Year: 1861

Virginia has been brought to the brink Of
precipice by her public men. They have prov.
ed themselves unable to get out of the circle of
provincial ideas, and, therefore, altogether un.
equal to great crisis. If they are not repu.
dated by the people, the plunge, fatal to no.
Bile State, will be soon taken. But it is not yet
taken, and there is still time to save both the
interests and the honor Of Virginia The
voters of that State, the ultimate sovereigns,
are uncommitted to any policy, and untram.
melled by any pledges. Their destinies are
still in their own hands.


So far as the question of secession is con.
cerned, the Convention now sitting at Rich
mond is invested with power strictly limited
to that of determining whether the present
emergency is sufficiently grave to submit an
ordinance of secession TO the people. The
command of the people, so decisively made on
the 4th of February, that nothing to be done look
ing to secession should be Of the least validity,
until submitted to and approved by themselves,
completely excludes the Richmond Convention
from defining the conditions of fact under
which Virginia will secede. From the very
terms Of their commission, they are precluded
from touching that question at all. All.power.
full as to everything else, they have no right to
do anything in the matter of secession, except
to determine whether it is wise to submit
proposition for it to the people. As they are
thus expressly prohibited from the act of seces
sion, they have no right to announce the terms
without which Virginia will not remain in the
Union. As it is for the people Of that State to
determine that question, it is for them to act
upon their own reasons in determining it. Not
only has the Convention no right to compromit
the State, by pledging it in advance to any line
of policy, to be pursued in this or that contin-
gency, but all pretence Of such right is taken
away by the fundamental condition upon which
its members were chosen.


Thus, then, and this is point of the highest
importance and meeting US at the very threshold,
the honor Of Virginia is committed to nothing.
Whatever the members of the Richmond Con.
vention may have done, in stating the condi-
tions upon which Virginia will remain in the
Union, is sheer assumption, and not merely the
assumption of power not granted, but the
assumption Of power expressly withheld and
interdicted. When the people Of Virginia re.
served to themselves the power of deciding the
question of secession, the power so reserved was
intended to be, and is untrammelled by any
commitments whatever. An agent, command
ed to do nothing in given particular, without
reference to his principal, cannot forestall the
decision of his principal by pledges. He can
not entangle the honor of his principal, and
thereby impair that complete freedom of judg
ment and decision, which his principal intend
ed to preserve.


The present question then is, not what Vir
ginia is bound in honor to do, as she is SC
bound to nothing whatever, but what it is wise
and patriotic for her to do, and the people
scattered over the hills and valleys of her i'm


perial domain, are much more likely to decide
that. question wisely, than the members of c
Convention, befogged by interminable discus
sions, trammelled by the formulas of leaders
aad overawed by the populace of the city il


which its sittings are held.