First District of Accomack County (VA) voting certificate including African Americans

The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868, was an assembly of delegates elected by the voters to establish the fundamental law of Virginia following the American Civil War and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Convention, which met from December 3, 1867 until April 17, 1868, set the stage for enfranchising freedmen, and Virginia's readmission to Congress.

Black men in Virginia voted for the first time in Virginia's first post Civil War election on October 1867, on whether to hold a convention to rewrite the state's constitution as required by Congress after the Civil War. They also voted for delegates to that convention and were eligible to serve as delegates themselves. Virginia's government was then under supervison of the United States Army, which oversaw the election.

Captain Toy and Edward K. Snead were elected as Republicans to represent Northampton and neighboring Accomac County at the Virginia Constitutional Convention. The convention was necessary because Virginia's Constitution adopted in 1850 explicitly allowed slavery, and few Virginians considered the convention held during the Union occupation in the Civil War valid. Although certain provisions restricting civil rights of former Confederates were controversial and not adopted in 1869, the constitution drafted by Snead, Toy and their fellow delegates was ratified by Virginia voters and the Commonwealth was allowed to rejoin the Union.

After 1866, according to the Radical Reconstruction Acts of Congress, a rebelling state which had vacated its delegation in the U.S. Congress was required to constitutionally incorporate the 14th Amendment which guarantees that all persons born in the United States are citizens both of the United States and of their state. Concerned by multiple reports of Southern white officals and plantation owners abuse of Black freedman, Republicans in Congress took control of Reconstruction policies after the election of 1866. The Radical Congressional Reconstruction legislation required the suffrage for Black men.

Radical Republicans included most ex-enslaved freedmen, and organized to advocate full political and social equality for Blacks, but also wanted to exclude ex-Confederates from political participation either in government or at the ballot box. Moderate Unionists (including many pre-war Whigs), sought political equality for Blacks, but believed that ex-Confederates had to be included in the political community because of the terms of surrender as well as majority among the white population. Conservatives wanted to ensure white control of the state. Allowed to vote, African Americans elected about 100 black representatives to the Virginia General Assembly between 1869 and 1890. Most were members of Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party, which had championed the end of enslavery. James Toy was a 1st lieutenant of the 2nd Regiment Cavalry in the United States Colored Troops at Fort Monroe in Virginia,in company H and later rising to the rank of captain and leading Company D.

Sources: "Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868" Wikipedia. Accessed 4/4/24 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Constitutional_Convention_of_1868

"James C. Toy" Wikipedia. Accessed 4/4/24. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Toy

"Edward K. Snead" Wikipedia. Accessed 4/4/24 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_K._Snead

"1861-1876 Reconstruction" Virginia Museum of History and Culture. Accessed 4/4/24 https://virginiahistory.org/learn/story-of-virginia/chapter/reconstruction