Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/83

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< i->e of that right, and clung tenaciously to the hope that the alter- native would never be put to Virginia either to draw her sword to coerce the States of the Southern Confederacy, or withdraw from the Union.

This alternative, however, at length came, when on the isth day April, Mr. Lincoln made his call for 75,000 men with which to invade the Southern Confederacy, and demanded of Virginia her quota. To honor this call was to abandon her principles, join in an uncon- stitutional invasion of the Southern States, and inaugurate a cruel war upon their people.

On the i yth of April, by a vote of 88 to 55, the convention re- solved upon an ordinance repealing the act by which Virginia had entered the Union, and submitted to a popular vote of the State, at an election to be held on the 4th Thursday of the following May, the ratification or rejection of this momentous step. The sentiments of many of the Union men of the convention doubtless found expression in the declaration of John B. Baldwin, the great Union leader, who, when called upon to know what would be the course of the Union men in Virginia declared: " We have no Union men in Virginia now, but those who were Union men will stand to their guns and make a fight that will shine out on the page of history as an example of what a brave people can do, after exhausting every means of pacification."

Thus was precipitated Virginia's secession from the Union. Thus was ushered in one of the most terrific wars in all history.

THE CAUSES OF WAR.

Time will not permit a consideration of the causes which brought on this great conflict. They are to be gathered from remote and far distant times, as well as the epoch of the great event. Echoes of the battles of Naseby and Marston Moor; differences in the mental and religious characteristics of Puritan and Cavalier; divergent interests springing from dissimilar commercial and industrial conditions; con- flicting notions as to the purposes of the Federal Government; crim- ination and recrimination as to the alleged prostitution of its powers for the advantage or disadvantage of the two sections; the institution of slavery; the attempted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave law; the nullification by States of this Federal statute; the abolition move- ment; the John Brown Raid; the growing hostility between the peo- ples of the North and the South; and finally, the triumph of section- alism in the elections of 1860.