XXXIX
The Contest in the Virginia Convention for and
against Secession
For nearly a month and a half after President Lincoln's inauguration, the struggle in the Virginia Convention between the advocates and opponents of secession continued—a contest in which the champions of opposing sides living beyond the state sought to make their influence effective. Mr. Rhodes says: "It is easy to understand why both Davis and Lincoln were so anxious for the adhesion of Virginia. Her worth was measured by the quality as well as the number of her men."[[376]]
COERCION THE PIVOTAL FACT
Henry Wilson records in his Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America:
"There was no state concerning whose course there was greater doubt or more anxious solicitude than Virginia. Her size, position, traditional influence and past leadership, with the knowledge that in whichever side of the scale her great weight should be thrown, the fortunes of the threatened conflict would be seriously affected thereby, intensified the anxiety felt."[[377]]
Commissioners from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana appeared before the Convention on different occasions, and with impassioned eloquence, appealed to Virginia to stand with her sisters of the South.
Mr. Lincoln's efforts were directed through prominent Union members of the Convention. His great object was to secure an adjournment sine die of that body, without the adoption of an ordinance of secession, and without the assurance on his part that no attempt would be made to coerce the Cotton States. John B. Baldwin, a leading Union man in the Convention, was one of its members brought into conference with Mr. Lincoln. On the 6th of April, 1861, Mr. Baldwin went to the White House, where, in response to the President's inquiries, he presented the attitude of the dominant element of the Virginia Convention, and heard the President's appeals and reasonings why that body should immediately adjourn. Mr. Baldwin urged upon Mr. Lincoln the wisdom and necessity of proclaiming to the world that the Federal Government had no intention of coercing the Cotton States: "Only give this assurance," said Mr. Baldwin, "to the country in a proclamation of five lines, and we pledge ourselves that Virginia will stand by you as though you were our own Washington."[[378]]
How pivotal was the position of the Federal Government with reference to coercion as determining Virginia's action may be gathered not only from the speeches of the members of her Convention, but from other utterances made at the time by her leading men.
Matthew F. Maury, under date of March 4th, 1861, wrote: "Virginia is not at all ready to go out of this Union; and she is not going out for anything that is likely to occur, short of coercion—such is my opinion."[[379]]
George W. Summers, under date of March 19th, 1861, wrote from Richmond:
"The removal from Fort Sumter (alluding to the report that it would be evacuated) acted like a charm—it gave us great strength. A reaction is going on in this state. The outside pressure here has greatly subsided. We are masters of our position here, and can maintain it, if left alone."
The same day he wrote: "What delays the removal of Major Anderson (the officer in charge of Fort Sumter)? Is there any truth in the suggestion that the thing is not to be done after all? This would ruin us."[[380]]
POSITION OF THE CONVENTION
A fairly accurate estimate of the position of the Virginia Convention may be gathered from the report of its Committee on Federal Relations, and the tentative action of that body with respect to the same. Soon after the organization of the Convention, this committee, consisting of twenty-one members, was appointed, and a rule adopted by which all memorials and proposals relating to the secession of the state, or any of the many questions involved in the pending controversies, should be referred to this committee without debate.
CONVENTION DEFEATS SECESSION
On the 16th of March, the report of the committee was taken up for consideration in the Committee of the Whole Convention. The majority report embodied the views of some two-thirds of the membership of the committee. There were several individual reports, but the views of the minority were expressed in the report signed by Messrs. Montague, Harvie and Williams, which simply recommended the immediate adoption of an ordinance providing for the secession of the state.
The report of the majority consisted of fourteen sections, and with it was submitted an amendment to the constitution of the United States, which the states of the Union were requested to endorse and make it a part of that instrument. The discussion with respect to this report and the amendment so proposed, continued from the 16th of March to the 15th of April, when before final and complete action by the Convention, the secession of the state was precipitated, under the conditions hereafter described.
The report of the majority is a lengthy document setting forth the attitude of Virginia with respect to the character of the Federal Government—the rights and powers of the latter in the territories, and over the forts, arsenals, etc.—in the states which had seceded, and all the many questions growing out of the contest over slavery.
The maintenance of peace was declared to be the foremost duty of the hour. "Above all things, at this time, they esteem it of indispensable necessity to maintain the peace of the country, and to avoid everything calculated or tending to produce collision and bloodshed," said the report.
The sixth section of the report deplored the present "distracted condition of the country," and expressed the earnest hope, "That an adjustment may be reached, by which the Union may be preserved in its integrity; and peace, prosperity and fraternal feeling be restored throughout the land."
To this section the report of the minority, providing for Virginia's immediate secession, was offered as a substitute; and on the 4th of April the latter was voted down by a recorded vote of forty-five "Yeas" to eighty-nine "Nays," and the section as reported by the majority adopted by a vote of one hundred and four "Yeas" to thirty-one "Nays."[[381]]
The eighth section declared:
"The people of Virginia recognize the American principle, that government is founded in the consent of the governed ... and they will never consent that the Federal power, which is in part their power, shall be exerted for the purpose of subjugating the people of such states (the seceded states) to the Federal authority."
