January 18, 1861, Richmond Enquirer
The hope held out of a subsequent reconstruction of the Union, has not had the desired effect upon the conservatives of the North; it has lulled them into a fatal indifference and apathy as to the present Union, in expecting a speedy re-adjustment after a short interval of separation. We doubt very much if the apathy which prevails in the North, has not, more than Gen. Scott’s infamous conduct, tended to strengthen the Republicans in their persistence and stubbornness, until reconstruction has become impossible. – The New York Legislature has received this apathy as tacit consent of the people of that State to attempt coercion, and has shamefully tendered men and money for the purpose, not of preserving the Union, but of devastating the country with civil war; of conquering the Southern States and reducing them to the condition of tobacco, rice and cotton plantations for Northern masters. Mr. Clarke, of the United States Senate, has also accepted Northern apathy as an indication of Northern society in favor of coercion. A gentleman in Richmond received, yesterday, from a United States Senator, the following note and resolutions:
‘I have no time to say anything further than that the Republicans, by unanimous vote, have just rejected all of Crittenden’s propositions and adopted the enclosed force resolutions. – What has Virginia to say now?
‘Resolved, That the provisions of the Constitution are ample for the preservation of the Union, and the protection of all material interests of the country; that it needs to be obeyed rather than amended; and that an extrication from our present dangers is to be looked for in strenuous efforts to preserve the peace, protect the public property and enforce the laws, rather than in new guarantees for particular interests, compromises for particular difficulties, or concessions to unreasonable demands.
‘Resolved, That all attempts to dissolve the present Union, or overthrow or abandon the present Constitution, with the hope or expectation of constructing a new one, are dangerous, illusory and destructive; that in the opinion of the Senate of the United States no such reconstruction is practicable; and, therefore, to the maintenance of the existing Union and Constitution should be directed all the energies of all the departments of the Government, and the effort of all good citizens.’
Thus the country is fast drifting into civil war; and what is the Virginia legislature doing to defend the State? Where is the enlistment bill? What do the military committees propose? More than a week has elapsed, and nothing of importance has been done.
A bill, enlisting 12,000 men for three years, should today be a law, and recruiting officers ought to be now engaged in enlisting men. – Active preparations should be made, immediately, for meeting the New York plunderers. Our tide-water counties are exposed to the robberies of the men of a State whose legislature has had the hardihood to avow, openly, a purpose to rob and plunder our State, to murder the citizens, to outrage the women; and the Legislature of Virginia has made no provisions by which the citizens of this State may defend their homes and their rights.
In this connection the people of Virginia will read, with deep humiliation, the proceeding of the House of Delegates, yesterday, rejecting a resolution offered by Mr. Newton to the report of the Committee on Federal Relations, to the following effect:resolved, that, in the present alarming condition of affairs it is a dangerous delusion to suppose that the interests of Virginia are not thoroughly identified with those of her Southern sisters, and that any intimations from any source that her people are looking to any other combination, in the last resort, than a Union with them is calculated to weaken the position of our friends and strengthen the hands of our enemies.
To those people of the North who, desiring the preservation of this Union, may be induced by this action of the House of Delegates, to suppose that Virginia will, in a dissolution of the present Union, connect herself with the North, we would desire them to remember that the present House of Delegates was elected to make turnpikes long before any of the present difficulties had agitated the country. – These are the men who defeated the conference last winter, and they are now stupidly endeavoring to bolster up their conduct.
We can conceive of nothing more humiliating, whatever may have been the motive, than this action of the House of Delegates; the resolutions of New York offering men and money to whip them into submission, had just excited their virtuous indignation, and, under its influence, Mr. Newton’s amendment, virtually announced that after such action by New York, Virginia would, the last resort, connect herself with those States which New York proposed to subjugate; and, yet, the majority of the House of Delegates, by their votes, have declared New York shall not catch Virginia in any Southern Confederacy for fear she may be whipped by the Yankees – that, the last resort, Virginia will submit. Is there any deeper degradation to which this House of Delegates proposes to drag Virginia?
Such action as this of the House of Delegates, strengthens Black Republican obstinacy, weakens the efforts of Northern conservatives, humiliates Virginia before the whole Union, and, by exhibiting a timidity unparalleled in the history of the State, adds to the perils that already environ the Union.