Disenfranchisement for Negro Voters in Virginia

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Congressional imprint, "Test Oath in Virginia. Papers Relative to the Test Oath in Virginia." December 11, 1869, issued under the 41st Congress, in which Virginia Republicans protest the 'Confederate triumph' in the state elections of 1869, and the intimidation of Negro voters. But Democrats seek Virginia's restoration to the Union, and removal of the prohibition of office-holding for those who had taken up arms against the Union. With opinions of Attorney General Hoar, and responses from General Canby, the Major General commanding in the Military Department of Virginia, this document provides a close look at Reconstruction in Virginia. it reads in very small part: "...The republican party of Virginia in full delegated State convention assembled, respectfully represent that the election held in this State on the 6th day of July last resulted in a confederate triumph, which we unhesitatingly assert was achieved by artifice, intimidation, and fraud. Threats of violence prevented the exercise of free discussion during the campaign; in some instances our meetings were broken up by mobs, the leaders of which have, as yet, gone unpunished. The colored people, dependent upon their labor for support, were threatened with loss of labor; and a war of extermination, even, was not infrequently held out before them in case they voted the separate clauses and the republican ticket. We believe that the secret of our defeat can be found in the unfortunate submission to a separate vote of the test-oath and disfranchising clauses of the State constitution, in direct conflict with the action of our constitutional convention and in opposition to the deliberate and unanimous opinion of the rank and file of the republican party of Virginia...We ask that it pass into the history of our nation, and be recorded to our honor, that, despite blandishments and threats, 84,000 men in the Old Dominion did in the year 1869 declare by their votes that treason was a crime and should be punished by disfranchisement and exclusion from office..." Much more. VG

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