Virginia Secession Convention of 1861

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State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, site of the convention

The Virginia Secession Convention of 1861 was a special meeting of members of the Virginia General Assembly . It was convened in February 1861 to deliberate on a possible separation from the Union and, after this had been decided on April 17, remained in session until December 1861 in order to steer the state through the crisis and to prepare a new constitution which later failed in a referendum.

background

After Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election of November 1860 , reflecting the political division of the nation, and before his inauguration on March 4, 1861, the Deep South states , whose electoral votes had gone to John C. Breckinridge , decided to leave the To leave the Union and to found the Confederate States of America together . The Virginia General Assembly called a special assembly with the sole purpose of deliberating on a possible secession from the Union. Virginia was deeply divided on this issue, with about a third of MPs initially in favor of secession and two thirds against. It turned out, however, that the majority of the Unionists were also internally divided over the question of how to react to possible steps by Lincoln in the direction of enforcement. The so-called Conditional Unionists were only in favor of remaining in the Union if and as long as Lincoln did not take such steps, while the Unconditional Unionists did not make their opinion dependent on this question.

Meetings and debates

The Convention met for the first time on February 3, 1861 State Capitol of Richmond and chose John Janney as their chairman. The majority of the MPs initially declared themselves in favor of remaining in the Union. However, it was decided to remain in session and await the further development of events.

When the convention was called, the Confederate Congress had sent three envoys to Virginia to address the MPs in the first week of negotiations. Fulton Anderson, a Mississippi attorney , warned that the now-in-power Republican Party was seeking "the ultimate eradication of slavery and the restoration of the southern people." Georgia commissioner Henry Lewis Benning stated that Georgia declared secession because "secession from the north was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of slavery." The Virginia-born John S. Preston , envoy for South Carolina , even insisted that with Lincoln's election to the presidency, the North would have ordered the "extermination of southern white people," that they would now have to defend themselves and that Virginia would have the leadership role within the Confederation should take over. His fiery speech earned the convention a standing ovation, but only a third of the delegates were in favor of an immediate secession. The Conditional Unionists , however, reserved the right to change their minds if Lincoln took open steps of aggression.

Already at the beginning of the deliberations, the above-mentioned tripartite division of the delegates into secessionists, conditional unionists and unconditional unionists emerged. During the second week of the debate, on February 28, Jeremiah Morton , Delegate for Orange County , made one of the first speeches for the secessionists. Abolitionist fanaticism was "burned into the minds of Northerners and ingrained in their hearts" so that whatever compromise one could imagine could be made and still no peace would be found from their hostility as long as what taught them and had been learned could not be reversed. For the past 30 years they would not have left the 15 southern states in peace. He also posed the rhetorical question of whether slavery could be secured if black Republicans soon took over all branches of the federal government. The union was already dissolved and Virginia would undoubtedly join its southern brother states. By handing over the most endangered post to the state, the Confederation is handing over the most honorable one. The Confederation wants and needs the statesmen, the military and the economic power of Virginia to keep itself and the state of Virginia alive through the coming great battles.

On March 4, the day of Lincoln's inauguration, Jefferson Davis launched a call for 100,000 militiamen to be enlisted for one year of service to the Confederate populations and to deploy troops to the siege of Fort Sumter , South Carolina and Fort Pickens , Florida. In his inaugural address, Lincoln made specific reference to the Corwin Amendment , which would guarantee slavery in the southern states. On the same day, Monongalia County's Waitman T. Willey made a unionist speech at the convention. He defended Virginia's right to slavery and accepted the opposing side's argument that the institution was in danger, but insisted that Virginia should get its oppressors to acknowledge their mistakes and make amends for their injuries. He rejected the antidote proposed by the opposing side, secession, as it contradicted the constitution and warned that such an antidote would bring war, high tax burdens and ultimately the abolition of slavery for Virginia. By remaining in the Union, the state can ensure that the states that have left the Federation can one day return to the bosom of the Union.

John S. Carlile of Alleghany County , like Willey an unconditional unionist , stressed that the people of western Virginia stand behind slavery as an essential part of American freedom. But that would not mean that he could give up his unionist convictions. The government that the secessionists are now trying to bring down has never done anything but good for Virginia. No violation of his rights has ever been done to the state by this side and a law regarding slavery has never been imposed on him that the slavery states had not also approved. In the event of secession and affiliation with the Federation, the North would no longer be bound by the constitutional rules upholding slavery and would join forces with England, France and Spain to eradicate slavery around the world.

