National forts.
The
National Intelligencer, which, under its new Northern editor, has exhibited a persistent desire to smooth over the faults and deformities of Black Republicanism, not long since had an elaborate article on the policy of the
Government relative to the seceded States, which, it was rumored, had been read and approved by that arch-traitor Sewared. This article, while urging a very pacific policy generally, started a new idea with reference to the
Florida forts.
It drew a distinction between those forts and others, declaring them to have been built with especial reference to national commerce and important for the protection of the national trade in the
Gulf.--
Florida, it said, was a small State, and had no commerce of consequence to protect, and therefore ought to consent to the holding of those forts by the
Federal Government.
A more sophistical argument could not have been urged, and we had not supposed it could possibly find favor in
Virginia.
But we live in an age of surprises, and it has turned out that the State Convention now in session in this city has extended the list of its own astonishing achievements by adopting this suggestion from the
Intelligencer, and incorporating it in the ragout of resolutions they have been so long cooking and stirring in the cauldron of Federalism.
If
Florida is a small State, are not her right, and immunities co-equal with those of the largest of States under the Federative system?
Then by what right is it demanded that she shall yield her territory occupied by forts any more than
Georgia and
Mississippi?
But, pray, is not
Florida a member of the Southern Confederacy, and has not that Confederacy a commerce — aye, a national commerce — to be protected?
Indeed, the commerce of the Southern Confederacy to be protected by those
Gulf forts is out of all comparison greater than that of
Lincoln's Confederacy.
If the rights of States and Confederacies are to be settled by this cunningly devised rule, originated by the
Intelligencer and approved by our double-dealing Convention, to which Confederacy ought
Tortugas and
Key West be awarded?
Clearly to the
Southern.
We confess our deep mortification at the adoption of this sophistical and untenable distinction by the Virginia Convention.
It is unworthy of that body, as much as it has faltered in a double sense, leaving the world in doubt whether it inclined most to the
North or the
South.
Do the gentlemen — the distinguished leaders of the
Convention — who single out these forts as forts that
Abraham Lincoln ought to hold, suppose, for a moment, that their sophistical argument will have any weight with the seceded States?
Do they suppose those States will ever rest while they are held by the
Northern Government Would they, indeed, respect those States if they did?
To fight for others and yield these
Florida forts, would be as inconsistent as to propose to surrender the others and to hold on to these.
When the Virginia Convention proposes this, it proposes to Establish A War — a war that will not end while the
Florida forts are held by the
Yankees.--And does the Virginia Convention desire such a war, and does it harbor a secret wish in that war to place the Southern Confederacy in advance in the wrong, in order that the army of Virginia may be mustered under
Lincoln to make war upon our Southern brethren?
The act would suggest the inference, and although we believe there are men in that body who would rejoice could such a thing be brought about, we will not for a moment believe that such is the sentiment of the majority of its members.
But the
Convention has committed a gross inconsistency.
There is no greater reason why any one Southern fort should be surrendered or held by
Lincoln than another.
They have outraged justice to the Southern Confederacy and the public sentiment of
Virginia. --This State will never justify the holding or reinforcing any Southern fort, and she will never join
Lincoln's myrmidons and "Wide Awakes" in a war that may grow out of an attempt to reinforce any Southern fort held by him, or an attempt by the Southern Confederacy to take such fort.
Whenever that war comes, whatever the
Convention may say,
Virginia will rally to the aid of her own true brothers of the
South.
Their enemies will most assuredly be her enemies, whether they be North or South of
Mason and
Dixon, or even in the
Convention itself, as time will show!
