Quill Project

Throughout the platform round icons are events relating to individuals and their right to have an opinion in particular debates:

Person joining a committee

Person leaving a committee

Person elected to a position

Roll-call

Parchment-coloured, square icons relate to the creation and amending of documents:

Create a new proposal

Create a new document that is a line-by-line revision of another document (noted by the pen icon in the corner)

Document amendment proposed

Document taken from another committee (note arrow in corner)

Amendment taken from another committee

Debate a proposal

Documents that have an explicit subtype can be displayed with a slightly different icon:

Legislative text

Formal Resolutions

A message to be sent elsewhere

A petition to be considered

Rules and Orders of Business

Diamond-shaped, purple icons relate to decisions taken:

Drop a proposal

Refer a proposal to another committee

Adopt a proposal

Other vote (continue debate)

Reject a proposal

Postpone a debate

Blue, hexagon-shaped icons relate to 'procedural' proposals that do not directly alter text but affect how a committee does its work (and are usually used only for transient things, such as a point of order.)

Procedural motion

Procedural motion with sub-decisions

Debate on a procedural motion

This page displays an overview of the events a person was involved in during a convention and the votes that he/she won or lost.

Select the relevant committee on the left. Along the top, the line of the selected committee's events will highlight those moments where an event is tagged with this person.

In the lower part of the page a list of the votes taken will allow you to see whether this person was on the winning or losing side (where it is known).

The Road to Civil War

William Smith

(September 6, 1797 — May 18, 1887) William Smith, a Representative from Virginia; born in Marengo, King George County, Va., September 6, 1797; attended private schools in Virginia and Plainfield Academy in Connecticut; studied law; was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Culpeper, Culpeper County, Va., in 1818; established a line of United States mail and passenger post coaches through Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia in 1831; member of the State senate from 1836 to 1841, when he resigned; successfully contested as a Democrat the election of Linn Banks to the Twenty-seventh Congress and served from March 4, 1841, to March 3, 1843; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1842 to the Twenty-eighth Congress; moved to Fauquier County; Governor of Virginia 1846-1849, and unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate during that period; moved to California in April 1849; president of the first Democratic State convention in 1850; returned to Virginia in December 1852; elected to the Thirty-third and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1853-March 3, 1861); during the Civil War served in the Confederate Army as colonel of the Forty-ninth Regiment of Virginia Infantry, and subsequently was promoted to brigadier general and major general; served in the Confederate Congress in 1862; again Governor of Virginia in 1864; returned to his estate, ``Monterosa,'' near Warrenton, Va., in June 1865; engaged in agricultural pursuits; member of the State house of delegates 1877-1879; died in Warrenton, Va., May 18, 1887; interment in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Va. [Source: “Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 - Present,” available at https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/S000627]

Member of Virginia Delegation - The Road to Civil War [this display].

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