Showdown in Virginia

The 1861 Convention and the Fate of the Union

William W. Freehling, Craig M. Simpson, William W. Freehling, Craig M. Simpson

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780813929910
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

In the spring of 1861, Virginians confronted destiny—their own and their nation's. Pivotal decisions awaited about secession, the consequences of which would unfold for a hundred years and more. But few Virginians wanted to decide at all. Instead, they talked, almost interminably. The remarkable record of the Virginia State Convention, edited in a fine modern version in 1965, runs to almost 3, 000 pages, some 1.3 million words. Through the diligent efforts of William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson, this daunting record has now been made accessible to teachers, students, and general readers. With important contextual contributions—an introduction and commentary, chronology, headnotes, and suggestions for further reading—the essential core of the speeches, and what they signified, is now within reach.

This is a collection of speeches by men for whom everything was at risk. Some saw independence and even war as glory; others predicted ruin and devastation. They all offered commentary of lasting interest to anyone concerned about the fate of democracy in crisis.

PART I

SECESSION DEBATED

Before Abraham Lincoln’s April 15, 1861, presidential proclamation and the Virginia convention’s ensuing rush toward secession and disaster, the convention spent two months averting decision. Yet this very procrastination helps give the best parts of the best pre–April 15 speeches lasting appeal.

The allure is partly emotional. Individuals seldom suffer a political crisis that may destroy their lives, their families, and their culture. At this crossroad, where recovery from a wrong turn could require a century, the high stakes generated a catch in the throat and a fright in the voice. Posterity can here empathize with the sense of frustration and fear of destruction that afflict those who dread decision.

The debates also present intriguing questions for detached analysis. What was the essential secessionist case? What was the essential Unionist alternative? Which orators best coped with their, Virginia’s, and slave-holders’ predicaments? And how well does this oratorical showdown measure up to epic American debates before and since?

1
Jeremiah Morton’s Secessionist Speech, February 28

Jeremiah Morton, representing

Orange and Greene counties in the western Piedmont (together 49.8 percent enslaved), was a convention exception in many ways. Most of Virginia’s leading secessionists had been Democrats, and most Unionists had been Whigs. Morton was the anomalous former Whig who was a prominent disunionist. Most convention speakers were in their forties. Jeremiah Morton was sixty-one. Almost all the other speakers, lawyers by trade, owned only a few nonplantation slaves. Morton’s several large plantations netted him a then-princely $30,000 per year. Few other speakers had held higher office than a seat in Virginia’s lower house. Morton had been a U.S. congressman. This atypically aged, wealthy, and prominent squire, in short, exemplified the planter who supposedly led his class to ruin. But he actually was an oddity among those who guided the Virginia convention toward Armageddon. “The scourge of war,” the fallen grandee would seven years later lament, “has swept all from me, and . . . I stand a blasted stump in the wilderness.”¹

Mr. President: I feel deeply impressed by . . . the vast importance of . . . this assembly. . . . [In] the history of the world, . . . [no] fanaticism, striking into the vitals of a proud nation, has progressed with the same rapidity as this abolition fanaticism has. . . . Our soil has been invaded; our rights have been violated; principles hostile to our institutions have been inculcated in the Northern mind and ingrained in the Northern heart, so that you may make any compromise you please, and still, until you can unlearn and unteach the people, we shall find no peace.

Mr. President, suppose you were to take a boy of the size of that boy [pointing to one of the pages], and have him taught by a mother, and by a father, and by a preacher, and by every teacher, in the Catholic religion, in a Catholic country. . . . It would be a miracle, if, at the age of twenty-one, he would not be a Catholic—or a Protestant, if instructed in the doctrines of that church, by a similar process. When we find, therefore, that in the Northern States the youth are instructed in the nursery, in the schoolhouse, in the church, by the press, to regard slavery as a sin and a crime, and those who cherish it as . . . unworthy of recognition upon a footing of social equality with the people of the North, and fit objects of the scorn and contempt of the world—I ask you what is the hope, what is the chance of effecting a change?

Mr. President, by the election of Mr. LINCOLN, the popular sentiment of the North has placed in the Executive Chair, of this mighty nation a man who did not get an electoral vote South of Mason and Dixon’s line, a man who was elected purely by a Northern fanatical sentiment hostile to the South. . . . The Government is no longer a Government of equal rights. Our enemies have now command of the Executive Department, they have command of both branches of Congress.² How long will it be before they will have command of the Judiciary Department? You may judge of that from the fact that a recent nomination to the Senate of the United States of a national man has been postponed—rejected, I believe—in order that that patronage may fall into the hands of the incoming administration. Who will a Black Republican President and a Black Republican Senate confer that appointment upon? I am led to believe that . . . the man of the most distinguished talents and the nearest approximation to the Black Republicans is the man upon whom that high station will be conferred.

