A State of things to be Deprecated.
That the
Union is already divided and that the question for
Virginia to decide is whether she will go with the
North or the
South, may not be evident to the perceptions of some of her citizens, but it is sufficiently so to many others, not a few of whom bear a large portion of the tax-paying burthens of the
State, to determine their own course.
Legislatures or Conventions may decide as they please, but property, the most sensitive of all things, will also decide for itself, and we have heard of many instances in which it is already preparing to take unto itself wings and fly away.
The millions which
Virginia has already lost from fugitive slaves, are but as a drop in the bucket to the exodus Southward which will follow the adhesion of this State to a Northern Confederacy.--The kind of property which bears so heavily the burthen of State support is not fixed and stationary, it has legs and locomotion, and those who own it are not denied the right and power of placing it in safety.
If murrain prevailed extensively among the cattle of
Ohio and
Pennsylvania, it is probable that the owners of
Virginia herds upon the borders would remove their flocks as speedily as possible to some spot where there is no danger of contagion, and the like instinct will stimulate many
Virginia slaveholders to a like course should their property be exposed to the more pestilent plague of abolitionism, by making this State the rump of a Northern Confederacy Such a state of things is deeply to be deplored; but, not a day passes over our heads that we do not meet gentlemen of both parties who announce with profound sadness, but equally profound determination, their intention to leave
Virginia if she is left at the mercy of the abolition States.
With the gates of the Southern Confederacy shut down against importation of slaves from the border States, and with free-soil majorities in the
Northern Confederacy sufficient at any time to alter or abolish the institution in
Virginia, it cannot be matter of surprise that large slave proprietors should be looking to their safety, and preparing to entrench their property and themselves in a less accessible and more secure position.
We trust in Heaven this result will not be forced upon any large portion of the slaveholding community, not only because we would save these noble and patriotic sons of
Virginia from the unhappiness of a life-long exile from their native land, but the
State from that effectual crippling of her resources, which must follow the withdrawal of so considerable a portion of her tax-paying property.
In every aspect in which it can be viewed, the interest of
Virginia is profoundly identified with our Southern brethren.
Now, they are our friends; they are, to the extent of their ability, the purchasers of our manufactures, and the only purchasers; they are anxious, with the increased means which a new Government will throw into their hands, to build up our commerce and manufactures; they have always frequented our watering-places in the mountains, which would, indeed, be lonely and dismal without them.--But brethren estranged are the most bitter of all enemies, and it requires no prophet to predict that if
Virginia deserts the
Southern family circle, every member of that circle will desert
Virginia, and they would sooner, a thousand times, as is evident from the reply of
Gov. Ellis, of
North Carolina, to the
Baltimore overtures, trade with the noble
city of New York, or even with open enemies in
Massachusetts itself, than with any border community which deserts them in the hour of trial.
They will spend their money at Northern Springs or in
European tours, instead of lavishing it like water in the mountains of
Western Virginia.
There never was a more important crisis than the present, so far as
Virginia is concerned.
As for the
South, the independence of the
Gulf States is an accomplished fact; they hold their destiny in their own hands; no corrupt Federal place-hunter can befool or debauch them to their ruin; reconstruction, possible some time ago, is now with them among antediluvian fossils that no power under Heaven can stimulate to life.
But whether anything is to be left of
Virginia, but the name, depends upon whether she avails herself, even at this late hour, of the prophetic monitions of
Patrick Henry, or whether she chains herself to the car of a consolidated despotism.
‘"No man can serve two masters."’ ‘"Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.
If the
Lord be God, serve him; but if Baal, then serve him."’
