Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/231

 The Monument to General Robert K Lee. 223

ernment disrupted I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people, and, save in defense, will draw my sword no more/'

This letter was written with reference to the secession of some of the cotton States on account of the election of Mr. Lincoln, and it expresses the views of the great majority of the people of Virginia at that time on that subject— views which were concurred in by large majorities in all the border slave States, and, as we shall see, by large minorities in the cotton States themselves. The opinion expressed in the letter, that secession should only be resorted to as a revolu- tionary measure, after every pacific and constitutional means of com- posing the difficulties that beset the country had been exhausted, and the feeling of attachment to the Union itself as preferable to any other government that could be established, provided the government of the Union itself should be placed upon the foundation of justice and equity, expressed the almost unanimous sentiment of the people of the border slave States and of a very large minority of those of the cotton States.

POPULAR OPPOSITION TO SECESSION.

The people of the cotton States were far from being agreed as to the wisdom and expediency of secession under the circumstances I have mentioned, as I shall now show. The ordinances of secession adopted by the conventions of the cotton States were not, as a gene- ral rule, submitted to the people for ratification, but we are not with- out the means of estimating the extent of the popular opposition.

HOW^ THE ORDINANCE WAS ADOPTED.

In South Carolina the ordinance was adopted unanimously by the convention, and while there is nothing to indicate that it met with serious opposition among the people, it was not submitted to them, but took effect by the action of the convention alone.

In Georgia a strong minority opposed the measure to the last, and a test resolution, declaring it to be the right and duty of Georgia to secede, passed the convention on the i8th of January, 1861, by a vote of only 165 to 130, and, after the adoption of this resolution, the ordinance of secession was opposed the next day by 89 members against 208 voting in favor of it.

In Alabama the ordinance was adopted by the convention on the nth of January by a vote of 61 to 39.