Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

[195] North, created by John Brown's raid, representatives of Virginia in Congress issued a manifesto, nine days before the election of delegates to the State Convention.

January 26, 1861.

After mentioning proceedings in Congress looking toward “guaranties for the South,” they said:--“It is our duty to warn you that it is in vain to hope for any measure of conciliation or adjustment which you could accept. We are also satisfied that the Republican party designs, by civil war alone, to coerce the Southern States, under the pretext of enforcing, the laws, unless it shall become speedily apparent that the seceding States are so numerous, determined, and united, as to make such an attempt hopeless. . . . There is nothing to be hoped from Congress. The remedy is with you alone, when you assemble in sovereign convention. . . . We conclude by expressing our solemn conviction that prompt and decided action, by the people of Virginia, in convention, will afford the surest means, under the providence of God, of averting an impending civil war, and preserving the hope of reconstructing a Union already dissolved.” This manifesto was signed by R. M. T. Hunter and nine others.¹ Hunter was the ablest man among them, and one of the most dangerous of the chief conspirators against the Government.

The election was held on the, appointed day,

February 4, 1861.

and of the one hundred and fifty-two delegates chosen, a large majority were opposed to secession. Concealing this. fact, and using the other fact, that the unconditional Unionists were few, the newspapers in the interest of the conspirators declared that “not twenty submissionist Union men” had been chosen. “Virginia,” said the leading organ of the secessionists in that State,

R. M. T. Hunter.

“will, before the 4th of March, declare herself absolved from all further obligation to the Federal Government. It is eminently proper that the State which was the leader in the Revolution, and the first to proclaim the great doctrine of State Rights in 1799, should lead the column of the Border States.” ²

We will consider the proceedings of the Virginia Convention hereafter.

The conspirators felt great anxiety and doubt concerning the position of Maryland. To the disloyalists of that State, with those of Virginia, they had looked for the most efficient aid in the work of seizing the National Capital. Maryland lay between the Free-labor States and that capital, and might be a barrier against Northern troops sent to protect it. Emissaries and commissioners from the Cotton-growing States were early within its borders plying their seductive arts, and they found so many sympathizers among the slaveholders, and a large class in Baltimore, connected by blood, affection, and commerce with the South, that they entertained, for a while,