Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 26.djvu/55

Rh State at the instance of the parties desiring to be made a new State, and nobody else consenting, and nobody else left to consent to it? * * * It is the party applying for admission consenting to the admission. That is the whole of it." Language could hardly be more emphatic or more accurate.

Mr. Dawes, of Massachusetts, was equally decided in his opposition to the scheme. "So far as I know," he said, "I do not believe there is a single person representing any portion of that part of Virginia which is left who ever consented to the erection and admission of this new State. Not one." And again. "It is trifling with the spirit of the Constitution to say that any portion of the State of Virginia which is left has consented in any way, in any form and substance to the dismemberment of the State."

Mr. Segar, from the Norfolk district, in Virginia, protested earnestly against the passage of the bill. "I must say," he said, "that according to my judgment the legal argument is altogether against the admission of the new State."

Of the forty-eight counties of which it was to be composed, eleven had never, he declared, had even the semblance of representation. It would be found that "there was not only not a majority of the people, but a singularly small proportion of them that voted for the new State and its new constitution." Ten counties with a population of 50,000 "did not cast a vote on the new State and constitution." In three counties, he was prepared to assert, on his personal knowledge of the sentiments of the people, that they were "as unanimous against this measure as any people ever were or ever can be against any measure whatsoever." The tyranny of the mother country to her colonies was no worse than the tyranny embodied in this bill. "I will only add in conclusion," he said, "that my constituents, one and all, shudder at the idea of the dismemberment of the Old Dominion."

Space hardly admits of further quotation, but the utterances of Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, are too remarkable to be passed over. "I do not," he declared bluntly, "desire to be understood as being deluded by the idea that we are admitting this State in pursuance of any provision of the Constitution. I find no such provision that justifies it. * * * * Now, sir, it is but mockery, in my judgment, to tell me that the Legislature of Virginia has ever consented to this division. * * * * I am grieved when I hear men high in authority sometimes talking of the constitutional difficulties about enforcing measures against this belligerent power (the Confederate States), and the next moment disregarding every vestige and