The effect of Mr. Lincoln's proclamation at the South was no less decisive than at the North. It remains a problem, which facts were never permitted to decide, but the solution of which may at least be approached by the logical considerations of history, to what extent the Border Slave States might have been secured to the Union by the policy of peace, and the simple energy of patience on the part of the government at Washington. As it was, the proclamation presented a new issue; it superseded that of the simple policy of secession; and it inaugurated the second secessionary movement of the Southern States on a basis infinitely higher and firmer, in all its moral and constitutional aspects, than that of the first movement of the Cotton States.

The proclamation was received at Montgomery with derisive laughter; the newspapers were refreshed with the Lincolniana of styling sovereign States " unlawful combinations," and warning a people standing on their own soil to return within twenty days to their "homes ;" and, in Virginia, the Secessionists were hugely delighted at the strength Mr. Lincoln had unwittingly or perversely contributed to their cause. One after the other of the Border States refused the demands for their quotas in terms of scorn and defiance. Governor Rector, of Arkansas, repudiated the proclamation with an expression of concentrated defiance; Governor Magoffin, of Kentucky, replied, that that State would "furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States;" Governor Ellis, of North Carolina, telegraphed to Washington, "I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of

Subsequently the famous Hartford Convention was called. It assembled in the city of Hartford, on the 15th of December, 1814, and remained in session twenty days. It made a report accompanied by a series of resolutions. The following is a part of the report, as adopted:

"In cases of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infractions of the Consti tution, affecting the sovereignty of a State and the liberties of the people, it is not only the right, but the duty, of each State to interpose its authority for their protection in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies occur which are either beyond the reach of judicial tribunals, or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their forms, States, which have no common umpire, must be their own judges and execute their own decisions.”

This is the doctrine which the South had always held from the beginning, and for which the South is now pouring out her blood and treasure

this country, and especially to this war which is being waged upon a free and independent people;" Governor Jackson, of Missouri, replied directly to Mr. Lincoln, "Your requisition in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary and, in its objects, inhuman and diabolical;" and even the unspirited governor of Virginia, John Letcher, constrained by the policy of the time-server to reflect the changes which had become apparent to him in the uprising indignation of the people, ventured upon a remonstrance to President Lincoln, reminding him that his proclamation was "not within the purview of the Constitution or the act of 1795." The only Southern governor that signified any degree of submission to the proclamation was the notorious Thomas Holladay Hicks, of Maryland; he gave verbal assurances to Mr. Lincoln that that State would supply her quota and give him military support; but, at the same time, with an art and effrontery that only a demagogue could attain, he published a proclamation to the people of Maryland, assuring them of his neutrality, and promising that an opportunity would be given them, in the election of congressmen, to determine, of their own free will, whether they would sustain the old Union, or assist the Southern Confederacy.

On the 17th day of April, the Virginia Convention passed an ordinance of secession. It was an important era in the history of the times. It gave the eighth State to the Southern Confederacy. The position of Virginia was a commanding one with the other Border States; she started, by her act of secession, the second important movement of the revolution; and she added to the moral influence of the event by the fact, that she had not seceded on an issue of policy, but on one of distinct and practical constitutional right, and that too in the face of a war, which had become absolutely inevitable and was frowning upon her own borders.

Virginia had been chided for her delay in following the Cotton States out of the Union, and, on the other hand, when she did secede, she was charged by the Northern politicians with being inconsistent and having kept bad faith in her relations with the Federal government. Both complaints were equally without foundation. The record of the State was singularly explicit and clear.

The Virginia Resolutions of '98 and '99 had for sixty years constituted the text-book of the State Rights politicians of the South. The doctrine of State sovereignty was therein vindicated and maintained, and the right and duty of States, suffering grievances from unjust and unconstitutional Federal legislation, to judge of the wrongs, as well as of "the mode and measure of redress," were made clear. The Virginia platform, as thus laid down in the elder Adams' time, was adopted by the "Strict Constructionist" party of that day, and has been reasserted ever since. Mr. Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic party in this country, was elected upon this platform, and his State Rights successors all acknowledged its orthodoxy. Whenever there arose a conflict between Federal and State authority, the voice of Virginia was the first to be heard in behalf of State Rights. In 1832-33, when the Tariff and Nullification, controversy arose, Virginia, though not agreeing with South Carolina as to the particular remedy to which she resorted, yet assured that gallant State of her sympathy, and, at the same time, reasserted her old doctrines of State Rights. Her gallant and patriotic governor, John Floyd, the elder, declared that Federal troops should not pass the banks of the Potomac to coerce South Carolina into obedience to the tariff laws, unless over his dead body. Her Legislature was almost unanimously opposed to the coercion policy, and a majority of that body indicated their recognition of the right of a State to secede from the Union. The voice of Virginia was potential in settling this controversy upon conditions to which the Palmetto State could agree with both honor and consistency. At every stage of the agitation of the slavery question in Congress and in the Northern States, Virginia declared her sentiments and her purposes in a manner not to be misunderstood by friend or foe. Again and again did she enter upon her legislative records, in ineffable characters, the declaration that she would resist the aggressive spirit of the Northern majority, even to the disruption of the ties that bound her to the Union.

