University of Virginia Library

John Floyd, Governor,

March 4, 1830-March 31, 1834.

John Floyd was born in Jefferson County, Virginia, April
24, 1783, son of Col. John Floyd, a prominent citizen of the
Southwest. He attended Dickinson College, Pennsylvania,
studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and settled
in Montgomery County. He was appointed a justice of
the peace in 1807, major of the militia in 1808, surgeon of the
Virginia line in 1812, and the same year was elected to the
House of Delegates. Later he was made brigadier-general
of militia in the State. In 1817 he was elected to Congress, and
was one of the leaders of the Republican party in the House.
He opposed the administration of John Quincy Adams (18251829)
and aided largely in the election of Jackson (1828). He
was a strong expansionist and introduced the first bill for the
occupation and settlement of Oregon. He became Governor of
Virginia March 4, 1830, and when his year was out he was
reelected by the Legislature for a term of three years under
the new constitution framed by the convention sitting at the

time of his inauguration, being the first Governor to serve
under that instrument, an honor of which he was proud. He
was in poor health for some time previous to the expiration
of his term, and he died from paralysis, at the Sweet Springs,
Montgomery County, August 15, 1837.

Three notable incidents distinguish his administration the
nullification controversy, Nat Turner's Insurrection, and the
running of the first rail cars employing steam power. The
history of the former has been given in another chapter, and
the sympathetic stand taken by Floyd in his messages procured
for him the vote of South Carolina as President of
the United States. Nat Turner's Insurrection took place in
Southampton County, south of the James River, in the summer
of 1831. It was a result of abolition propaganda, which was now
becoming quite active in the North. Nat Turner, the swarthy
leader, attacked his master's house, killed him, his wife and
children with an axe, and with his band of enthusiasts put
to sudden and violent death sixty-one persons, almost all
of whom were women and children. Governor Floyd took
prompt steps to suppress the insurrection, called out the
militia, and captured Turner, who, together with others prominent
in the affair, was tried for murder and executed on the
gallows. Some of the sentences to death, however, were commuted
by Floyd to imprisonment or deportation, and some
of the negroes he pardoned. The third event was the opening
in the summer of 1833 of the railroad from Petersburg to
Roanoke Falls in North Carolina, chartered in 1829-30.

As a result of Turner's uprising, many petitions and
memorials were sent to the Legislature of 1831-32, and were
referred to a select committee composed of twenty one members,
of whom sixteen were from counties east of the Blue
Ridge. Some days later William O. Goode, of Mecklenburg,
the leader of the slave interests, moved that the committee be
discharged from the consideration of the petitions, and "that
it is not expedient to legislate on the subject." Then Thomas
Jefferson Randolph, son of Governor Thomas Mann Randolph,

and grandson of Thomas Jefferson, moved as a substitute Jefferson's
postnatal scheme of 1779 for the gradual abolition
of slavery. After three days' discussion the committee made a
report to the effect that "it is inexpedient for the present
to make any legislative enactment for the abolition of
slavery." William Ballard Preston proposed a resolution as
a substitute for the report, declaring the expediency of a
legislative enactment on the subject. This was defeated by
a vote of ayes 58, noes 73. Then Archibald Bryce, of Goochland
County, proposed to amend the report of the committee
by prefixing the following preamble:

"Profoundly sensible of the great evils arising from the
colored population of the Commonwealth, induced by humanity
as well as policy, to an immediate effort for the removal
in the first place of as well as those now free or of such as
may hereafter become free, believing that this effort, while
it is in just accordance with the sentiments of the community
on the subject, will absorb all our present means; and that a
further action for the removal of the slaves should await a
more definite development of public opinion. Resolved, etc."

This preamble was adopted by a vote of 67 to 60, and, thus
amended, the report of the Select Committee was passed.

This incident in Virginia history is interesting historically
as showing that there was a strong sentiment abroad in the
State even at this late period for the abolition of slavery,
which might have grown to greater proportions but for the conscienceless
warfare waged by the abolitionists of the North,
inciting to murder and incendiarism. The violent crusade
undertaken by them against slavery closed the avenues of
public expression in Virginia, and it finally became almost
impossible for anyone in the State to talk openly, as so many
speakers did in this Legislature. It forced even men in West
Virginia, like George W. Summers and John S. Carlisle, the
last prominent in promoting the disruption of the State in
1861, into a position[106] that slavery was "a social, political and
religious blessing."

In the eyes of William Lloyd Garrison, a leader in abolitionism,
even Daniel Webster was a "monster" because of his
respect for the Constitution, and in the eyes of Wendell
Phillips Abraham Lincoln was a "slave hound" for a somewhat
similar reason.[107] But such epithets applied to Northern
men were mild when compared with those applied to Southerners
by the abolitionists. Governor Floyd was in thorough
sympathy with the movement in the Legislature for the abolition
of slavery, and used his influence in its favor, till the
heat of debate suggested a more politic stand.

On another subject, that of internal improvements, Floyd
had advanced ideas. Besides recommending help to the Jame-River
and Kanawha Canal, he recommended a railroad extending
to the salt, lead, iron and gypsum mines of the Southwest.
The proposed highway through Fredricksburg, Richmond and
Petersburg, connecting the North with the South, and the
Valley turnpike also received his endorsement.

13 Ambler, Life and Diary of John Floyd, p. 91.