William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

Entering on a course of self-reform, Virginia is making efforts in the one way that is likely to be fruitful and enduring. She is educating her citizens for a. new career; a career of freedom and industry, in which she hopes to gain the sympathy and assistance of the old country. English in her heart, she is .perfectly American in her head. She thinks, and rightly thinks, that in the beauty of her landscape, in the fertility of her soil, in the salubrity of her climate, she has means of drawing towards herself the thoughts of many English families who are looking out for new homesteads and settlements. A better education for her old stock, a freer opening for new comers, are the two planks in her platform of improvement.

The first plank comes first. Virginia has an evil reputation in the world; and men might hesitate ere putting their money and their characters into the power of such rowdies as the old Virginian drunkards, duellists, and gamesters are reported to have been. Some members of these classes still remain. In article number three of the New Constitution there is a clause condemning duellists to loss of civil rights.