
_Robert E. Lee_, Wolseley, p. 12.
Footnote 202:
_History of the United States_, Rhodes, 1904, Vol. III, p. 413.
Footnote 203:
_South Side View of Slavery_, Adams, p. 78.
Footnote 204:
_Abraham Lincoln, Letters, Speeches and State Papers_, N. & H., Vol.
I, p. 194.
Footnote 205:
_Virginia Slavery Debate_, 1832, White.
Footnote 206:
_Life of James Buchanan_, Curtis, 1883, Vol. II, p. 277.
Footnote 207:
_Virginian History of African Colonization_, Slaughter, p. 55.
Footnote 208:
_Slavery Debate_, 1832, White, T. J. Randolph's Speech, p. 13.
Footnote 209:
_Code of Virginia_, 1849, pp. 35 to 45.
Footnote 210:
Article III, Section 1, and Article IV, Section 5, Constitution of
Virginia, 1851.
Footnote 211:
_Representation in Virginia_, Chandler, 1896, p. 7.