Right to secede.
Of the 152 members of the convention there were probably few who did not hold to the constitutional right of a State to retire from the
Union; but, as I have said, a majority were opposed to the exercise
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of that right, and clung tenaciously to the hope that the alternative 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 15th 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 unconstitutional invasion of the
Southern States, and inaugurate a cruel war upon their people.
On the 17th of April, by a vote of 88 to 55, the convention resolved 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.
