Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/366

 360 Southern Historical Society Papers.

I am willing- to believe that Mr. Johnson has tried to be fair, and has presented the case as he understands it. But as a Virginian born and reared on her soil, familiar with her history, and proud of her traditions, I especially desire to enter my protest against the account he has given [see the Exaviiner of November 12th] of " The Seces- sion of Virginia."

The statement that Virginia's Governor (John Letcher) "was an ardent disunionist" exactly contradicts the fact. Governor Letcher, up to the issuing ot Mr. i^incoln's proclamation calling for seventy- tive thousand troops to coerce the seceded States, was an ardent 'Union'' man, as were a majority ot the people of Virginia. In- deed, his attachment to the Union was so strong — and his opposition to setression so emphatic and outspoken —that the secessionists dis- trusted him, and their chief organ, the Richmond Exami?ier, was hiled with abuse and denunciation of " our tortoise Governor," " the submissionist," "the betrayer of the liberties of the people," etc. Governor Letcher was in fullest accord with the Union leaders of the Virginia Convention, and refused every suggestion to call out troops to capture the navy-yard at Portsmouth, Fort Monroe, or Harper's Ferry until after the Convention had passed the ordinance of seces- sion. But he was, in all of his sympathies and feelings, a Virginian, did not believe in the right of the General Government to coerce a "Sovereign State," and promptly responded to Mr. Lincoln's call for Virginia's quota of the seventy-five thousand troops that no troops " would be furnished for any such purpose" — "an object" which, in his judgment, " was not within the purview of the Consti- tution or the laws." " You have," said he to Mr. Lincoln, "chosen to inaugurate civil war."

But the most remarkable statement in Mr. Johnson's article is as follows :

" Virginia's fate appears to have been determined by a measure that was less spectacular and more coldly significant. The Confede- rate Congress at Montgomery passed an act forbidding the impor- tation of slaves from States outside ol the Confederacy. When Virginia heard that, like the young man in Scripture, she went away s(jrrowful ; for in that line of trade she had great possessions. The cultivation of land by slave-labor had long since ceased to be profit- able in the border States — or at least it was far less profitable than raising slaves for the cotton States, and the acquisition of new terri- tory in Texas and Missouri had enormously increased the demand. The greatest part of this business (sometimes estimated as high as