Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/369

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Two days after the fall of Fort Sumter, April 15, 1861, Mr. Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for troops to "repossess," as he this time had it, "the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union." Of course this meant war and nothing else. In the circular which accompanied the proclamation and fixed the quota of troops to be furnished by each State, States like Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and other Southern States which whilst they fully recognized the right of a State to secede at any time it saw fit to do so, had not yet seceded themselves, but had all of them refused to secede, were each called on to furnish their quotas of troops.

Now, of course, none of them could consistently furnish troops to Mr. Lincoln to prosecute a war which had been brought on by the bad faith and duplicity of his own administration.

As a result, they all refused. Governor Letcher, of Virginia, though he had been an ardent Union man, answered Mr. Lincoln: "You have chosen to inaugurate civil war," and that Virginia could furnish no troops to carry it on.

The Virginia Convention, then in session, which had, only eleven days before, on April 4, voted down an ordinance of secession by a vote of 89 against 45, now turned around and passed the ordinance by almost as large a vote. When this ordinance came before the people for ratification, though they had at the election for delegates to the Convention, voted for the Union by an immense majority, they now ratified it by a vote of almost exactly four to one. North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas all followed suit, and went out of the Union as quickly as they could; North Carolina by a unanimous vote of her convention; Arkansas with only one dissenting vote, and Tennessee by a vote of her people of considerably more than two to one. Thus, by the bad faith and duplicity of Mr. Lincoln's administration the country was plunged into the bloodiest war which the world has ever seen before or since, the cost of which during