"Abolitionism in the North, trained in the school of Garrison and Phillips, and affecting to regard the constitution as 'a league with Hell and a covenant with Death,' has with a steady and untiring hate sought a disruption of this Union, as the best and surest means for the accomplishment of the abolition of slavery in the Southern States.... South Carolina and those leading statesmen of the South who have been educated in the philosophy of free trade have likewise with unwearied and constant assiduity pursued their schemes of disunion. Conscious of their inability to effect their schemes within the Union they have sought a disruption of the states....
"In these two schools of political philosophy, Mr. President, I trace all the evils and disastrous troubles which now afflict and disturb our beloved and unhappy land.... Recognizing as I have always done, the right of a state to secede, to judge of the violation of its rights and to appeal to its own mode for redress, I could not uphold the Federal Government in any attempt to coerce the seceded states to bring them back in the Union."[[374]]
VIEWS OF A UNION LEADER
The foregoing extracts give some fairly accurate idea of the position of those members of the Convention, who, though looked upon as Union men, yet, when the final test came after President Lincoln called for troops, voted for secession. How close in sympathy with this element were many of the Union men will appear from the following extract from a speech of George W. Summers, who upon the final ballot still voted against secession:
"Where would be the wisdom of passing an ordinance of secession in the face of the known sentiment of a Virginia constituency? The people do not mean to adopt such an ordinance until every available measure of adjustment has been exhausted. Come on then with your plans; and when all fail, the people of the commonwealth will be united from one end to the other.... No enlightened statesmanship can compare the secession of states by conventional authority with insurrectionary movements in former times. It is a new and unlooked for condition of things. I am in favor of letting the seceded states alone. The last news gives encouragement to the hope that the troops will soon be withdrawn from Fort Sumter, and time will bring back the states into the common family. It is the duty of Virginia to stand by the Union until the performance of that duty becomes impossible."[[375]]
| [370] | See Richmond Enquirer, February 28th, 1861. |
| [371] | See Richmond Enquirer, March 2d, 1861. |
| [372] | See Richmond Enquirer, March 7th, 1861. |
| [373] | See Richmond Enquirer, March 7th, 1861. |