Disfranchisement – Encyclopedia Virginia
Prior to the American Civil War (1861–1865), Virginia’s most influential political leaders had been reluctant to accept universal white male suffrage during the decades when it was more eagerly welcomed elsewhere in the United States. The state’s Constitutional Convention of 1829–1830 debated but declined to adopt a proposal that ownership of land no longer be a prerequisite for voting rights, continuing restriction of the electorate to one class of adult white men. The Constitutional Convention of 1850–1851 eliminated the property qualification, but only after a contentious strug...
Source: encyclopediavirginia.org