On the 7th of January, 1861, her General Assembly was called in extra
session. Governor Letcher's message set forth the dangers and problems
which confronted the state and nation. "The condition of our country at
this time," he declared, "excites the most serious fears for the
perpetuation of the Union.... Surely no people have been blessed as we
have been, and it is melancholy to think that all is now about to be
sacrificed on the Altar of Passion. If the judgments of men were
consulted, if the admonitions of their consciences were respected, the
Union would yet be saved from overthrow."
While thus expressing devotion to the Union, he yet proclaimed his
belief in the legal right of secession. He deplored the precipitate
action of South Carolina, declaring that in a movement "involving
consequences so serious to all the slaveholding states, no one state
should have ventured to move without first having given timely notice to
the others of her purpose." He reviewed at length the action of that
great element of the Northern people, which, for years, had been
unceasing in their assaults upon the constitutional rights of the South
on the questions growing out of the existence of slavery. He alluded to
the recent messages of the Governors of South Carolina and Mississippi
in which the Border States were referred to in no over-friendly terms,
and with suggestions of legislative enactments hostile to their
interests. "While disavowing," he declared, "any unkind feeling toward
South Carolina and Mississippi, I must still say that I will resist the
coercion of Virginia in the adoption of a line of policy whenever the
attempt is made by Northern or Southern States." He expressed his
opposition to the plan for calling a state convention at that time,
suggesting that instead the General Assembly should appoint
commissioners to visit the Legislatures of such Northern States as had
passed laws repugnant to the Federal Constitution, and respectfully urge
their immediate repeal; and that in like manner commissioners be sent to
the Legislatures of the slaveholding states to ascertain the extent and
character of their demands and the action deemed necessary for the
protection of their rights and interests.[356]