Thomas Jefferson's grandson George Wythe Randolph , a Richmond attorney, delivered a secessionist speech in which he noted that while the Republicans' victory in the White House race was strictly constitutional, it was only a victory of particular interests. The government is therefore "constitutionally revolutionized", which only a counter-revolution can reverse. The economic power of the state should be made available to the confederation and, in return, protection from northern competition should be given. Contrary to what has been suggested, this step would not bring war, but rather avert it. Neutrality is impossible and, moreover, would be dishonorable.

In the meetings held on March 21 to 23 held John Brown Baldwin from the Augusta County a unionist speech in which he the attitude of African slaves initially in good and explained. However, he would see the justification of secession with the election of a certain president as unjustified and a direct attack on the principles of American freedom. The separation of powers with the constitutional checks and balances is a protection against freedom restrictions against a minority or the rights of the federal states . Even after the exit of a number of states, the Republican majority in Congress voted for a constitutional amendment that precluded any interference by the federal government in the provisions on slavery in individual states. The vast majority of people who are not political leaders or fanatics of one side or the other have a real need for togetherness, peace and unity with one another. Baldwin believed that a conference of border states that would adopt the peace conference's recommendations would be one way of persuading the confederate states to return to the union individually.

John S. Barbour Jr. from Culpeper County was the first Unionist to pull away from their front against secession. He spoke out in favor of an energetic protection of slavery, but at the same time also for the protection of the manufacturing industry and trade in Virginia against the interests of the north. He raised the question of what would be better suited for this: participation in a hostile association, in which you have 11 out of 150 votes, or in the friendly confederation, where you have 21 out of 89 votes. The southern government is fully functional, strong, powerful and efficient. Ex-Governor Henry A. Wise then tried, together with a number of secessionist speakers, to move the convention in the direction of a spontaneous "Southern Rights Convention", which should immediately install a secessionist government. In the April 4 vote, however, almost two-thirds of the MPs voted against the secession and a three-man delegation was sent to the president to discuss his planned measures to protect federal property in the south.

After the fall of Fort Sumter , Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to volunteer for a period of three months to reclaim the forcibly seized federal property in the southern states. Of these, 3500 should be Virginians. The Unionists in Virginia wanted the commencement of military action that would violate Virginia's neutrality to be delayed until a referendum approved such steps as the convention statutes provided. However, the unionist bloc crumbled in the face of Lincoln's steps to raise troops and the meeting went into secret session on April 16 by majority vote. Various unionists warned that push for secession and war would lead the North to demand the abolition of slavery in Virginia. The next day, Wise declared that he had started the anti-federal government revolution by occupying Harper's Ferry Armory and Gosport Navy Yards in Norfolk by loyal Virginians. The well-known duelist, who had previously killed an opponent, drew his pistol on the podium and waved it around in the air to emphasize his speech. He tried to intimidate and impress the little slaveholders from the Piedmont and the Great Valley , who had previously voted to remain in the Union. Most of the Conditional Unionists now joined the secessionist camp and the following resolution to secede received 88 votes for and 55 against, with nine abstentions.

consequences

Virginia's Declaration of Secession revoked the ratification of the United States Constitution by the State of Virginia. This constitution has been perverted to violate and oppress the residents of the slave-holding southern states. Two days after the resolution and a month before the referendum, the Confederate flag was hoisted over the state capitol, a delegation was sent to the Confederate Congress, the state militias were called to arms, and a Confederate army was invited to occupy Richmond. Although the votes of the unionist counties were lost in the referendum, the total number of votes counted was higher than in the 1860 presidential election. Many men cast their votes in person in the Confederate army camps . The secession was approved by 128,884 votes to 32,134. The "war in defense of Virginia", as the conflict was called by the State Assembly, was lost and secession and the Confederate pledge to preserve slavery became obsolete.

The convention closed the Unconditional Unionists William G. Brown and James Clark McGrew (who represented transmontane Preston County ) on June 29, 1861 from participating in the May Wheeling Convention . Other participants in this convention, which later led to the founding of the state of West Virginia , remained unmolested. On October 24, 1861, on Election Day for the Wheeling Constitutional Convention, five Preston County men in a Pocahontas County confederate camp elected secessionist lawyers Robert E. Cowan and Charles JP Cresap to replace Brown and McGrew while the voters who that day actually cast their votes in Preston County, electing Charles Hooton and William B. Zinn (both of whom had attended the sessions of the Wheeling Convention in May and July 1861). The unionist George W. Summers , who had represented Kanawha County several times in the Virginia General Assembly and in the 27th and 28th Congress and had subsequently become a judge, resigned and was replaced by Andrew Parks.

