The white men of Virginia...

White men in Virginia overall still hold the majority. The ratification of a new Constitution will prove to be difficult no matter what. The worse the Constitution drafted by black citizens and other members the harder it will be to pass.

The white men of Virginia have at least twenty thousand majority in the State over the negroes. The worse the Constitution the negroes and their white allies make, the more easily will it be voted down. We should have some trouble in defeating the ratification of a constitution otherwise good even if there were a negro suffrage provision in it. Perhaps we should fail to kill it. But to secure the rejection of so odious, intolerant, and despicable a piece of negro patch-work as the Convention now threatens to adopt, we shall only have to let every white voter read its infamous provisions.

“The white men of Virginia...,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed May 18, 2022, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/915.