USA > Virginia > Rockbridge County > Rockbridge County > A history of Rockbridge County, Virginia > Part 14
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A YEAR OF SUSPENSE
CAUSES OF THE WAR OF 1861-PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860-MEETINGS IN ROCKBRIDGE- DISCUSSIONS IN THE LOCAL NEWSPAPERS-STATE CONVENTION AT RICHMOND-A FLAG RAISING AT LEXINGTON
A county history is not the place to dwell at length on the causes of the great American war of 1861. It cannot spare much room for topics essentially national in character.
But in the case of Rockbridge, this theme is of more than ordinary interest. Because of its prominent public men, its educational institutions, and its rank as a Valley county, the people of Rockbrdge took a keen interest in the political events of the year ending in mid-April, 1861. A resident of the county was gov- ernor of Virginia ; an instructor in its military school was to win great renown as a Confederate general; the beloved leader of the Army of Northern Virginia was to become the president of its college. And during the months in which the storm-cloud was coming to its full dimensions, the issues of the day were discussed at much length, and very ably, in the newspapers and literary societies of Lexington.
In this chapter, therefore, we first take a comprehensive glance at the gen- eral causes of the war, and follow it with an account of what was taking place in Rockbridge during the presidential campaign of 1860 and the opening months of 1861.
The thirteen American colonies that shook off their allegiance to Britain in 1776 were politically independent of one another. Not one of the group had the power to absorb the others, and the United States of America is the only country on earth without a distinctive name. The term by which our country is known is a definition, and is not properly a name. Since the colonies used the English language, and derived their laws and institutions from England, they could not do otherwise than act together in effecting the separation that was generally desired. But the Continental Congress was not the same thing as the Federal Congress that succeeded it. The former body was merely a central committee representing the state governments. One state had as much voice in this committee as another. The Congress could advise, but it might not com- mand.
When the states set about forming a "more perfect union," it was much as if the eleven countries of South America should declare a United States of South America. Each country would bring into this union a pride in its four centuries of Caucasian history. It would be jealous of its own rights and sus-
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A HISTORY OF ROCKBRINE COUNTY, VIRGINIA
picions of what the future ught develop. The new name would carry no suggestion of nationality. The only nationality the South Americans could feel would be the nationality of Brazil, or Peru, or Argentina. Any member would resent at attempt at military coercion in the name of the union.
What could thus happen in South America is precisely what did happen in North America. The popular opinion among the Americans of 1788 was that they were entering a confederation. For many years they commonly spoke of their union as such. But they were really entering a federation. Now in a confederation, the central government acts on the people through the medium of the various state governments, while in a federation it acts on them inde- pendently of the state governments. The framers of the Constitution did not attempt to be entirely explicit. They were practical men, and if they had expressed themselves dogmatically, their labors would have been in vain. The constitution was adopted only after strenuous opposition in a majority of the states. That the Americans of the Revolutionary period generally regarded the new government as a confederation, is because they did not then, nor for some years afterward, have the mental attitude for viewing it in a different light.
The two groups of colonies separated by Delaware Bay were either founded by Englishmen, or soon came under English control. But the motives leading to the colonization of the two regions were not quite the same. The differences were accentuated by economic distinctions. The Southern colonies were almost wholly agricultural, and their population was so dispersive that it took the lead in settling the West and Southwest. The New Englanders were a village people and slow to scatter. Their soil was poor, and because they turned to manufactures and commerce, most of the American cities arose in the North. The Middle Colonies had the economic features of both sections, but their deciding interests were those of the New England corner.
Had the Union never outgrown the area of the thirteen original states, the confederate interpretation of it might have prevailed in the North much longer than it did. The scale was turned by the vast plain of the Mississippi, which is a geographic whole. The West has always been more homogeneous than the seaboard, and its political point of view has always been nationalistic. From the very first, state lines have been of minor importance to the Western man The coming of rapid travel and labor-saving machinery operated powerfully to link the commercial North to the agricultural West. There was an increased pride of country in these sections. Their people came to look upon the U'nion as no longer a nation in promise, but a nation in fact But the South was still almost wholly agricultural, and its mode of life was much the same as in the period of the Revolutoin. It was a perfectly natural outcome that the political point of view of the South had undergone no material change.
