We give below the speech of
Wyndham Robertson,
Esq., one of the
Delegates from this city, made in the
House on Saturday, resigning his seat.
When this popular madness about the maximum shall have been cured, as it will be by the operations of the law proposed to be enacted, the people will look back with grateful pride to the cause of a delegate who has shown the good sense and firmness not to be drawn into the whirling vortex:
Mr. Wyndham Robertson, of the city of
Richmond, said he rose, not without some natural emotion, to exercise, for the last time, his privileges as a member of this body.
The
House is, perhaps, aware that a meeting was recently held in this city which passed resolutions instructing the city representatives to support the bill to regulate prices, or, if they could not, to resign their seats.
The meeting is said to have been a large one; but believing it to be very certain that it was not a majority of the voters of the city, (which alone can authentically speak the voice of the city,) nor probably more than a small proportion of them, I should have felt no difficulty in declining to obey the instructions of a minority or their alternative inviting me to resign.
The views, however, which I understand to be held by my co-representatives, and the course they design to pursue, will constrain me to adopt a different course, which I could otherwise have taken.
I understand my two colleagues to concur in believing that a majority of our constituency is in favor of the bill to regulate prices, and will vote for it, and our
Senator to hold the instructions referred to binding, unless there be some action taken by the citizens to show the contrary.
A week has now elapsed without any such action having been taken.
It is apparent, then, that if the vote were now taken, that I should be placed seemingly, and perhaps, really, in the absence of any counter indication of opinion, in the position of misrepresenting my constituents on a measure of vital importance, by voting against a bill which the three other representatives of the city would, by their votes, declare to be in their opinion a violation of the will of the city to oppose.
This is a position I prefer not to be placed in. I recognize fully, sir, under our system of Government the duty of the representative to obey the constituent will or resign.
Obey that will when it would require me to vote for the bill in question though it were the will of a clear majority, or even of the whole constitutional body, I would not. I view it as a
Pandora's box, full to the brim of evils and suffering to the whole country — but most of all of calamity and distress unspeakable to this city.
I will not contribute to lift its fatal lid. My reasons it would not be proper or becoming here and now to enter into.
I conclude, therefore, to resign my seat.
I part from you at a moment of great interest — when the two great antagonistic systems of Force and of Moderation stand face to face, and are about rushing together in fearful conflict.
In my view, the spirit of
Draco seems to inspire the one--the milder genius of
Solon or of
Burke to preside over the other.
The one seems founded on the idea that man's tendency is so strong to rebel against the performance of his public and private obligations, that force and coercion must be perpetually appealed to, to enforce them; the other, that his nature is essentially good, and demands only just treatment to secure from him the general performance of his duties as well to the public as to individuals.
Your impressment bills, your maximums, your bills for excessive and unusual punishment for violently forcing trade, are of the former class, designed to replace the milder system, which is that of our present laws.
I will not deny but our changed circumstances may call for exceptional modifications of the system of peace; but that the strong coercive system proposed will introduce increased disorder, violence, disappointment, and final failure, I entertain no doubt.
It would have been my mission to endeavor to restrain, to quality, to moderate, as far as I could, this system of force — confident, as I am, that the people will never fail a Government that founds its laws on the presumption that they are, in the main, just, honest, and patriotic.
But the hour, the increasing want and unaccustomed privations, make men now impatient and too ready, perhaps, to grasp at anything that may be held out to them as a remedy; and the tide of passion, I fear, threatens to prove too strong for the counsels of moderation, of wisdom — perhaps, even of justice.
Mr. Speaker, I now close my public life.
Some ten years of it have been devoted to the duties of this hall of Legislature of my native State.
I have served here, sir, in our halcyon days of peace and prosperity, when scarce a ripple disturbed the surface of that
pacific ocean over which the bark of State smoothly glided, or when at most the mock tempests of party alone lashed us into a factitious and transitory excitement.
I was here, too, during that delusive calm--"the torrent's smoothness ere it dashed below"--which was followed by our being suddenly precipitated into that gulf of whirling trials and troubles with which we have been since struggling.
I have been here through all the real and terrible tornado, in the very heart and centre of which we are still whirling and surging amid angry and raging billows.
Through all these various seasons — of sunshine or of storm, of peace or of war — I have ever found the Legislature of Virginia equal to every occasion and every trial.
It stood ever well up to the honor and rights of the
State.
It prepared and strengthened itself for the coming and inevitable conflict, which it yet wisely, though vainly, strove to avert.
When it came, it threw itself into the contest with a spirit, a manhood, and uncalculating devotion, which left nothing for its friends to desire, nor anything wanting to its fame, and which carried terror and death to the ranks and consternation and dismay to the hearts of our enemies.
Such has been the Legislature of Virginia.
The
role it is now playing I consider the highest, and grandest, and most trying it has yet had to perform.
On it, in my opinion, more than any other civil power of the
Confederate States, depend the issues of the conflict.
On its nerve, its wisdom, its constancy, its forecast, hang mainly the success of our cause — the achievement of our independence.
I can only trust that now, as heretofore, this representative assembly of the means, and power, and will of the people of
Virginia, will still prove equal to the emergency, and bear her banner triumphantly, as it has ever done heretofore, over all difficulties and through every trial.
Mr. Speaker, my personal relations with the members of this body have ever been of the most gratifying character.
I do not recall an enmity.
I do not remember an estrangement to mar the uniform agreeableness of my intercourse with my fellow-members on this floor.
Examining my own bosom, I do not detect a single trace of unkindness towards any one with whom I have ever served here.
I here formed many and valued friendships, cherished for numbers a cordial regard, respect for all. I hope these sentiments have not been wholly unreturned.
It is the sundering of these ties alone that excites a pang of regret in terminating my service here.
All else — my private tastes, my personal inclinations, and many strong private inducements, besides — beckon me back to the bosom of my family.
You will believe, sir, these feelings urge me with peculiar force, now, when at the very moment I am addressing you, I have reason to fear that some of my family are enveloped in the hateful folds of the enemy's forces, and some of them fugitives from their homes.
I now, sir, leave this seat.
I will say, proudly, without a taint on the honor or fidelity with which it has been filled, I have but one wish, sir, that it may be filled hereafter by some one abler than myself to advance the public good — by one more anxious to promote it, it cannot.
Mr. Robertson's remarks were listened to with deep interest, and as soon as he had concluded his friends, taken somewhat by surprise, immediately clustered about him.
Mr. Tomlin arose to make a motion, in which he trusted the
House would concur without dissent.
All had felt regret at the resignation tendered this morning by the representative from
Richmond,
Mr. Robertson.
He was a gentleman whose private qualities and representative abilities were prominently displayed during his connection with this body, and at a time like this, and under the circumstances inducing his resignation, he thought that we should hesitate in parting with so valuable a member.
He, therefore, offered a resolution that
Mr. Robertson be requested to withhold for the present his resignation to this body.
Several members supported this motion which was adopted.
