Handouts for Role Play of VA Constitution, 1867-69

Handouts for Role Play of VA Constitution, 1867-69

The convention convened on 3 December 1867 with a total of 105 members of which about two-thirds were radicals and about one-third conservative. The radicals included 24 blacks.

For an expression of disgust with the convention, see “Address to the People of Virginia,” Richmond Dispatch (20 April 1866), as quoted in Buck, Development of Public Schools in Virginia (Richmond, 1952), 66. For a list of delegates, see also Heatwole, History of Education in Virginia (New York, 1916), 214-15. For an overview of the convention proceedings, see Edgar W. Knight, “Reconstruction and Education in Virginia,” The South Atlantic Quarterly 15 (January 1916): 25-40. For the election of delegates and public sentiment in Fairfax County, see Nan Netherton, et. al., Fairfax County (Fairfax, 1992), 350, 377, 387, quote on 380.

1867-69