University of Virginia Library

THE CONVENTION.

Never before, in the history of the State, had a body convened presenting
such an array of talent. Among its members sat John Tyler,
ex-president of the United States; Henry A. Wise, ex-governor of Virginia,
and many others who had held positions of cabinet ministers in
the Federal government, or had been representatives in the councils of
the nation. There sat her most renowned jurists by the side of her profoundest
philosophers and literary characters.

That body organized by electing John Taney, Esq., a delegate from
Loudoun county, president of the convention, and John L. Eubank secretary
of the same. A committee on Federal Relations was appointed,
consisting of Messrs. Robert Y. Conrad, A. H. H. Stewart, Henry A.
Wise, Robert E. Scott, W. B. Preston, Lewis L. Harvie, Sherrard
Clemens, W. H. McFarland, William McComas, R. L. Montague,
Samuel Price, Valentine W. Southall, Waitman T. Willey, James C.
Bruce, W. W. Boyd, James Barbour, S. C. Williams, William C. Rives,
Samuel McD. Moore, George Blow, Jr., and Peter C. Johnson. Stewart
and Clemens asked to be, and were, excused from serving.

On the 18th day of February there appeared before the convention the
commissioners on the part of South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi, to
ask the co-operation of Virginia in establishing an independent government
for the seceded States. The first speaker was the Hon. Fulton

Anderson, of Mississippi, followed by Hon. Henry L. Benning, from
Georgia. Then came the commissioner from South Carolina. All, in
speeches resplendent with rhetorical flourish and literary excellence,
held up to view a new government, of a new union, in which Virginia,
should she pass an ordinance of secession, would become the chief
corner-stone. The effect produced by this visit of the commissioners
was truly powerful, and, in fact, determined the future action of the
convention.

On the 9th of March, the committee on Federal Relations submitted
a lengthy report, in which it was set forth that any State had a constitutional
right to withdraw from the federative union whenever a majority
of the people of that State chose to do so. One of the most spirited
debates of modern times now began, and continued until the 17th of
April, when the ordinance of secession was voted upon. The vote stood
eighty-one for, and fifty-one against it. Nearly all the delegates voting
against it were from the western part of the State. The following is a
verbatim copy of that document, now the most remarkable State paper
in the archives of Virginia:

"An Ordinance, To repeal the ratification of the Constitution of
the United States by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights
and powers granted under the said constitution.

"The People of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution
of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the
twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven
hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted
under the constitution were derived from the people of the United
States, and might be resumed whenever the same should be perverted to
their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted
said powers, not only to the injury of the People of Virginia
but the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:

One hundred and forty-two signatures were attached to the ordinance.
At the election in May a majority of the votes cast were in favor of secession.
The governor issued a proclamation declaring Virginia out of
the Union, and placing the whole military force, offensive and defensive,
of the commonwealth under the chief control and direction of the president
of the Confederate States. Thus Virginia withdrew from the
Union.