The History of the City of Fredericksburg, Virginia

by S. J. Quinn

The municipal government that found itself in possession of the town at the close of the war continued without any election, or any attempt to hold an election, until the Spring of 1867. At that time it seemed to be the opinion and desire of the Mayor and Common Council that an election should be held and that a full corps of officers for the town should be chosen. The only law under which the Council could act and order an election was the charter which was in force prior to the war and which prescribed that elections for Mayor and Common Council should be held on the third Monday in March of each year.

In accordance with this provision of the charter the Council ordered an election to be held on the 18th of March, 1867, for the election of a Mayor and Common Council, but the question of the qualification of voters having arisen, and the Council being unable to decide who were entitled to vote under the new order of things, referred the question to General John M. Scofield, who was then in command of Military District, No. 1.

General Scofield suspended the election “until the necessary preparations can be made to fully and fairly carry out the provisions of the act of Congress of March 3rd, 1867, concerning the elective franchise and the qualification of officers.” On receipt of this order of suspension the Council passed the following resolution:

“That in pursuance of said order, the election heretofore advertised to be held on Monday, the 18th instant, for Mayor and Common Councilmen, be and it is hereby suspended until further orders. And whereas, further, under General Orders No. 1, issued from the same headquarters, all officers under the existing provisional government of Virginia are continued in office for the present, this Council, in accordance with said orders, do hereby resolve that the persons at present, discharging the duties required by the charter of this corporation, be and they are hereby continued in their respective offices until further orders.” And there was a peculiar significance in the word orders!

THE IRON-CLAD OATH.

In April, 1867, the famous order was issued from “Headquarters, Military District, No. 1, of the State of Virginia,” requiring every officer in the Commonwealth, State, municipal and county, to take the oath adopted by Congress in 1862, commonly called the test oath, and which was known through the South after the close of the war as the Iron-clad oath. This order affected every officer in the State, from the Governor down to the smallest officer, and it created quite a sensation. The oath was as follows:

“I, ————, of the county of ———— and State of ————, do solemnly swear that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel or encouragement to persons engaged in hostility thereto; that I have neither sought nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatsoever under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States; that I have yielded no voluntary support to any authority, pretended authority or constitution within the United States inimical thereto. So help me God!”

Fredericksburg had no officer serving at that time who could take such an oath. Some of the officers had, at some time during the war, been active participants on the Confederate side, and those who were too far advanced in age to enter the army had sympathized with the Confederate cause and had otherwise aided it, therefore every officer, from Mayor down to policeman, was removed and their places supplied, in some few instances, by residents who took the required oath, but in most instances the appointees were strangers and citizens of Northern States, who had floated down South in search of some office at the hands of the military commander.

The venerable and efficient clerk of the courts, Mr. John James Chew, who had held the office for forty years, was removed and an inexperienced and inefficient stranger was installed in his place and given the keeping and custody of our court papers and records. Many of the appointees of the Common Council were men of that class, and were therefore unable to conduct the affairs of the town, provide a revenue to meet the running expenses and pay the interest on the city bonds.

The Military Council was placed in possession of the city government in 1867, and conducted public affairs on the revenues brought in by the tax bill levied by their predecessors by permission of the commanding general. In the latter part of 1867 the creditors of the town were demanding their money, and no money was in the treasury. They threatened suits to enforce payment of their dues, and in order to meet these obligations, on the 23rd of May, 1868, the Military Council passed a tax bill levying a tax of one dollar and a quarter on the one hundred dollars value of all real and personal property, and on all males over twenty-one years of age a capitation tax of three dollars, but the Commissioner of Revenue never made up his tax books and the tax was never collected. This state of things continued through the year 1869; therefore, when the Common Council of the people’s own choosing took charge of the city government on the first of July, 1870, under the provisions of the new State constitution, they found municipal affairs in a wretched condition.