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 PEOPL
1830 · Richmond
by [Virginia]
Richmond, 1830. iv,919,[1]pp. 20th-century tan buckram, gilt leather labels. Shelf mark on spine. Institutional ink stamp on titlepage, faint vertical tideline to first several leaves, else a clean copy in very good condition. The complete record of the first Virginia constitutional convention since 1776, as reported by "Mr. Stansbury of Washington." Among the delegates were the sitting Chief Justice of the United States (John Marshall), two former Presidents of the United States (James Madison and James Monroe) as well as a future one (John Tyler), and an eminent constitutional scholar who later served as Secretary of State (Abel P. Upshur). At the heart of the debate in the convention was the question of representation, the delegates from the western counties being determined to break the stranglehold which the slave- holding Tidewater had on the legislature. The divergent interests of the two regions reflected in the debates at the convention later manifested themselves when the western counties seceded from Confederate Virginia to form the new state of West Virginia. MIDLAND NOTES 82:520. AMERICAN IMPRINTS 5292 (Inventory #: WRCAM53979)