In considering the question whether Virginia, in transferring her
allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, was animated by a wanton desire
to destroy the Union and defeat the ideals of its founders, it will
assist to a more accurate conclusion if we review her part in the making
of the Republic and the spirit which moved her people in the day of
separation. If she had been conspicuous in the work of establishing the
Union and in promoting its growth and glory, then it were more
reasonable to ascribe her desire to terminate the association to
convictions of duty than to motives capricious or selfish in their
origin. If in the day of sectional strife, she pleaded for union and
reconciliation, then her presence in the battle which followed was more
justly attributed to the inexorable logic of events than to causes of
her own initiation.
It is well within the bounds of historic truth to say that Virginia had
been pre-eminent among her sister states in fixing the ideals and
founding the Republic; that, with unsurpassed devotion, she had
contributed of men and treasure to promote its growth and enhance its
glory; and that amid the strife and conflicts which preceded the Civil
War, she stood a mediator between the hostile sections and an unwearied
advocate of reconciliation and peace.