Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/21

Rh battles is all that is left us." So said and thought Patrick Henry, in reply to the British exactions upon the colonies. So thought, too, the people of the Confederate States, and they did fight. They waged a war for which history has no parallel against such odds in resources and numbers. Borne down by odds, against which it was almost vain to contend, we were bound to submit, and they have taken from us that which, in my opinion, it will be found

Had the South permitted her property, her constitutional rights and her liberties to be surreptitiously taken from her without resistance and made no moan, would she not have lost her honor with them? If the alternative were between such a loss and armed resistance, is it surprising that she preferred the latter? 



The people of Botetourt county, in general meeting assembled, believe it to be the duty of all the citizens of the Commonwealth, in the present alarming condition of our country, to give some expression of their opinion upon the threatening aspect of public affairs. They deem it unnecessary and out of place to avow sentiments of loyalty to the constitution and devotion to the Union of these States. A brief reference to the part the State has acted in the past will furnish the best evidence of the feelings of her sons in regard to the Union of the States and the constitution, which is the sole bond which binds them together.

In the controversies with the mother country, growing out of the efforts of the latter to tax the colonies without their consent, it was Virginia who, by the resolutions against the stamp act, gave the example of the first authoritative resistance by a legislative body to the British Government, and so imparted the first impulse to the Revolution.

Virginia declared her independence before any of the colonies, and gave the first written constitution to mankind.

By her instructions her representatives in the General Congress