PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE VIRGINIA STATE CONVENTION, OF 1829-30. To Which Are Subjoined, the New Constitution of Virginia, and the Votes of the People

Richmond: Samuel Shepherd & Co. for Ritchie and Cook, 1830. Full Leather. Good binding. Item #5134

Octavo. iv, 919, [1] pp. First Edition. Full calf with later spine label. Largely, a solid copy; spine is a bit chipped at the ends and the leather is darkened. Front and rear free endpapers have some significant loss, but this is limited to the blank endpapers. Text is complete, but it is moderately to heavily foxed. The revision of the Virginia Constitution was decades in coming; it was widely felt that the 1776 Constitution favored the eastern plantation owners in terms of representation in the state legislature since enslaved persons were counted as 3/5 in apportionment. This inequity was compounded by the limitations to suffrage. Virginia was the last of the states at this time to limit suffrage to property holders. This property requirement was relaxed in the 1830 Constitution to include a larger portion of the population, but was not dropped until 1851. This volume catalogs the nearly four months of debate over the new Virginia Constitution. The Convention was attended by a veritable who's who of Virginians--John Marshall, James Monroe, James Madison, John Tyler, Thomas Jefferson Randolph and more.

Price: $250.00