On inauguration day, the governor-elect takes the following oath of office: "I (first_middle_last names), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties incumbent upon me as Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, according to the best of my ability.

At the beginning of every regular session, they must report the state of the Commonwealth to the Virginia General Assembly (both the House of Delegates and the Senate).

[4] The position of Governor of Virginia dates back to the 1607 first permanent English settlement in America, at Jamestown on the north shore of the James River upstream from Hampton Roads harbor at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

Edward Maria Wingfield was the first president of the council in residence in the new province, making him the first to exercise the actual authority of governing Virginia.

The Virginia Company soon abandoned governance by council two years after the landing on May 23, 1609, and replacing it with a governor, John Smith (1580–1631).

Virginia became an independent sovereign state and Commonwealth during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), with Patrick Henry (1736–1799, served 1776–1779 and 1786–1789) as its first governor (and also later sixth).

These governors were appointed by the Federal government of the President and U.S. Congress, both controlled by Radical Republicans for a decade.

In 1874, Virginia regained its right to self-governance and elected James L. Kemper (1823–1895), a Democrat and temporary Conservative Party member and former Confederate general as governor.

However, in 1881 William E. Cameron was elected governor under the banner of the Readjuster Party, a coalition of Republicans and populist Democrats.