Partly-printed DS as president, one page, 8 x 10, May 14, 1869. President Grant directs the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to “a Proclamation concerning the submission of the Constitution of Virginia to the voters of that state on the 6th of July next.” Signed at the conclusion by U. S. Grant. In fine condition, with faint toning to the edges and folds.
The Virginia Constitution, also known as the Underwood Constitution, was ultimately ratified on July 6, 1869, and served as a crucial step in Virginia's Reconstruction process following the Civil War. The constitution reformed local government on the more democratic model of the New England township; it required the General Assembly to create a statewide system of free public schools for all children; it granted the governor the right to veto bills that the assembly had passed; and it granted the vote to ‘Every male citizen of the United States, twenty-one years old,’ except some supporters of the Confederacy.
The draft constitution disfranchised men who had held public office before the Civil War—and taken an oath of allegiance to the United States at that time—who later had ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.’ That delayed the ratification referendum until after a committee of white political leaders in Virginia reached an agreement with the president and members of Congress to allow those clauses to be voted on separately. In July 1869, when the voters ratified the constitution by a vote of 210,585 to 9,136, they rejected the clauses disenfranchising former Confederates.
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