Union of the South.
When
Lincoln proclaims in his Inaugural that in all the
Southern States except
South Carolina there is still a majority which would hail with joy the re-establishment of the old Union, he proclaims a falsehood which no one knows better than himself to be false and malicious.
If the Union party, after his Proclamation, still held a majority in any of the now seceded States, by what process did that majority permit the minority to force them into the attitude of Secession?
Here in
Virginia there was undoubtedly, at the time of the election and of the first assembling of the Virginia Convention, a large majority of Union men, and we may add, of men as patriotic, intelligent and heroic, not only as any other party in
Virginia, but as any other party in any State or community that ever existed.
That party represented the largest amount of slave property in the
Commonwealth, and when it consented to give up
Virginia to become the battle-field of civil war, gave by that act an infallible test of its devotion to the cause of
Virginia.
Will
Mr. Lincoln vouchsafe to inform the world whether he ever heard before of a party having the power to maintain its position, voluntarily surrendering that power, and putting at hazard all that makes life dear to each of its individual members, upon the dictation of a minority?
Moreover,
Mr. Lincoln has himself confessed to a distinguished gentleman of
Louisiana, formerly a member of Congress from that State, who represented to him in strong terms the perfect unanimity of the
South, that he was well aware of the union of the
South, that he knew there was no longer any Union party, but that he intended to try the strength of the
Government and reduce the
South to submission.
The same admission was made to the same gentleman in substantially the same terms by
Wm. H. Seward. Yet, in an Inaugural Message, prepared by these two men,
Lincoln audaciously assumes that which, according to the admission of
Seward and himself is a falsehood, as a justification of this infamous invasion of the
South.
It is not true that in
Virginia, or in any other Southern State, a Union party any longer exists.
With the exception of the
Northwest, and with sporadic cases elsewhere of deep-seated and incurable political and personal malignity, which would rejoice in the overthrow of the
Southern cause, and which may be attributed rather to a general corruption of the heart than to any attachment to the old Union, there is not a man, woman or child left in the
South who does not hold
Abraham Lincoln and his Government in utter detestation.
The old Union party of
Virginia are foremost in the battle field, and the strong Union counties, led off by the noble county of
Augusta, which was last in leaving the Union flag, as long as it believed it to be the flag of a free Government, have led the van in the support of Southern Independence.
If
Lincoln sends his armies to relieve the
Union men of the
South from their oppressors, he will meet the objects of his sympathy upon the threshold of his travels, giving the best proof of devotion to a cause which men can give — that of laying down their lives in its defence.
What is true of
Virginia is true of the whole
South.
The past is buried, and the only rivalry now known is which shall do most and go farthest in the common cause.
It is lamentable to think that a man sitting in the chair once occupied by
George Washington should descend to such flagrant misrepresentation.--He knows, none better, that the
United States can never be again united, and that, if the
South could be conquered, it is his avowed intention to obliterate all Southern lives and hold us as conquered provinces.
Can he impose upon the
North the delusion that such a Union as that is desired by any one in the
South, or any Union upon any terms with a people who havediclosed such unparalleled, malignity and wickedness as this war has unveiled.
If there were no other reason for desiring disunion, the revelation of itself which the
North has made in this war would be more than sufficient.
