Year: 1865

1 violation or the Rebel Compact o. Mo-


tusl support.


Virginia q just beginning to discover what


tho war Is about For four years that State


has done the heroic part Of this bloody


war, and her people are only just now begin


ming to see what they have been lighting for.


The vote in the rebel Senate on the proposition


to arm the negroes opened their eyes somewhat


Southern politicians to deceive the people Of
| the great border States, and to exotic them to


fury by stories that the election Of Lincoln was


q violation Of the rights of the South. BY tho


reiteration Of that very statement In . thousand


forms, the State OF Virginia was dragged out Of


the Union in spite Of her desire to stay In IT, and


was made to plunge In the abyss Of ruin under
| the influence of q maudlin attachment to her


"Southern sisters" Now Il suits certain of the


politicians to tell the truth, and the people Of


that border State are openly and broadly told
by the Richmond papers just what the war was
made for. They, now that their fields arc
deserts and their husbands, fathers, SONS and
brothers have been slain In battle, are let into
the secret that the cry about Southern rights
was merely clamor, piece of humbdggery,
TO excite their passions and blind their judg-
ment They are told openly that Southern
rights had nothing to do with it. They are as


sured that the war was made entirely for the
Gulf States, and made because secession was


necessary to certain property interests in those
States. The Richmond papers now very


calmly tell them all this.


The truth thus comes out at present be-
cause the bill to put negroes In Lees army has
just been defeated in the rebel Senate by the
vote Of the Gulf States. Virginia. against her
better interests and instincts, went with the Gulf
States, "under solemn compact" that all
should unhesitatingly make every sacrifice
that was necessary to achieve success. Vir-
ginia has made freely all required sacrifices.
She has shown q generous and unseffsh
devotion to this bad business that almost
ennobles it. But now the Gulf States are re-
qnired to make sacrifice for the cause that Is so
essentially their cause alone, and at once they
hesitate-they stand to count tho cost, and they
finally refuse. Thus the compact of mutual
support" is broken. "They by whom the first
blow was stricken are the first to DESERT But
is the compact broken for the sake Of prnci-
pie! No; there is no principle from one end
to the other. The compact is broken by the
Gulf States for the sake Of that same property
interest for which it was made-the niggers
Certain opinions prevailed ct the North in 1860
with SO much power that the shareholders
trembled for the future Of slavery, and they
made the war to save it They made,
then, this solemn compact of mutual
support Now opinions prevail in the border |
States that make the shareholders tremble for |
slavery, and they break "the compact" just as
they did the Union. The border States are as
much their enemies now as we were then, and
propose the very thing the war was intended to
prevent II is slavery, slavery, slavery that
moves all, from one end to the other; and now |
that Virginia Is on our side, she has her eyes |
opened and can see this.


But there Is q part Of Virginia that does not !
see this so very clearly. That part Is the set
that Immediately surrounds Davis, and whose
thoughts see the light In the columns Of the
Richmond Sentinel In another column we give
an article from the Sentinel Of the Sth instant,
which shows us that Davis has not yet got his
eyes open to the fact that the cotton States and
the border States are now absolutely on different
sides Of the vital question of this great struggle,
and that the cotton States now uphold against
the border States that side of the question that
is most consistent with the original policy Of
those who made this war. He does not see that
the Gulf States are now in reality the rebel
lion; for he speaks Of their policy as the policy
Of a minority, and Of their attitude in opposi-
ton 10 the Virginia policy as a movement to
give up the cause. He speaks of a minority
that threatens the majority with abandonment.
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South
Carolina arc the minority, and fragment Of
Virginia is the majority. Poor Old Virginia,
as these men represent her, cannot see that
she is not the confederacy, and that she Is
no longer even part of the confederacy; that
she has been pushed out Of the Southern
family by the very progress Of this war, and
is now on the other and the right side
for Virginia is now on our side. Virginia,
and the bitterest rebel Of Tennessee, Kentucky
and Missouri, that is with his State on this
question, all are from this time forward on
our side. They have proposed to destroy the
real interest that made this war, aud are as
much feared by il as we are. The result of the


war has been to move the border line. Il runs


now not north of Virginia aud Kentucky, but
south of Virginia and Tennessee. Slavery has
practically ceased to exist in all the great bor-
der States; and the votes of those States to


abolish slavery by putting the negroes in the
army Is the vote Of non-slaveholdcrs. II Is


therefore suspected. The extreme South now
looks upon these Statea M fovea that have had


their tails cut Of, and pure slave interest vote


IL cast against their Wishes and breaks second


Union when It perceives that il is as dangerous


as the first one was. Though Davis still con-
founds Virginia with the confederacy, the vr-