VIRGINIA 



VIRGINIA 



the Southern, the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Vir- 

 ginian, and the Seaboard Air Line. Besides 

 these, there are several shorter lines and over 

 500 miles of electric railway. Public roads 

 cover more than 43,300 miles, but only about 

 4,480 miles of these roads are surfaced. 



Water transportation is excellent in the east- 

 ern part of the state. The broad-mouthed riv- 

 ers are navigable as far as the rapids at the 

 Fall Line of the Piedmont. Steamship lines 



connect the ports and large cities at the head 

 of the tidewater estuaries with Baltimore, 

 Washington, New York, Boston and Savannah 

 and foreign ports. 



Large quantities of lumber, grain and naval 

 stores are shipped from Norfolk, which is the 

 third cotton port in the Union. The enormous 

 coal product of West Virginia and Virginia 

 has its chief port at Newport News, at the 

 mouth of the James River. 



Government and History 



Government . Virginia has had five state con- 

 stitutions, adopted in 1776, 1830, 1851, 1869 and 

 1902. The voter must be a resident of the state 

 for two years; of the county, city or town one 

 year; and must have paid poll taxes for the 

 three years preceding the election, unless he is 

 a veteran of the War of Secession. 



The executive department consists of a gov- 

 ernor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of the 

 commonwealth, treasurer, superintendent of 

 public instruction and commissioner of agri- 

 culture, elected for four years. 



The legislative body is the general assembly, 

 which consists of a senate of thirty-three to 

 forty members and a house of delegates of 

 ninety to one hundred members. The state is 

 divided into districts according to population, 

 and senators are elected from each of these for 

 four years and delegates for two years. The 

 general assembly meets biennially. Bills of 

 private or local interest must be referred to a 

 special committee of five members appointed 

 by the senate and seven members appointed 

 by the house of delegates. 



The judiciary consists of a supreme court of 

 appeals, circuit courts, one in each of the 

 twenty-four judicial districts, and city courts. 

 The twelve supreme court judges are elected by 

 the joint vote of the two houses of the legisla- 

 ture for terms of twelve years; circuit judges 

 and city judges are elected in the same way for 

 eight years. 



The Founding of the Colony. The territory 

 of Virginia was discovered by Sebastian Cabot 

 in 1498 and claimed by England. The first at- 

 tempt at settlement was made by the Spaniards 

 in 1526, but they soon abandoned the Virginia 

 shores. In 1585 Sir Walter Raleigh was granted 

 the territory by Queen Elizabeth; he sent sev- 

 eral expeditions to establish a colony, but all 

 returned without success. 



The first permanent settlement was made by 

 the London Company in May, 1607, at James- 



town. Under the able leadership of Captain 

 John Smith the colony "escaped destruction by 

 famine and Indian attacks. 



Colonial History. In 1619 occurred two of the 

 most important events in Virginia's history, the 

 introduction of negro slavery by Dutch traders 

 and the establishment of the house of bur- 

 gesses. This was the first representative assem- 

 bly in America, and during the colonial period 

 was the protector of the rights of the people 

 against royal encroachments. After the Civil 

 War in England, royalists poured into the 

 colony and obtained positions of authority. 

 Their administration was overthrown in 1676 in 

 an insurrection known as Bacon's Rebellion. 



Virginia took a conspicuous part in colonial 

 politics and furnished some of the most promi- 

 nent generals in the French and Indian and 

 Revolutionary wars. The freedom of the colo- 

 nies was gained on Virginia soil, when Lord 

 Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in 1781. 



Statehood. Seven of the first twelve Presi- 

 dents of the United States were from Virginia, 

 as were many other statesmen prominent in 

 shaping the destiny of the Union. The tobacco 

 culture continued to grow, and the number of 

 slaves steadily increased. The Blue Ridge 

 Mountains divided the state into two regions 

 differing in the character of the population, in 

 industry and in sentiment. At the crisis in 1861 

 the inhabitants west of the Alleghanies, who 

 were not large land and slave owners, refused 

 to secede with Virginia, and formed the state 

 of West Virginia, which was admitted into the 

 Union in 1863. 



During the War of Secession Richmond was 

 the capital of the Confederacy; the home of 

 Jefferson Davis, which is now a Confederate 

 museum, was the "White House" of the South. 

 The state again furnished the commander-in- 

 chief of an army Robert E. Lee and was the 

 home of many of the ablest Confederate gen- 

 erals. It became a main battle ground of the 



