Virginia Quotes
Plantng tobacco was a much more lucrative endeavour than fixing guns so many gunsmiths abandned that trade for tobacco farming.
Cornwallis, who had the misfortune to be the Commanding General of the British forces which were defeated by the brilliant strategy of George Washington and his French Allies, never approved of the British Strategy in America. As a loyal officer, he was a field commander and did not control the overall strategy which most military historians agree was not very sound. While the British controlled New York City, they were surrounded by Washington’s troops and a hostile population. They Armies were separated and while generally too strong to defeat in the field were never strong enough or numerous enough to pacify large areas of the colonies.
What made this quotation very dramatic was that the state of Virginia, under the previous administration dominated by religious fundamentalists had passed a law banning same sex marriage. Several private Virginia citizens had sued the State in Federal Court, asserting that their Constitutional rights were violated by the ban. The Attorney general normally defends the state in any court proceeding. However, Herring agreed with the plaintiffs on the case, that the Virginia law was unconstitutional, so he and the State entered the case on the side of the plaintiffs and against the state law. His reference to the right side of history was related to the fact that as late as 1964 Virginia had a law prohibiting interracial marriage which they enforced and the Supreme Court invalidated. Thus, on marriage, Virginia had a track record of being on the wrong side of history and the law.
This quotation was used ten years later by Virginia which, in convention, passed a resolution objecting to the Alien & Sedition Acts. The drafter of the original resolution was James Madison.
Surprisingly to most of us, Indians and Blacks could vote in Virginia before 1723. They could even hold public office until 1705 when Virginia passed a law banning that. See Quotation 643587. 18 years later the Virginia legislature also outlawed these minorities from voting as this quotation demonstrates.
This was a delicate way of stating what most colonial Americans felt about the Virginians self-perception and especially their view of the importance and criticality of their role in the American Revolution.
Virginia never did recognize interracial marriage in its own. A Supreme Court ruling invalidated their law.
At the beginning of our nation, before there was a Constitution, the state of Virginia prohibited clergy from serving in the state legislature.
