The national Republican., 1861-02-09
VIRGINIA AND THE CRITTENDEN
SCHEME

to secession by passion, by the success OF what
is called sectional party, by geographical an.
tagonisms of sentiment, or by schemes of com.
mercal and manufacturing aggrandizement to
be consummated in Southern Confederacy,
all these influences have utterly failed. The
secession party, in the election of Monday, met
on overthrow rarely inflicted upon a party able
to take the field at ALL Its defeat was such
Waterloo catastrophe, that even il Virginia
goes into secession hereafter, as it must be
upon wholly new grounds so it must be under
wholly new leaders.
What evidence, or probability, is there that
Virginia will go out of the Union, if the Crit.
teuden project is not successful, in form or sub.
stance?
As to evidence, there is none entitled to con.
sideration.
The Legislature, to be sure, has resolved in
favor of the Critteuden propositions, but as the
same Legislature, by majorities equally deci.
sive, has resolved that Virginia will go out with
the South in any and every event, it may safely
be concluded that such expressions Of opinion
prove nothing but the excessive personal tim.
idty Of the men who make them. When the
Legislature of Virginia assembled, it was sup
posed that the popular feeling in favor of seces.
sion was strong, and it was this supposition
which controlled the Legislature. Scarcely any
body in it dared to vote against anything in that
direction which was offered. And in this case,
it is impossible to attach any importance to the
resolutions of the Legislature, for the reason
that they nullify and stultify each other. Vir.
ginia cannot, at one and the same time, be
willing to remain in the Union upon the basis
of the Crittenden scheme, and be determined
at all events to join the Gulf States, if they
finally remain out.
As there is no evidence, so there is 70 prob.
ability, that Virginia attaches any such import.
ance to the Crittenden scheme.
As applied to the present Territories, while
it is humiliation to which the free States
will never submit, it is for the slave States,
an admitted abstraction, without the posi-
bity of practical advantage. Nobody be,
lieves that slavery will go into New Mexico
under any conceivable circumstances; and so
far as the peculiar interests of Virginia are
concerned, imaginary lines might as well be
drawn across the disk of the moon. Virginia
is not going out Of the Union upon any such
question as that
AS applied to Territories hereafter to be &C.
quired, the Crittenden scheme has point and
meaning and practical bearings of undoubted
importance. 1t is unquestionable that the
slave breeding interest Of Virginia is keenly
alive to its advantages, and sincerely anxious
for its adoption. But to suppose that Virginia
will go out of the Union because it is not
obtained, involves the most violent improba.
bilities.
The time when future territorial acquisitions
may be made, is uncertain, and possibly remote.
To divide the Union, by way of anticipating q
quarrel over the division of something which we
do not now possess, and may never possess, is a
line of conduct not conformable to the ordinary
principles upon which men manage their affairs
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof
The troubles of life which we are. obliged to
meet, are quite enough, without fighting in ad
vance all the battles Of the next generation.
Virginia will not put at risk the immense
property she has in negroes, for an advantage
to that property which is future, obscure, and
uncertain.
And, furthermore, there is no reason to sup.
pose that going out of the Union because the
free States refuse to Africanize Mexico by a
constitutional anticipation of its acquisition,
will tend in any degree to improve the chances
of getting slavery into that country. Neither
the opposition of the free States to such q
policy, or their power to-defeat it, will be di.
mnished by dissolution of the Union. They
will both be increased, and the opposition Of
European Powers, now restrained by the great
strength of the Union, will be manifested to
any extension Of the slave area by Southern
Confederacy, which must be comparatively
weak.
In no aspect is there the least plausibility
in the suggestion that the conduct of Virginia
will be influenced by the success, or failure, Of
the Crittenden scheme, so far as her own in,
terests are involved in it.
There is more plausibility, and, indeed, a
good deal of force, in the suggestion, that Vir-
ginia may make the adoption ofthe Crittenden
scheme the sine qua non of her adherence to the
Union, not from any direct interest she has in
it, but because it may be necessary to bring
back the seeded States, without whom she has
some misgivings as to remaining in the Union.
1t is view of the case which, at any rate, rests
upon opinions which are'known to have some
considerable lodgment in the popular mind Of
Virginia.
In the end, we believe that the judgment Of
that State will be, that if a disruption of the
Union becomes fixed fact she runs infinitely
more risk in con6diig her destines to the tur'
bulent and revolutionary spirits on the Gulf Of