Committee of Nine

The Committee of Nine was a group of commonwealth leaders in Virginia, following the American Civil War, who engineered the political machinery so that the Old Dominion might be readmitted into the Union.

Led by Alexander H. H. Stuart, a former U.S. Presidential Cabinet officer, the group of moderate Conservatives convinced the federal government to allow Virginians to vote on an alternative draft of a new state constitution which did not disenfranchise many white Virginians under the Reconstruction Acts. Once this constitution was passed, the United States Congress permitted the readmission of that state into the Union as of January 26, 1870.

Committee members

• Alexander H. H. Stuart, chairman
• John Brown Baldwin, of Staunton
• James F. Johnston, of Bedford County
• John L. Marye, of Fredericksburg
• James Neeson, of Richmond
• William L. Owen, of Halifax County
• Wyndham Robertson, of Washington County
• J. F. Slaughter, of Lynchburg
• W. T. Sutherlin, of Danville

Though not a member of the committee who traveled to Washington to conduct the negotiations, former Confederate general John Echols worked closely with Stuart to set up the compromise.

Further reading

• Stuart, Alex. H. H., A Narrative of the Leading Incidents of the Organization of the First Popular Movement in Virginia in 1865 to Re-Establish Peaceful Relations Between the Northern and Southern States, and of the Subsequent Efforts of the "Committee of Nine" to Secure the Restoration of Virginia to the Union, Richmond, Va.: Wm. Ellis Jones, Book and Job Printer, 1888.