The Committee of Nine was a group of conservative political leaders in Virginia, led by Alexander H. H. Stuart, following the American Civil War, when Virginia was required to adopt a new Constitution acknowledging the abolition of slavery before its readmission into the Union. They engineered the federal and state political machinery so that separate votes would be taken on the constitution and provisions restricting voting and office-holding rights of former Confederates.
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 the subsequent efforts of the "Committee of Nine," in 1869, to secure the restoration of Virginia to the Union.
Letter Announcing Virginia's Readmission to the United States, 1870
Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart
Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart was a Virginia lawyer and American political figure associated with several political parties. Stuart served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, as a U.S. Congressman (1841–1843), and as the Secretary of the Interior (1850–1853). Despite opposing Virginia's secession and holding no office after finishing his term in the Virginia Senate during the American Civil War, after the war he was denied a seat in Congress. Stuart led the Committee of Nine, which attempted to reverse the changes brought by Reconstruction. He also served as rector of the University of Virginia.
Portrait by Mathew Brady, c. 1850
