Let us apply to these charges what in lieu of a better term we will
call the law of probabilities. Is it probable that the anti-slavery
sentiments alluded to as being so strong in Virginia immediately
succeeding the Revolution would have perished as early as 1808, simply
because slaves had appreciated in value? While Washington and Henry
and Mason died prior to 1808, yet their great compatriots Jefferson,
Marshall, Madison and Monroe lived to dates long subsequent, filling
the highest positions in the gift of the state and nation.
Will it be seriously urged that these men and others, of only less
prominence, lost their influence with their countrymen because of the
debasing influences of the domestic slave trade?
Again, it may be questioned whether between the date indicated, and
the outbreak of the Civil War, the Virginians had so further
degenerated as to stand ready to fight for slavery and property in
slaves. While Virginia, in the period of the Civil War, presented no
statesmen comparable to those of the Revolution, yet in all the
elements of inspiring manhood, valor, sacrifice and devotion, her
people were not one whit behind their ancestors. The debasing effects
of "slave breeding" had not corrupted the great body of her people: if
so, how can we account for the bearing of Virginians at Gettysburg,
and on other fields of test only less heroic? Speaking of their part
in that historic battle, Charles Francis Adams says:
"If in all recorded warfare there is a deed of arms, the name and
memory of which the descendants of those who participated therein
should not wish to see obliterated from any record, be it
historian's page or battle flag, it was the advance of Pickett's
Virginian Division across the wide valley of death in front of
Cemetery Ridge. I know in all recorded warfare of no finer, no more
sustained and deadly feat of arms."[199]