"I have only to say that the militia of Virginia will not be furnished to the powers at Washington for any such use or purpose as they have in view. Your object is to subjugate the Southern States and the requisition made upon me for such an object—an object in my judgment not within the purview of the constitution or the act of 1795, will not be complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate civil war; and having done so we will meet you in a spirit as determined as the Administration has exhibited toward the South."[[389]]
The Governors of Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina returned like answers to the requisitions of the Federal authorities for troops.
Mr. Henderson, the English writer, in his work from which we have heretofore quoted, says with reference to Virginia's position:
"So far Virginia had given no overt sign of sympathy with the revolution. But she was now called upon to furnish her quota of regiments for the Federal Army. To have acceded to the demands would have been to abjure the most cherished principles of her political existence.... Neutrality was impossible. She was bound to furnish her tale of troops and thus belie her principles; or secede at once and reject, with a clean conscience, the President's mandate. If the morality of secession may be questioned, if South Carolina acted with undue haste and without sufficient provocation, if certain of the Southern politicians desired emancipation for themselves, that they might continue to enslave others, it can hardly be denied that the action of Virginia was not only fully justified, but beyond suspicion...."[[390]]
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[383]
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Journal of Virginia Convention, 1861, p. 143.
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[384]
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Life of James Buchanan, Curtis, Vol. II, p. 534.
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[385]
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My Diary, North and South, Russell, Vol. I, p. 37.
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[386]
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Speeches, Letters and State Papers of Abraham
Lincoln, N. & H., Vol. II, p. 29.
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[387]
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Journal of Virginia Convention, 1861, Document No.
XVII.
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