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The announcement that the Convention of Virginia had passed an Ordinance of Secession, was received with the most universal and profound satisfaction.
There are no longer in
Virginia two parties.
The Union men and the Secessionists are arrayed in a solid band of brotherhood under the flag of
Virginia.
The only rivalry is which shall do and suffer most in defence of our common honor against the monstrous despotism at
Washington.
Lincoln's Proclamation has accomplished the union of all parties in
Virginia and the
South.
The Ordinance of Secession is the answer of the
Convention to that Proclamation, and the action of the
Convention is but the echo of the people's will.
The old Union, for which our fathers fought and bled, has been wilfully sacrificed by a Black Republican despot, and he now seeks to wrench from us our Liberty and Independence.
Virginia, which led the van in the war of ‘76, now meets him on the threshold.
She has been slow to act, but she will be slower still to retrace her steps.
The Union has lost its brightest planet, but it will henceforth beam as a star of the first magnitude in the purer, brighter, and grander constellation of the
Southern Cross.--
Richmond Dispatch.