The Richmond Convention dissolved on December 6, 1861.

literature

  • Virginius Dabney: Virginia: the New Dominion, a history from 1607 to the present . University of Virginia Press, 1989, ISBN 9780813910154 .
  • William Freehling, Craig M. Simpson: Showdown in Virginia: the 1861 Convention and the fate of the Union . University of Virginia Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-8139-2964-4 .
  • Ronald L. Heinemann: Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: a history of Virginia, 1607-2007 . University of Virginia Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8139-2769-5 .
  • Peter Wallenstein: Cradle of America: a history of Virginia . University Press of Kansas, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7006-1994-8 .

Web links

References and comments

  1. ^ "The ultimate extinction of slavery and the degradation of the Southern people"
  2. ^ "A separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery."
  3. ↑ Addresses delivered before the Virginia state convention by Hon. Fulton Anderson, commissioner from Mississippi, Hon. Henry L. Benning, commissioner from Georgia, and Hon. John S. Preston, commissioner from South Carolina, February 1861.
  4. ↑ "inculcated in the Northern mind and ingrained in the Northern heart"
  5. ↑ "so that you may make any compromise you please, and still, until you can unlearn and unteach the people, we shall find no peace ..."
  6. ^ "For thirty years they have been warring upon the fifteen States of the South."
  7. ↑ “They want our statesmen; they want our military; they want the material arm of Virginia to sustain ourselves and them in the great struggles. ”Quotations from Freehling 2010, pp. 3–10.
  8. ↑ Freehling 2010, pp. 12-21.
  9. ↑ "essential to American liberty."
  10. ^ "This government that we are called upon to destroy has never brought us anything but good. No injury has it ever inflicted on us. No act has every been put upon the statute book of our common country, interfering with the institution of slavery in any shape, manner or form, that was not put there by and with the consent of the slave-holding States of this Union ... "
  11. ↑ Freehling 2010, pp. 13–26.
  12. ↑ "The Government, then ... is constitutionally revolutionized, and requires a counter-revolution to restore it."
  13. ^ "Let [Virginia's industries] go with us into a Southern Confederacy, and receive protection from Northern industry, and they will be what they ought to be — the manufacturers and miners of a great [Southern] nation."
  14. ↑ "We are told it will bring war. On the contrary it will tend to avert was ... Neutrality is impossible and would be dishonorable. "" Quotes from Freehling 2010, pp. 51–61.
  15. ↑ "African slavery, as it exists in Virginia, is a right and a good thing ..."
  16. ↑ "a direct assault upon the fundamental principles of American liberty"
  17. ↑ "encroachment upon the liberties of the minority of the people or upon the rights of the States."
  18. ↑ "... the great masses of people, leaving out the politicians and fanatics of both sections, have this day an earnest yearning for each other, and for peace and Union with each other ..."
  19. ↑ Freehling 2010, pp. 75–87.
  20. ↑ "in a hostile confederacy in which your [legislative] power will be but 11 out of 150 [with he North], or in a friendly confederacy where it will be 21 out of 89 [with the South]?"
  21. ↑ "in full working order, strong, powerful and efficient ..."
  22. ↑ Heinemann 2008, p. 219.
  23. ↑ Freehling 2010, pp. 165–166.
  24. ↑ Freehling 2010, pp. 169–176.
  25. ↑ Heinemann 2008, pp. 219-221.
  26. ↑ "perverted to Their injury and oppression ... not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding states.", Quoted from Wallenstein 2007, p.190.
  27. ↑ Dabney 1989, pp. 294-296.
  28. ↑ Heinemann 2008, pp. 222-223.
  29. ↑ Cynthia Miller Leonard: Virginia General Assembly 1619-1978 Virginia State Library, Richmond 1978, p. 476 and footnote, p. 490.
  30. ↑ http://edu.lva.virginia.gov/online_classroom/union_or_secession?doc/prestoncounty.htm
  31. ^ Leonard, p. 475 and footnote.