Early Republic and Antebellum Periods
See also: History of the United States (1789–1849)Victory in the Revolution brought peace and prosperity to the new state, as export markets in Europe reopened for its tobacco.
While the old local elites were content with the status quo, younger veterans of the war had developed a national identity. Led by George Washington and James Madison, Virginia played a major role in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia. Madison proposed the Virginia Plan, which would give representation in Congress according to total population, including a proportion of slaves. Virginia was the most populous state, and it was allowed to count all of its white residents and 3/5 of the enslaved African Americans for its congressional representation and its electoral vote. (Only white men who owned a certain amount of property could vote.) Ratification was bitterly contested; the pro-Constitution forces prevailed only after promising to add a Bill of Rights. The Virginia Ratifying Convention approved the Constitution by a vote of 89–79 on June 25, 1788, making it the tenth state to enter the Union.
Madison played a central role in the new Congress, while Washington was the unanimous choice as first president. He was followed by the Virginia Dynasty, including Thomas Jefferson, Madison, and James Monroe, giving the state four of the first five presidents.
Read more about this topic: History Of Virginia
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—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
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“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
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—James Boswell (1740–1795)