The Contest in the Virginia Convention for and
against Secession (Concluded)
On the 8th of April, the Virginia Convention adopted the following resolution:
"WHEREAS, in the opinion of this Convention the uncertainty which prevails in the public mind as to the policy which the Federal Executive intends to pursue towards the seceded states is extremely injurious to the industrial and commercial interests of the country, tends to keep up an excitement which is unfavorable to the adjustment of pending difficulties, and threatens a disturbance of the public peace; therefore,
"RESOLVED, That a committee of three delegates be appointed by this Convention to wait upon the President of the United States and present to him this Preamble and Resolution, and respectfully ask him to communicate to this Convention the policy which the Federal Executive intends to pursue in regard to the Confederate States."[[383]]
William Ballard Preston, Alexander H. H. Stuart and George W. Randolph were unanimously elected members of the committee thus created.
That this action of the Virginia Convention was not hypercritical, that grave doubts actually existed as to the position of the Federal Government, is a fact of contemporary history. Writing from Washington, March 16, 1861, to Ex-President Buchanan, Edwin M. Stanton said:
"Every day affords proof of the absence of any settled policy or harmonious concert of action in the Administration. Seward, Bates and Cameron form one wing; Chase, Welles, Blair, the opposite wing; Smith is on both sides and Lincoln sometimes on one, sometimes on the other. There has been agreement in nothing."[[384]]
W. H. Russell, the well-known correspondent of the London Times, notes in his diary under date of March 23d: "The Government (of the United States) appears to be helplessly drifting with the current of events, having neither bow nor stern, neither keel nor deck, neither rudder, compass, sails nor steam."[[385]]
On the 1st of April, Secretary Seward presented to the President his now famous memorandum, "Some thoughts for the President's consideration," the opening paragraph of which recited: "First. We are at the end of a month's administration, and yet without a policy either foreign or domestic."[[386]]