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 littic right to be surprised at the course taken by the State, and still less to charge it with inconsistency or perridy.

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

the faces of the soldiers. A wild cry was raised on the plat form, and a dense crowd rushed out, spreading itself along the railroad track, until for a mile it was black with the excited, rushing mass. The crowd, as they went, filled the track with obstructions; the police who, throughout the whole affair, had contended for order with the most devoted courage, followed in full run removing the obstructions; as far as the eye could reach the track was crowded with the pursuers and pursued, a struggling and shouting mass of human beings. In the midst of the excitement the train moved off; and as it passed from the depot a dozen muskets were fired by the soldiers into the people that lined the track, the volley killing an estimable citizen who had been drawn to the spot only as a spectator. The results of the riot were serious enough: two of the soldiers were shot; several of the citizens had been killed, and more than twenty variously wounded.

The excitement in Baltimore continued for weeks; the bridges on the railroad to the Susquehanna were destroyed; the regular route of travel broken up, and some twenty or twenty-five thousand Northern volunteers, on their way to Washington, detained at Havre de Grace, a portion of them only managing to reach their destination by the way of Annapolis. On the night of the day of the riot, a mass-meeting was held in Monument Square, and was addressed by urgent appeals for the secession of Maryland, and speeches of defiance to the Lincoln government. Governor Hicks, alarmed by the display of public sentiment, affected to yield to it. He addressed the crowd in person, condemning the coercive policy of the government, and ending with the fervid declaration, "I will suffer my right arm to be torn from my body before I will raise it to strike a sister State." The same man, in less than a month thereafter, when Maryland had fallen within the grasp of the Federal government, did not hesitate to make a call upon the people for four regiments of volunteers to assist that government in its then fully declared policy of a war of inva sion and fell destruction upon the South.

In the city of St. Louis there were collisions between the citizens and soldiery as well as in Baltimore; but in Missouri the indications of sympathy with the South did not subside or allow themselves to be choked by spectral fears of the "crucial

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experiment of secession"-they grew and strengthened in the face of all the Federal power could do.

The riots in Maryland and Missouri were, however, only inci dents in the history of the period in which they occurred That history is occupied with far more important and general cvents, indicating the increased and rapid preparations, North and South, for war; the collection of resources, and the policy and spirit in which the gathering contest was to be conducted. Mr. Lincoln had, on the 19th of April, published his proclamation, declaring the ports of the Southern Confederacy in a state of blockade, and denouncing any molestation of Federal vessels on the high seas as piracy. The Provisional Congress at Montgomery had formerly recognized the existence of wai with the North, and letters of marque had been issued by the Confederate authority. The theatre of the war on land was indicated in Virginia. General Lee, who had resigned a commission as colonel of cavalry in the old United States army, was put in command of all the Confederate States forces in Virginia.

That State was the particular object of the rancor of the government at Washington, which proceeded to inaugurate hostilities on her territory by two acts of ruthless vandalism. On the 19th day of April the Federals evacuated Harper's Ferry, after an attempt to destroy the buildings and machineshops there, which only partially succeeded-the armory buildings being destroyed, but a train to blow up the machineshop failed, and a large quantity of valuable machinery was uninjured. On the succeeding day, preparations were made for the destruction of the Navy Yard at Norfolk, while Federal reinforcements were thrown into Fortress Monroe. The work of vandalism was not as fully completed as the enemy had designed, the dry-dock, which alone cost several millions of dollars, being but little damaged; but the destruction of property was immense, and attended by a terrible conflagration, which at one time threatened the city of Norfolk.

All the ships in the harbor, excepting the old frigate the United States, were set fire to and scuttled. They were the Pennsylvania, the Columbus and Delaware, the steam-frigate Merrimac (she was oniy partially destroyed), the sloops Germantown and Plymouth, the frigates Raritan and Columbia,