They will administer the Government for the strengthening of the party; they will make capital out of every appointment; and, Mr. President, with a Government, every Department of which shall be in the hands of the Black Republicans, administered upon the principles upon which William H. Seward³ and Abraham Lincoln will administer it, how long would our institutions be safe? . . . Whenever it comes to the administration of the spoils with the view to the advancement of party—and that for many years has been the general type of all administrations—what are the number that will be purchased up by the patronage of the Government? I do not mean to say, Mr. President, corruptly. But when there is a fat office which is tendered, and the aspirant for that office knows how important it may be that his opinions should be identical and should assimilate with the powers that be, how natural it is for a man under circumstances like these to satisfy himself that he once was a little wrong, and that the sober, second thought, is the best position. This is human nature. How often does it come to pass that a lawyer of distinguished talents and unquestioned integrity, receives a fee in a bad cause, and yet, in the hour of investigation, in endeavoring to induce the court and the jury to think that the wrong is the better side, he produces the very same effect upon his own mind?

And I tell you Mr. President, that Abraham Lincoln will seek to hold a power over all the Southern States. . . . If you stay . . . [in the Union] for the next twelve months there will be more beneficent showers of public patronage upon Virginia and Maryland and Tennessee—I think he would hardly go to North Carolina—but he will go to Kentucky and Missouri, sooner than to any other States. . . .

And, Mr. President, when a man gets a rich office, how many friends circle around him to congratulate him. . . . The donee of a fat office—be it a Judgeship, be it a Collectorship, be it a Postmaster of this city—has much power, and each one will form a nucleus of sympathizing friends with the powers that be. . . . Let us acquiesce, and I tell you that in the next Presidential canvass—if not in the next, in the second; certainly in the third—you will find Black Republicans upon every stump, and organizing in every county; and that is the peace that we shall have from this “glorious Union.” . . .

My heart has been in this Union and my brightest hopes connected with its welfare. I have but one child, and her destiny is linked with a Northern man. But he is upon Virginia soil, and like many of the Northern men who are with us for a time, has become true, and even truer than her own native sons to the rights of the South. But his kindred are in the North, and his sympathies with parents and relatives and friends give me an interest in his behalf; so that I would do what I could to preserve the Union, if I could preserve it upon terms of honor and of safety.

But, Mr. President, it is as apparent to my mind as the sun at mid-day, that unless we can have security—and I am not speaking of such securities as this miserable abortion which the Peace Conference presents—unless we can have securities of political power, I say that this Union ought to be, and I trust in God will be dissolved. . . . We must have a settlement of this question, and a settlement forever. It has been an ulcer in our side for thirty years. . . . Men in every branch of the business of life do not know how to shape their contracts because of the agitation every four years of this never-dying question of African slavery—I say, I want to see this question put to rest, not where it will spring up to disturb my children and involve them in utter ruin twenty or thirty years hence; but I want to put it where it never will disturb my descendants—for if there is to be bloodshed, and this question cannot otherwise be settled, I would rather give the blood that runs in my veins, to preserve that which is in the veins of my helpless offspring. . . .

How can the question be settled? . . . If that National Convention had been held in time, we might, perhaps, have had some hope from such a source.⁴ Who is to blame that there was not such a National Convention? Can it be said that that much-abused little State, South Carolina, . . . is to blame? No, that gallant little State cannot be complained of, for when you were invaded here⁵ and your soil was bathed in Virginia blood, and you [turning to Governor Wise], like a true man, led the hosts of Virginia to repel the invader, however you may have received the censure of some, I do say every lady of Virginia paid you her meed of applause, and I tendered to you personally my thanks and my approbation.

When Virginia was invaded and you were in the Gubernatorial chair, South Carolina sent her Commissioner here to sympathize with Virginia, to make the grievance a common cause, and to invite co-operation in devising measures for future security.⁶ Mississippi did the same. And how were they received and how were they treated? They were treated kindly, as gentlemen. You received them cordially as the Executive of the State. But the Legislature, after the most powerful and thrilling appeal, almost that I think I ever heard, the Legislature of Virginia determined that she could take care of herself, and that each sovereign State could take care of itself. And after South Carolina had thus been turned away from the door of Virginia, and the time had come when she [South Carolina] felt that her honor and her safety were involved—because she took the responsibility of an independent sovereign State, she is denounced upon this floor for rashness, for indiscretion, for a want of deference, that she did not invite Virginia to a further council. . . .

Do not complain of gallant South Carolina and Mississippi, but complain of Virginia. If there is blame to rest anywhere, then denounce Virginia—denounce your legislature. . . . They were very adverse to going into a Southern council, because if they went into a Southern council they were fearful that the action of South Carolina and of other States would result in a dissolution of the Union. I believed then and I believe now, that if Virginia had taken her stand in that Southern Council she would have the same influence then that she did have in the times of the Revolution. Had Virginia, however much they might have differed from her, looking to her ancient fame, looking to her great material interest, looking to her position, had Virginia taken the stand which patriotism required of her, South Carolina would have yielded, and other Southern States would have yielded to the counsels of Virginia. But Virginia rejected the offer and the crisis came. . . .

