Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[121] untiring and noble efforts to save it; her Legislature originated the Peace Conference, which assembled at Washington in February, 1861; her representatives in Congress sought in that body every mode of honourable pacification; her Convention sent delegates to Washington to persuade Mr. Lincoln to a pacific policy; and in every form of public. assembly, every expedient of negotiation was essayed by Virginia to save tile Union. When these efforts at pacification failed, and the Government at Washington drew the sword against the sovereignty of States and insisted on the right of coercion, it was then that Virginia appreciated the change of issue, and, to contest it, found it necessary to withdraw from the Union. Her act of secession was subordinate; it was a painful formality which could not be dispensed with to contest a principle higher than the Union, and far above the promptings of passion and the considerations of mere expediency.

It takes time for popular commotions to acquire their meaning and proper significance. A just and philosophical observation of events must find that in the second secessionary movement of the Southern States, the war was put on a basis infinitely higher and firmer in all its moral and constitutional aspects; that at this period it developed itself, acquired its proper significance, and was broadly translated into a contest for liberty.

It was in this changed view of the contest and on an issue in which force was directly put against the sentiment of liberty, that the Border States followed the lead of Virginia out of the Union. The particular occasion of the movement was not so much the fire at Sumter as the proclamation of Mr. Lincoln to raise forces, the only purpose of which could be the subjugation of the South. In this proclamation the issue was distinctly put before the Border States; for Mr. Lincoln called upon each of them to furnish their quotas of troops for a war upon their sister States. The unnatural demand was refused in terms of scorn and defiance. Gov. Magoffin of Kentucky replied that that State “would furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States.” Gov. Harris of Tennessee notified Mr. Lincoln that that State “would not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand if necessary for the defence of her rights.” Gov. Ellis of North Carolina telegraphed to Washington: “I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people.” Gov. Rector of Arkansas replied in terms of equal defiance, and declared “the demand is only adding insult to injury;” and Gov. Jackson slowed an indignation surpassing all the others, for he wrote directly to Mr. Lincoln: “Your requisition in my judgment is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary, and, in its objects, inhuman and diabolical.” The only Southern State that did not publicly share in this resentment, and that made it an occasion of official ambiloquy, was Maryland. Her Governor, Thomas