Browse Items (16 total)

While the convention called to rewrite Virginia's constitution was meeting, a large gathering of white men organized the Conservative Party on December 11

This 1869 lithograph from the Richmond studio of lithographer Charles Ludwig illustrated one fear that white Virginians entertained after the Civil War, that unscrupulous politicians would use government jobs in the post office or federal customs…

African Americans in several states, including Virginia, voted for the first time in the autumn of 1867. In this image, a white man is seen conducting the election. An old African American, probably a former slave and wearing patched clothes,…

Virginia's Attorney General Thomas R. Bowden, a Unionist Republican, published his opinion during July 1865 in response to questions about who could vote in the state's upcoming election. He specified that white men over age twenty-one could vote…

This composite photograph includes 108 of the 132 members of the House of Delegates elected for the term that met in three sessions between December 6, 1871 and April 2, 1873. Thirteen of the African American delegates are included along the bottom…

In the spring of 1867, Congress passed an act that required the former Confederate states to hold conventions, in which African Americans were eligible to serve, and to write new state constitutions. In Virginia, African Americans, former Unionists,…

Peter Jacob Carter won election to the House of Delegates in 1871 to represent Northampton County. He served eight consecutive years and became a leader in the Republican Party.

Opponents of the constitution produced this political broadside to frighten white Virginians into voting against ratification of the constitution by spreading fears that African Americans would be able to beat white children in the new public schools…

Raleigh Travers Daniel was an attorney who helped establish the Conservative Party in 1867. He served as Virginia's attorney general from 1874 until his death in 1877.

The Republican slate of candidates in 1869 included the current governor Henry Horatio Wells, the current attorney general Thomas Russell Bowden, and an African American physician, Joseph Dennis Harris, for lieutenant governor. In the election, the…