To the people of Charles city and the other counties and cities composing the Third Congressional District.
--The resolutions adopted by the people of
Charles City on Thursday last, expressive also, as I have reason to know, of the wishes of many citizens in other portions of this Congressional District, are highly appreciated by me, and are entitled to a frank and candid reply.
The times are full of peril and of profound interest.
A Government composed of States whose separate independence and sovereignty was acknowledged by the. Treaty of Peace of 1783, (he said treaty being made with each State separately by name, and with all collectively,) is now claimed, in opposition to the unobscured lights of history, to have been popular in its origin, and altogether so in its construction and operation.
This doctrine, as if to make it more flagitious, is asserted by the man who was elected to his high office by the votes of States, as States, conferred by their several
Electoral Colleges, and who wanted nearly a million of votes of the people to constitute a popular majority.
This is doubtless done to impress the world with the belief that the
Southern States have been and are guilty of a most base and infamous revolt; and at the same time to induce the misled masses of the
Northern people to maintain in power the unprincipled
Catalines who for long years, for their own emolument, have stirred up the bitter waters of hatred and ill on the part of the
North against the
South.
That Government, a mere agency of the States, whose territorial possessions, as if to indicate its true character, were limited to an area of but ten miles square, created by the States, each acting separately and for itself, is now, without the shadow of right, seized upon by States composing a section, and is made to war upon a part of its principals, who have quite as much right to annul it as others to perpetuate it. If
Virginia or her co-States have broken their compact or covenant, then let the offended or injured States a venge the wrong — not through an agency created by all for all, but in their character of sovereigns, through their own means and appliances.
Massachusetts, forsooth, undertakes to preach to
Virginia long hominies upon constitutional obligations and sends her armies to enforce her teachings upon us; and even
Rhode Island, of whom we had hoped better things, who stood out two years before she would give her assent to the agent Government, now, under the lead of her wealthy and manufacturing Governor, who is still anxious, doubtless, to fill his coffers to further and greater repletion, by high tax on imports, sends the
elite of her people with splendid batteries of artillery, to crush out
rebellion in
Virginia.
It looks rather unseemly that a State which, in 1812, did not believe that she could constitutionally send her militia beyond her State line to repel an invasion of other States by a foreign power with whom the then
United States were at war, should now, all of a sudden, come to the conclusion, that there was no constitutional barrier in her way when the conquest and subjugation of a once sister State was the game on foot, or that another, who would not adopt the
Government from extreme aversion to it, for two whole years, should so have fallen in love with it, that she should send forth her armed brigands to assist in crushing
the State which originated, but who has become heartily disgusted with it, because its perversion from its original objects into an engine to be used by a majority section for the oppression of a minority.--These demonstrations are accompanied, on the part of the agent Government, by proceedings gross, tyrannical, and revolting to all who have heretofore worshipped at the now desecrated shrine of public liberty.
It was once fondly believed that there were certain great principles which the Revolution in
England of 1688, and our ever- glorious Revolution of 1776, had canonized and rendered sacred; but we live to see the day when those principles are derided and trampled upon.--In vain does the victim of oppression demand, in the language of our
bill of rights, and of the
Constitution, a fair and impartial trial.
In vain that he invokes the principles of
Magna Charta, which are as dear to him as they were to any lordly baron at
Runnymede, or any Englishman since.
In vain that he appeals to the judges and the courts.
The venerable
Chief Justice, in his attempt to restore the reign of the law and the
Constitution, is mocked at, and his authority despised.
A
Provost Marshal usurps the place of the
Judge, and some unfledged General announces an irreversible decree of banishment or imprisonment.
Equally vain that the citizen claims his house to be his castle — armed men, without authority of law, arouse him from his slumbers at midnight, and hurry him away from home and family, to be immersed in gloomy and distant dungeons.
The freedom of speech and of the press, along with the freedom of elections — the guardians, as heretofore fondly supposed, of public freedom — have been crushed out; Legislatures are dispersed, their members consigned to prisons, and those citizens who have had the nerve to write or speak a word in opposition to such galling tyranny are to be found incarcerated in modern bastilles, where no ray of light emanating from mind or conscience is permitted to enter.
Such is, in brief, the night of despotism which now holds its gloomy reign over all the
North. --These very people who basely submit to a despotism so unrelenting and cruel, invade our soil without a shadow of right, and declare it to be their purpose to force us back into a Union which they have destroyed, under a Constitution which they have rendered a mockery and made a nullity.
Dream they of the blood that flows in our veins, derived from a glorious ancestry, when they talk of subjecting us to the same tyranny to which they themselves are even now subjected?
A renewal of their acquaintance with our history would instruct them to regard our subjugation as a day-dream, and nothing more.
That history will inform them that this noble old State, though nearly three centuries in existence, has, in no Instance, yielded to force or coercion.
Unless I overestimate the character of her people, they would sooner, to use the language of an Irish patriot, "raze every house, burn every blade of grass, and make the last entrenchments of liberty their grave," than submit to the wrong and oppression with which they are threatened.
Formidable armies are sent to crush her proud spirit, and to impose manacles on her free limbs.--Through a great misapprehension, as I think, of their duty, but, as they conceived it, in a lofty spirit of honor, our naval officers resigned the ships which they commanded, at the time of resigning their commissions into the hands of Northern officers, who carried them into Northern ports.
Thus have we been deprived of our just proportion of a Navy which our means assisted to build, and which is now to be used in efforts to ravage and plunder our coast, and burn and destroy our cities.
Surrounded thus, and threatened thus, I hold it as an axiom, that no man is at liberty to decline any position which the
State or its people may, by their unsolicited suffrage, confer upon him. For myself, while I seek nothing and aspire to nothing, I will decline no service which
Virginia, or any portion of her people, may require me to render.
If, then, the people of this district shall elect me to Congress, I shall accept the station, and devote my best energies to a successful termination of the war, and to advance the permanent interests of this great, and, as I doubt not it is to be, victorious Confederacy of States, under whose parental away I wish, for one, to live and die. If, however, either of my distinguished friends — for each of whom I entertain the highest regard — who have been announced as candidates, shall be elected, I shall be quite content, and will give to his useful and patriotic labors in the holy cause that engages us, my most hearty applause and approval.
October 21, 1861.