The principle of secession, as found in American history, rests primarily
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A YEAR OF SUSPENSE
upon the idea of a Union based on the free consent of its members. It was first put forward in the North and not in the South. But it is significant that a serious discussion of it in one state would be viewed with immediate disapproval in all the others.
In 1790 there was a balance in population between North and South. For several decades later, people did not feel that this balance was being disturbed. As for slavery, it was not liked in the upper South and was not actively opposed in the North. But by 1850, the North was far in the lead. A rising spirit of the age was antagonistic to slavery. To protect its vast slave property, the South put itself in a defensive attitude.
Until 1861, the control of the Federal government had been almost all the while with the South. This power was voiced by a relatively small class of people. In the North there was a subconscious feeling that its much superior population and its industrial development gave it a better title to lead the nation. For this purpose it organized a new political party and won the election of 1860. The South instinctively recognized this result as a challenge to a trial of strength and acted accordingly. The one great issue, reduced to its lowest terms, was whether the Federal Union had grown into a nation of indivisible sovereignty, with a conceded power to coerce a reluctant member. To the North this time had arrived. To the South it had not arrived. Within a few more decades the South would have thrown out slavery and adjusted itself to the economic civilization of the North. The war of 1861 was a short cut in this di- rection, and because the measure was drastic it wrought great destruction and great hardship. But when the storm-cloud was about to break, it was only a few far-sighted men who could grasp the issue in its larger aspects. The majority of people feel rather than think, and such persons in 1860 could perceive little more than the outward symptoms. And because thinking was subordinated to feeling, waves of excitement seized the multitudes, both North and South, and hurried the country into domestic war.
The one section could see little else than a wicked attempt by an arrogant oligarchy to pull down the best government on earth, and thus cause either half to occupy a lower rank in the family of nations. The North flew to arms to preserve national unity at any cost, and to see to it that rivalries of a European nature, sidetracked by the Constitution of 1787, could not again spring into life. The other section could see little else than an unholy attempt to overturn its local governments, to destroy the value of a large class of its property, and to adopt without time for adjustment a mode of life prescribed by the victor. Hence the South flew to arms to maintain its local self-government at any cost, and to prevent an abrupt transition from entering into its ccoonmic life. The men on each side of the controversy were honest, sincere, and determined. In the light of the conditions confronting him, neither the typical Northerner nor the typical Southerner could have acted otherwise than he did.
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A HISTORY OF ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY, VIRGINIA
The "year of suspense," as we style the present chapter, began with the nominating conventions of 1860. There were four candidates for the presidency. Lincoln, Douglas, Breckenridge, and Bell. Lincoln stood for the extreme North- ern position, and Breckenridge for the extreme Southern. The conservative clements supported Douglass and Bell. Southern votes for Lincoln were very few and were wholly in the border states. That Breckenridge had a considerable support in several Northern states was because of considerations of party regular- ity. Douglas and Breckenridge were both Democrats, but the former was re- garded as a bolter by the supporters of the other candidate. Douglas had a rather large following in the border slave states, and quite a number of the old line Whigs in the coast states of the North cast their votes for Bell. But in general terms, the voting was sectional. The North supported the northern candidates. Lincoln and Douglas. The South supported the southern candidates. Brecken- ridge and Bell.
In the days before the war, Rockbridge was counted as a Whig community. whereas the state almost invariably gave a majority for the Democratic nominee for the presidency. In 1856. Buchanan's majority over Fillmore was only eighty- eight votes, but seemingly for the reason that 286 votes went to Fremont. When viewed in the light of the next campaign, it seems rather strange that a ninth of the total number of votes should have been given to the first Republi- can candidate. But Fremont was son-in-law to Senator Benton, of Missouri. and Benton was reared and married in Rockbridge.