The Union is already dissolved. If it is to be re-constructed, how can it be re-constructed with most safety to Virginia and to the South? Is it by Virginia standing, as she has been with the North and the South, in doubt, as to what her position is, whilst wrongs and insults have been heaped upon her continually? . . .

I would not have been in favor of an exclusive slaveholding Confederacy. No! Whilst I would have required all the guarantees necessary for our protection, I would have had those border States associated with us, whose interests in trade would have led them to the South—I mean New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. We would always have had the preponderance, and we would not let them in until they had purified themselves in some degree of Abolitionism, and I would have a provision to this effect: that, whenever they agitated this question of slavery again, and whenever they proclaimed that they were holier than ourselves and we were not worthy to sit at the communion table with them, we should say to them: “Leave us.” . . .

Our friend tells us, that if we establish a Southern Confederacy, and bring a Canada to our borders, we shall lose all our slaves. I have no such apprehension; and I believe that our slaves will be as secure then, if not more so, than they are now. . . . Slavery is considered a festering sore by the fanatics of the North. They believe that they are responsible before God and the world, for the sin of African slavery, and that although it is within our borders, they must use all the means in their power to destroy it in the States, and never permit another slave State to be admitted into this Union. That is the platform upon which Abraham Lincoln was elected, and that is the platform upon which Wm. H. Seward has been standing for years, until at last he has become Premier of the President—a “power behind the throne, greater than the throne itself.” . . .

If there is a man within the broad limit of this Union who will deserve and receive the curses of an indignant posterity for the breaking up of this glorious Union, that man is Wm. H. Seward; who in all his public acts has been governed by a desire to make political capital and to secure his political advancement. . . . I say, sir, for one, that I had rather perish, than say a kind word to that arch fiend who has destroyed his country. . . . I told him two years ago, that if this question were between him and myself, we would settle it in an hour, and settle it forever.

But, I say, Mr. President, that Virginia is not the Virginia of 1776. If Virginia has lowered herself so far as to receive such a compromise as has been tendered to us by the Peace Conference, it still leaves the question open. As mean and despicable as it is, to be scorned and spit upon, as it will be by every Virginian; there is not a man who believes that it can be adopted, and get a constitutional majority to make it an amendment to the Constitution. . . .

My friend from Bedford [Mr. WILLIAM GOGGIN] . . . speaks of a Middle Confederacy, and as an argument against the establishment of a Southern Confederacy, he tells you, as did the gentleman from Rockbridge [Mr. SAMUEL MCDOWELL MOORE] that you would have a line of 1500 miles to be defended by a standing army; and yet, by the establishment of this Middle Confederacy, you would have two lines, one North and one South. So that the evil of a standing army, if an evil it would be, would in his Middle Confederacy be doubled.⁷

While upon that point, let me say a word here, in relation to runaway slaves: If we formed a Confederacy of the slave states, . . . we could have ample protection with proper securities. And what would be that protection? That protection would be a discriminating duty of five per cent against them, until they would give us a treaty stipulation that our fugitive slaves should be surrendered. I believe that would be effectual, because, although our Northern brethren love humanity, they love money more. That we should have fewer runaways, I am perfectly satisfied, from this fact, that when you cleanse the Northern mind of the sin of slavery and divest them of the idea that they are responsible for it, they would feel themselves as free from the sin of slavery here as they are from the sin of slavery in Cuba, Brazil and the rest of the world. . . .

But my friends from Rockbridge and Bedford, seem to be apprehensive that Virginia would act unwisely in going into a Southern Confederacy, because they might pass a law re-opening the African slave trade. . . . I have an extensive acquaintance in all the South, and I have had an ample opportunity to test this matter, and I state from my experience and knowledge of this subject, that there are very few persons there who advocate the re-opening of the African slave trade. Gentlemen need have no apprehension upon this subject. If Virginia and the border States should go into council with her sister States of the South, they could exercise, and would have a controlling power in regulating and keeping down, and suppressing this trade. It is, therefore, a very powerful reason why Virginia should unite her destinies with the Southern Confederacy. . . .

If you will go out, as I trust in God you will, you will not be deliberating with my friend from Rockbridge [Mr. MOORE] or my friend from Bedford [Mr. GOGGIN] in a Central Confederacy. If you go at all you will go with your Southern brethren. If they give us the post of danger, they will also give us the post of honor. They want our statesmen; they want our military; they want the material arm of Virginia to sustain ourselves and them in the great struggles. . . .

Where is the man who, speaking of the great interests of Virginia in connection with the Northern Confederacy, can forget that for thirty years they have been warring upon the fifteen States of the South; that they have been sending their emissaries i...