Virginia and the Amendment

Virginia will be ratifying the current Amendment that is going through the ratification process (i.e. the Fourteenth Amendment). This is one of the Reconstruction Amendments, along with the already passed 13th and the soon to be passed 15th.

Mr. Segar and others having informed us that the Virginia Legislature will before long ratify the constitutional amendment, it has occurred to us that a preamble will be needed. The following will doubtless be approved by Forney, Bennett, Stevens, and others: "Whereas the Radicals in the Congress of the so called United States have proposed an amendment to the Constitution for ratification by the legislatures of the several States; and whereas the same Radicals assure us that Virginia is not a State, and that the several States are not united; and where as they also assure us that the provisions of the Constitution even when expounded by the Supreme Court are not binding upon a majority of the people, but may be disregarded at will; and whereas we appreciate the wisdom of adding more provisions of the same kind to the Constitution and especially the wisdom of having such provisions ratified by States which are not States Therefore,"

“Virginia and the Amendment,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed November 19, 2018, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/482.