The following table shows the vote by precincts in Rockbridge. November 6. 1860:
Bell
Douglas
Breckenridge
Lexington
148
49
Kerr's Creek
96
79
0
Collierstown
20
Dryden's
37
32
Wilson's Shop
45
18
Paxton's Schoolho ic
77
15
Trevy's
Natural Brulee
111
17
84
Hamilton's
70
18
Fairfield
102
85
27
Brown Furg
183
OC
Go hen
59
31
16
Total
1231
641
30,5
An analysis of the table shows that Bell carried every precinct, and had almost twice as many votes as Douglas. It also shows that Douglas had almost twice as many votes as Breckenridge, Natural Bridge, where several leaders of public opimon were in favor of secession, was the Breckenridge stronghold.
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A YEAR OF SUSPENSE
It is one of the curiosities of that exceptional campaign that the next highest vote for Breckenridge was in the present Republican stronghold of Collierstown. No votes for Lincoln are on record. Bell, the choice of the Rockbridge voters, was the standard bearer of the Constitutional Union party, which was the suc- cessor of the Whig party in the South. The only plank in its platform was "the constitution, the union, and the enforcement of the laws."
It is an interesting fact that Bell's leading competitor for the nomination was Samuel Houston, a native of Rockbridge. Bell was nominated on the second ballot, receiving 138 votes. Houston had sixty-nine, and all others, forty-six.
In its issue of November 29th. the Lerington Gasette makes this comment on the election. referring to the Democratic party when it speaks of Conserva- tives :
Now that he (Lincoln) has been elected, what can he do? The Conservative party have a majority in both houses of Congress. The Supreme Court is Conservative. The Executive can enforce no law prejudicial to the institution of slavery, if Congress enacts none. Every aet he does is done under the solemn oath which he takes at his inauguration. Had we not then better try him? It may be that he will prove to be a conscientious and a law- abiding man. Mr. Jefferson went the full length Lincoln goes against slavery. We have not had an ultra pro-slavery president, unless Mr. Tyler may be called so, and yet all the time the institution of slavery has been safe from executive interference.
One day later, the Staunton Vindicator published the following editorial comment on secession :
To our mind the secession of the cotton states is a fixed fact. It is this for which the politicians of those states have been planning and scheming for years. It is no oppression that they feel, but a willful, deliberate, and criminal purpose to dissolve the Union and reopen the African slave trade. The clear and unequivocal policy of the Middle (border) States is to keep aloof from them. In the course of time the seceders may seek a reunion upon such terms as will be granted. If they do not, we venture the prediction that they will become conquered provinces before ten years. The devilish spirit which will have brought this destruction upon the Union can never rest contented after the Southern Confederacy is established, and will be certain to plunge it into war.
Nevertheless, a meeting held at the courthouse in Lexington November 26th shows the intense excitement in Rockbridge. The chairman was directed to ap- point a committee of twelve to prepare a circular letter to the people of the county. This committee was made up of Hugh Barclay, J. B. Dorman, Samuel Gilbert, E. L. Graham, T. J. Jackson, J. R. Jordan, David E. Moore, J. W. Paine, E. F. Paxton, J. T. L. Preston, J. McD. Taylor, and William White. The courtroom was filled to its utmost capacity. A discussion on the state of the country lasted from noon until four o'clock. The Gazette speaks of a disposition to ignore party differences and to act tiniledly. It adds that "the interest felt by the people was stich as we have never witnessed before." The call formulated by the committee was couched in the most carnest language. It asked the people of the county to convene at the courthouse on Monday, Decem- ber 3rd.
A HISTORY OF ROCKERUNIL COUNTY, VIRGINIA
Of this second meeting. Hugh Barclay was chairman. There were speeches by the ministers, John Miller and W. N. Pendleton, and by Colonel F. 11. Smith, Major J. T. L. Preston, J. W. Brockenbrough, and J. B. Dorman. At an adjourned meeting. December 15th, the leading grievances against the South were enumerated as the aggressive anti-slavery agitation in the North, the per- sonal liberty bills, and the appeals to the spirit of insurrection and murder. The personal liberty laws mentioned were those interfering with the capture of run- away slaves on free state soil. The clause alluding to insurrection and murder relates to the fanatical raid of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, which took place fourteen months carlier. Ten resolutions were adopted, one of which states that "we cannot deem it the part of wise and brave Christian patriots even yet to despair of the republic. We feel it to be a high duty as well as the dictate of true policy on the part of Virginia to struggle for the redress of her grievances within the Union." Another declares it "highly inexpedient in the present crisis to resort to coercion against any seceding state."
