It is not questioned that among the people of Virginia were men of widely divergent views; Secessionists of the most ultra type, insisting on the state's right to secede, and demanding her immediate withdrawal from the Union; anti-secessionists of the strongest mould, denying the right of secession and protesting against its attempted exercise; Unionists who admitted the right in the state, as a desperate measure of relief, but denying that any such occasion had arisen; advocates of slavery who regarded the institution as approved of Heaven,—a blessing to the blacks, and essential to the safety of the whites; apostles of emancipation who denounced slavery and called for its abolition; men who would make Virginia "neutral territory" between the hostile sections, and those who would fight for her rights, but "fight within the Union."

VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE

None of these elements, separately, spoke the sentiments of the majority, nor represented the controlling force in her citizenship. We shall accept as the true expression of the dominant element the returns from the ballot box, the enactments of her legislative and constitutional assemblies, and the deliverances of her great sons. Tried by these criteria, it may be truthfully declared that the institution of slavery was regarded with disfavor by a majority of her people; that they tolerated its existence as a modus vivendi to meet the dangers and difficulties of the hour, but looking forward to the time when the increase of her white population from within and without, and the decrease of her blacks by emigration and colonization would render feasible its abolition, with a maximum of benefit to the slaves and their owners, and a minimum of danger to society and the state; that while cherishing an almost romantic love for their commonwealth, they felt genuine loyalty to the Union, and contemplated with profound sorrow the suggested withdrawal therefrom of any group of states; and, finally, that they carried their state out of the Union and into the Southern Confederacy because the authorities of the former sought by force of arms to defeat the latter in their efforts to achieve independence, and demanded of Virginia her quota of men to accomplish the deed.

SLAVERY AND SECESSION

Secession they deplored because it broke the married calm of a union which its makers fondly hoped would endure forever, but war upon the states seeking independence they also deplored, because subversive of the principles upon which the Union was founded. Could the Federal Government deny to six millions of people the boon of independence which they were seeking by orderly and peaceful methods, and still remain true to the principles of the great Declaration, to maintain which the Fathers of the Republic had fought and won the battles of the Revolution? Have people the right to determine for themselves their political destiny? Are the just powers of governments to be measured by the consent of the governed? These were the questions which, carrying their own answers, impelled the Virginian opponents of coercion in 1861 to stand, as they believed, for the political and ethical principles which the Flag symbolized, rather than for the Flag itself.

That Virginia revered the institution of slavery, and from selfish motives fought to make more sure the muniments of its existence; that she desired the destruction of the Union, and the degenerate abandonment of the inspiring dreams of liberty and progress, which it was designed to assure,—are propositions unthinkable to men acquainted with her history and the genius and aspirations of her people. It was for no such cause that she gave her sons to the sword, and her bosom as the battleground for the fiercest war of modern times. Her people fought because they felt the occasion made its imperious demand upon their duty and their honor. Virginia had persistently declared that the right asserted by the Cotton States was God-given and inalienable. Thus her sense of honor, as well as the imperilled right of self-government, impelled her to battle.

Twenty years after the surrender at Appomattox Lord Wolseley wrote: "The Right of Self-Government which Washington won, and for which Lee fought, was no longer to be a watchword to stir men's blood in the United States."^[2]

We need not accept the conclusion of this distinguished soldier that the cause of self-government no longer commands the allegiance of the American people, in order to believe that amid the trials and conflicts of the Civil War Virginia stood faithful for the vindication of that great principle.