With almost entire unanimity, Virginia had resolved in legislative council, in 1848, that she would not submit to the passage of the Wilmot proviso, or any kindred measure. From the date of the organization of the Anti-Slavery party, her

people, of all parties, had declared that the election of an Abolitionist to the Presidency would be a virtual declaration of war against the South on the part of the North, and that Virginia and every other Slave State ought to resist it as such. The Legislature that assembled a few weeks after Lincoln's election declared in effect, with only four dissenting voices, that the interests of Virginia were thoroughly identified with those of the other Southern States, and that any intimation, from any source, that her people were looking to any combination in the last resort other than union with them, was unpatriotic and treasonable.

The sovereign Convention of Virginia, elected on the 4th of February, 1861, for a long time lingered in the hope that the breach that had taken place in the Union might be repaired by new constitutional guaranties. Nevertheless, that body, before it had yet determined to pass an ordinance of secession —while it was, in fact, hopeful that the Union would be saved through the returning sanity of the Northern people-adopted unanimously the following resolution:

"The people of Virginia recognize the American principle, that government is founded in the consent of the governed, and the right of the people of the several States of this Union, for just cause, to withdraw from their association under the Federal government, with the people of the other States, and to erect new governments for their better security; and they never will consent that the Federal power, which is, in part, their power, shall be exerted for the purpose of subjugating the people of such States to the Federal authority."

The entire antecedents of Virginia were known to Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet. They knew that she was solemnly pledged, at whatever cost, to separate from the Union in the very contingency they had brought about—namely, the attempt to subjugate her sister States of the South. They knew that the original "Union men," as well as the original Secessionists, were committed beyond the possibility of recantation to resistance to the death of any and every coercive measure of the Federal government. Nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln and his advisers had the temerity to make a call upon the State of Virginia to furnish her quota of seventy-five thousand men to subjugate the seceded States. They had but little right to be surprised at the course taken by the State, and still less to charge it with inconsistency or perfidy.

It was expected that Maryland might follow the heroic course of Virginia, and but two days after the secession of the latter State, there were indications in Maryland of a spirit of emulation of the daring and adventurous deeds that had been enacted South of the Potomac. On the 19th of April the passage of Northern volunteers, on their way to Washington, was intercepted and assailed by the citizens of Baltimore, and for more than two weeks the route through that city was effectually closed to Mr. Lincoln's mercenaries. The Baltimore "riot," as it was called, was one of the most remarkable collisions of the times. A number of Massachusetts volunteers, passing through Baltimore in horse cars, found the track barricaded near one of the docks by stones, sand, and old anchors thrown upon it, and were compelled to attempt the passage to the depot, at the other end of the city, on foot. They had not advanced fifteen paces after leaving the cars when they found their passage blocked by a crowd of excited citizens, who taunted them as mercenaries, and flouted a Southern flag at the head of their column. Stones were thrown by a portion of the crowd, when the troops presented arms and fired. The crowd was converted into an infuriated mob; the fire was returned from a number of revolvers; the soldiers were attacked with sticks, stones, and every conceivable weapon, and in more than one instance their muskets were actually wrung from their hands by desperate and unarmed men. Unable to withstand the gathering crowd, and bewildered by their mode of attack, the troops pressed along the street confused and staggering, breaking into a run whenever there was an opportunity to do so, and turning at intervals to fire upon the citizens who pursued them. As they reached the depot they found a crowd already collected there and gathering from every point in the city. The other troops of the Massachusetts regiment who had preceded them in the horse cars had been pursued by the people along the route, and the soldiers did not hesitate to stretch themselves at full length on the floors of the cars, to avoid the missiles thrown through the windows. The scene that ensued at the depot was terrific. Taunts, clothed in the most fearful language, were hurled at the troops by the panting crowd who, almost breathless with running, pressed up to the windows, presenting knives and revolvers, and cursing up in