South Carolina, the first of the cotton states to act, passed her ordinance of secession December 20th. The movement in that quarter was watched in Rock- bridge with much interest, which for the most part was unsympathetic.
A contributor to the Gazette makes this comment :
A great deal of rath talk and incor iderate action certainly characterizes the conduit of the South at this time. There is no deliberation, save the deliberate Ireason that has long been cherished in the breasts of the leaders of the movement. A disruption of the umen of these states reads the doom of African slavery in the South. While the Union exists, there is an influence in the North itself that nearly if not altogether cancels the mad efforts of the abolitionists. While the Union exists, there is a United South, to a man ready to protect the South against aggression. But let the South consummate a severance, then the South stands isolated. Disunion will unsettle the line that divides slave from free territory. Its first immediate effect is to de Africanize a broad belt of the border slave states, equal in extent to one-fourth of the slave territory The mere staticipation of disunion has already turned thousands of operatives out of employment in the North. The real event will increase this number by tens of thousands. De peration will drive these hordes down upon us, either in a hostile raid or to seek a living in a friendly manner. Secession secures non-intercourse, and non intercourse congels the South to manufacture She must either do it by these discarded employees or by men from abroad. The result is the same. It brings in contact with slavery a population postoned to it in all it's aget The idea of manufacturing by the aid of slave labor is simply absurd. not onh from the fact of the incapacity of the negro, but from the fact that there are no slaves to le spared from the planting interests The African slave trade has been pro- pour ed piracy, and an attempt to reopen it would bring down upon the Southern Con- feleracy the vengeance of all the great powers of Europe. Moreover, a manufacturing and a Jave con finity are antagonistic and dangerous to each other It cannot be demed that lavery creates distinctions in society , a laboring and a leisure class The mechanic and the negre would c fruitute the former, and the naboby the latter
An editorial of the same date as the South Carolina ordinance, and written
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A YEAR OF SUSPENSE
before the news of that event cottld have reached Lexington, speaks in this man- ner of the secession movement :
We do not desire to see this government broken up upon a point of honor more shadowy, more imaginary, more unreal, than any ever alleged by the professional duelist as a ground for demanding satisfaction. There is no dishonor in submitting to Lincoln's administration, because he is legally and constitutionally our president. Secession is a voluntary and complete relinquishment of the rights we hold in virtue of the Union. * Peaceable secession is nothing less than a surrender of these rights (to slave property in the territories). *
* * To break up the Union upon a mere presumption that the president-elect intends to trample upon the constitution is to drive our Northern friends into union with our enemies. There were more votes against Lincoln in the North than in the entire South. Peaceable secession is really cowardly submission. * * * There is a well-considered policy of a few plotting Catalines to precipitate the cotton states, and ultimately all the slave states, into revolution.
It is interesting to note the parallelism between the above paragraph and the following extract from a letter written from Lexington, January 1, 1833, con- cerning the proclamation on nullification by President Jackson. The letter was written by Doctor Archibald Graham :
In this region it has been received with loud and almost universal applause. A meet- ing was held yesterday in the courthouse, Reuben Grigsby in the chair. I am told they adopted resolutions approving the proclamation. There is a strong feeling in this county against nullification, and a very general disposition to put it down vi et armis (by force of arms). I believe a strong volunteer company could be raised here, at a moment's warning, to march against them.
The editorial further pointed out that secession would work a forfeiture of the interest of the South in the District of Columbia and the public lands, and that the South could not reestablish this interest without going to war.
The influence on business of the secession talk is thus sketched in a letter in the Gazette:
Money has become so scarce that debts can no longer be collected. Slave property has fallen in value from a third to a half. The indebtedness of the citizens of Rockbridge to the banks is not short of $100,000. The costs of goods brought in for sale is about $200,000. How are they to be paid? The flour sold out of the county this year does not exceed 1,000 barrels, worth about $5,000. The proceeds of other commodities except slaves are about $50,000. The slaves sold out of the county the last three years have brought about $400,000. That source of revenue seems at an end. The people must give up their habits of extravagance. Every lady must have a new bonnet every six months costing $20 to $50 apiece. There is doubt if the flour sold in the last twelve months would pay for the bonnets and silk dresses sold here in the same time.