By the eleventh section appeal is made to the states to make response to the position assumed in the resolutions and the proposed amendment to the constitution of the United States, and the warning given that unless satisfactory assurances were forthcoming, Virginia would feel compelled to resume the powers granted by her under the constitution. Time and again the report declares that "any action of the Federal Government tending to produce collision of forces," or any such action on the part of the seceded or confederated states, would be deemed offensive to the state, and greatly to be deplored.
AMENDMENT PROPOSED TO CONSTITUTION
Accompanying this report, as above indicated, was an amendment to the constitution of the United States, the most important features of which dealt with the matter of slavery in the territories, and the institution in the states where it was established by law.
PURPORT OF PROPOSED AMENDMENT
With respect to the first, the amendment provided that in all the territories north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes, slavery should be forever prohibited, and in all the territory south of that line, slavery was to be permitted; any territory, however, south of that line to have the privilege to permit or deny slavery by its constitution adopted preliminary to its admission as a state into the Union.
The amendment also provided that no territory should thereafter be acquired by the United States except for naval and other like depots, without the concurrence of a majority of the Senators from the states which "allowed involuntary servitude and a majority of the Senators from the states which prohibited that relation."
The amendment further provided that Congress should never have the power to abolish slavery in the states where it existed, nor in the District of Columbia without the consent of Maryland and Virginia. The slave trade in the District of Columbia and the foreign slave trade were forever prohibited, as was also the custom of bringing slaves into the District of Columbia for the purpose of their sale or distribution to other parts of the country. Congress should provide for the payment to the owner for any fugitive slave whose return was prevented by mobs or intimidation, after his arrest; and the elective franchise and the right to hold office were not to be accorded persons of the African race.[[382]]
While no final action had been taken upon this report, with the accompanying amendment, by the Convention at the time of Virginia's secession, yet the votes taken in the Committee of the Whole on the various paragraphs of the report indicated that had not Virginia's secession been precipitated, the report would have been adopted by the body in substantially the form in which it came from the Committee on Federal Relations.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND COERCION
What would have been the attitude of the other states to the amendment to the constitution so proposed, must, of course, be a matter of conjecture, but the adoption by Congress, though controlled by the Republican Party, of the joint resolution providing for an amendment which should forever prohibit Congress from interfering with slavery in the states where it existed, and the enactment of the statute organizing the territories of Dakota, Colorado and Nevada without prohibition as to slavery, would seem to indicate that the principal provisions of the amendment proposed by Virginia would have met the approval of the requisite number of the states.
FORT SUMTER AND ITS OCCUPATION
As above indicated, the crucial point, with the group holding the balance of power in the Convention, was the position of the Federal Government upon the question of coercing the Cotton States. The employment of force to compel three millions of people to submit to a government not of their own choice, was at war with the Declaration of Independence and repugnant to thousands of the American people North as well as South. That the Federal Government would have been sustained in a bald invasion of the Southern States, may well be questioned. The situation, however, was not quite so embarrassing for the Government. Many of these states had formally ceded to the Union jurisdiction over parcels of land within their respective limits, upon which had been erected forts, post offices or custom houses. These constituted coigns of vantage, where the rights of the Federal Government were of a dignity higher, or at least more manifest, to the popular mind, than those rights which obtained over the whole area of the states or their citizens. Thus in the great drama of diplomacy and play for position which preceded the Civil War, the rights of the nation and of the states in these forts and buildings became matters of imminent moment. When South Carolina seceded, Fort Moultrie was occupied by Federal soldiers. She appointed commissioners to negotiate with the authorities at Washington for the withdrawal of the troops, and the settlement of all questions with respect to the fort and other like properties in the state. Later these troops were transferred by the Federal authorities to Fort Sumter. Upon the organization of the Southern Confederacy, commissioners from it were substituted for those appointed by South Carolina. President Lincoln refused to recognize the Southern Confederacy, or to treat with its representatives. Negotiations, however, semi-official in character, were instituted, and upon the reports which went out from these conferences men gauged the chances of peace or war. If Fort Sumter were evacuated, the prospects of peace would be enhanced. If the Federal Government should decide to hold the fort, and provision and strengthen its garrison, then war would be imminent. Upon these contingencies, stocks rose and fell, and the friends of peace took hope or lost heart.
| [376] | History of United States, Rhodes, Vol. III, p. 462. |
| [377] | The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Wilson, Vol. III, p. 138. |
| [378] | Colonel Baldwin's Interview with Mr. Lincoln, Dabney. Southern Historical Papers, Vol. 1, p. 449. |
| [379] | Life of Matthew F. Maury, Corbin, p. 186. |
| [380] | History of United States, Rhodes, Vol. III, p. 345. |
| [381] | Journal of the Committee of the Whole, Virginia Convention, 1861, pp. 31-43. |
| [382] | See Report of the Committee on Federal Relations, with accompanying exhibits in the Appendix of the Journal of the Virginia Convention, 1861. |