The Daily Dispatch: December 31, 1860., [Electronic resource]

Washington,29, October 1860

While the resolutions offered at your meeting on Thursday night do not come quite up to the mark of true Southern sentiment, they afford little or no encouragement to these amiable Northern gentlemen who have so industriously sought to make Virginia the tool of their coercive designs. Brief, pointed, dignified, without menace and without fear, they are worthy of Virginia's calm power and courage. They will do good to the Southern cause. But why will Virginians shut their eyes to the obvious fact that the highest, strongest, most unequivocal Southern ground, is now the most conservative? Why the misstatement of historical facts in the third resolution? The British did hold the American forts for a time after peace was declared, but there was an express stipulation in the treaty that the forts should be relinquished. No such stipulation exists as between the Federal Government and South Carolina. But let us say no more about the matter. As Virginians, as Southern men, we shall soon be called upon to take our stand in behalf of our common rights and our common honor. We must be brothers now.

Up to ten o'clock last night, the President, after declaring that Anderson had acted in violation of orders, and of the written agreement, signed by his own hand, and carried to South Carolina by Mr. Miles, was undecided what to do in the premises — whether to order Anderson back to Fort Moultrie, where he belongs, or to keep him in Fort Sumter, and so disgrace himself (the President,) and the Secretary of War. Floyd threatens to resign. --Should he do so, a coercionist will take his place, and the dearest wish of the Abolitionists (it is foolish to butter them over any longer with the name of Republicans,) will be realized — civil war will begin before Lincoln comes into power. If it must come, (and there seems not the least hope of avoiding it,) let it come. As earnestly as I could, as early as I could, I have striven to impress upon you all the imminence of this great evil, and if it finds you unprepared to meet it, the fault will be your own. I tell you most seriously, that, in all human probability, hostilities will commence within ten days from this time. South Carolina may fail to conquer Fort Sumter at the first, second or third assault; but it will be taken, cost what it may. That is my belief, after hearing all sides of the question debated by our best and ablest men here.

The border State meeting last night, at Willard's, ended in the forming of a committee of one from each of the States represented there, to take into consideration certain propositions, made by various gentlemen. Gov. Smith, speaking in the name of all his Virginia colleagues, repudiated the Middle Confederacy. So that dodge (it was nothing more) of the delayers and retarders, or Submissionists, as some call them, was knocked in the head. As to the action of the Committee of Fourteen, I suppose no man will trouble his mind about it; seeing how the Senate Committee of Thirteen has broken up, while the House Committee of Thirty-three has been quietly pushed out of public notice, as a thing of no consequence — a nuisance, to be thrust where it cannot offend the nostrils of respectable people.

The tocsin of war is sounding louder and louder in the Northern papers. Haskin, on the part of the New York delegation, exclusive of the members from New York city, has written to the Governor of his State urging him to prepare to sustain the Federal Government against the South. Chester county, Pennsylvania, is being districted off by the Abolitionists, and each district required to furnish a quota of volunteers, ready to take the field at any moment. Forewarned, forearmed; let the young men of Virginia take heed.

Fact after fact is turning up to prove, "beyond the reach of peradventure," as the lawyers say, that the taxation trouble in Western Virginia has been stirred up by the letters of a person whose name I need not mention.--Among the acts of the Convention to revise the Constitution, there was one declaring that this question should not be raised again until the year 1865. But even if this act were not in existence, there is nothing to fear from that portion of Virginia which brought over the Blue Ridge a majority of 4,000 for protection to slavery in the Territories. Rest assured that the originator of this wicked scheme to tear asunder his own State, will be overwhelmed with ignominy and utter defeat — he and all his abettors. Zed.