Virginia Conventions

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Map of Virginia 1792–1863, following the western Kentucky cession during four 1800s Conventions. Note that the county boundaries are as of 1827.

Virginia 1863 to present. The cultural regions of Virginia.
the Eastern Shore and Tidewater are the eastern three, the Piedmont is the middle three, the Valley between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Appalachians is pink and blue.
The orange "Heart of Appalachia" and modern West Virginia were the 19th century "transmontane" western Virginia represented in four Virginia Conventions.

The Virginia Conventions have been the assemblies of delegates elected for the purpose of establishing constitutions of fundamental law for the Commonwealth of Virginia superior to General Assembly legislation. Their constitutions and subsequent amendments span four centuries across the territory of modern-day Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.

The first Virginia Conventions replaced the British colonial government on the authority of "the people" until the initiation of state government under the 1776 Constitution. Subsequent to joining the union of the United States in 1788, Virginia's five unlimited state constitutional conventions took place in 1829–30, 1850, around the time of the Civil War in 1864, 1868, and finally in 1902. These early conventions without restrictions on their jurisdiction were primarily concerned with voting rights and representation in the General Assembly. The Conventions of 1861 on the eve of the American Civil War were called in Richmond for secession and in Wheeling for government loyal to the U.S. Constitution.

In the 20th century, limited state Conventions were used in 1945 to expand suffrage to members of the armed forces in wartime, and in 1955 to implement "massive resistance" to Supreme Court attempts to desegregate public schools. Alternatives to the conventions used commissions for constitutional reform in 1927 for restructuring state government and in 1969 to conform the state constitution with congressional statutes of the Voting Rights Act and U.S. Constitutional law. Each of these 20th century recommendations was placed before the people for ratification in a referendum.