Page:Sectionalism in Virginia from 1776 to 1861.djvu/9



My interest in things pertaining to both West Virginia and Virginia is due largely to the fact that I was reared and educated in the former state and born of parents who, like all true Virginians, never forgot the latter, the state of their nativity. Quite early in my college career I began to inquire about the causes of the dismemberment of the "Old Dominion." I then planned to write a monograph upon the "Formation of West Virginia." But a casual search into the preliminaries for this study soon convinced me that they were probably more important than the subject upon which I proposed to write. Accordingly I gave up my original plan for a more difficult undertaking, the study of sectionalism in Virginia during the ante-bellum period. As it would require volumes to present every detail of this subject, I have restricted this monograph mainly to the political differences.

Neither pains nor time have been spared to obtain accurate and exhaustive information. In addition to the suggestions and information kindly given me by scores of old men, who remember the last years of the ante-bellum period, I have tried to obtain, by travel and otherwise, a thorough knowledge of the geography of both Virginia and West Virginia. Besides, I have made research in person in the Department of Archives and History, at Charleston, W. Va., in the Virginia State Library, at Richmond, in the Library of