A proposed local organization was the "Rockbridge Economical Society." If possible, the members were to attend the Rockbridge fair of 1861 in clothes made in Virginia, to buy in that year no cloth not made in Virginia, to discourage bring- ing in any goods except those of prime necessity, and to promote domestic manu- facturing.
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A HISTORY OF ROCKBRIENA. COUNTY, VIRGINIA
It is also significant that the advertising columns of the county papers con- tam somewhat frequent requests for debtors to "fork over."
An extra session of the legislature was called for the purpose of determin- ing "calmly and wisely what ought to be done." This body met January 7. 1861, and decided to call a state convention, for which delegates were to be elected February 4th. There had never yet been a convention in Virginia not authorized by a popular vote. An editorial of January 3 would appear to reflect the prevailing sentiment of Rockbridge. It makes these declarations :
We hope the people to a man will vote against a state convention. A convention will be a piece of machinery that will be operated by secessionists to carry Virginia out of the Umon. No government such as ours was ever before devised. If we allow ir to go down, we leheve that with it will go down the last hope of civil and religious liberty. Let us not follow the example of South Carolina, who seeks to put an unanswerable argument into the months of despots. South Carolina has said by her action that a republican government can be dissolved at any time, that it is a government without power, that it is no government at all.
Meetings of workingmen at Lexington and Brownsburg were largely at- tended, and passed resolutions that were "moderate and patriotic." A meeting at the courthouse, January 7th, failed to vote any resolutions, and broke up in disorder, some sixty persons cheering for South Carolina. This element was principally made up of cadets. Many of the citizens were indignant at the rowdyism, and it was denounced in a meeting at Old Monmonth presided over by John Anderson, Sr. The last named meeting resolved that "we refuse to sanction the attempt of any state to secede from the Union, believing that such an act would be no remedy for the grievances of which we complain."
Another meeting at the courthouse. January 21st, adjourned with three cheers for the Union, after resolving. "that in the opinion of this meeting the plan of adjustment proposed by Hon. J. J. Crittenden, and now pending before the Senate of the United States, is a just and honorable basis for set- 11 ment of our national difficulties." The same meeting nominated Samuel McD. Moore and James B. Dorman to represent the county in the convention. Three days later, Mr. Moore and Mr. J. W. Brockenbrough, another candidate, puh- I had their appeals to the voters. In the event of a dissolution of the Union, Mr Moose was in favor of Virginia being independent of all the other states. He expressed the opinion that "Virginia never can become very prosperous facet as a manufacturing state." He declared in favor of excluding New Ingl. 101 from a new confederacy, and was "strongly in favor of the proposed convertion leing submitted to the people." He added that "the example of the AAlalma convention, which has passed a secession ordinance, should be a warn- ing to the people of Virginia " He saw reason to apprehend that a majority of the convention may be elected as disunionists, although a large majority of the voters might be friendly to the Union. Mr. Brockenbrough thought secession
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A YEAR OF SUSPENSE
wottld come, and asserted that "the Union that the constitution gave us no longer exists." C. C. Baldwin, a fourth candidate, favored immediate secession if the difficulties with the North were not settled when the convention met.
The short campaign was very animated. An editorial of January 31st urges that the voters insist on a ratification at the polls of the decision of the conven- tion. It remarks that "there is no limit in the law to the powers of the con- vention," which "may bind you against your will to a monarchy or aristocracy instead of a republic." It points out disapprovingly that "an able writer in the Southern press has proposed the adoption of a monarchy," while another, in letters to the English papers, suggests asking for one of Victoria's sons as a king. It further observes that Mr. Spratt, of South Carolina, had come out boldly for an aristocracy, alleging that there is an irrepressible conflict between democracy and aristocracy ; that eqttality is not a right of mankind in the mass butt of equals only.
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