The result of this election was not only of the greatest importance to
the Union, but it was a formal declaration to the world that Virginia,
on the issues as then made up, refused to secede.
"Thus be it always remembered," says Charles Francis Adams, "Virginia
did not take its place in the secession movement because of the
election of an anti-slavery President. It did not raise its hand
against the National Government from mere love of any peculiar
institution, or a wish to protect or perpetuate it. It refused to be
precipitated into a civil convulsion; and its refusal was of vital
moment. The ground of Virginia's final action was of wholly another
nature, and of a nature far more creditable."[364]
The importance of Virginia's position was well appreciated, both by the
friends of the Union and by the advocates of secession. On the day
before the election, William H. Seward wrote from Washington: "The
election to-morrow probably determines whether all the slave states will
take the attitude of disunion. Everybody around me thinks that that will
make the separation irretrievable and involve us in a flagrant civil
war. Practically everybody will despair." A day or two later, he wrote
that the result of the Virginia election had come "like a gleam of
sunshine in a storm," and that "at least the danger of conflict, here or
elsewhere, before the 4th of March has been averted."[365]
Charles Francis Adams has placed upon record the impressions of the
hour.
"Though over forty years ago, I well remember that day—gray,
overcast, wintry—which succeeded the Virginia election. Then living
in Boston, a young man of twenty-five, I shared—as who did not—in
the common deep depression and intense anxiety."
After describing the first receipt of news from the election, Mr. Adams
adds: "Virginia, speaking against secession, had emitted no uncertain
sound. It was as if a weight had been taken off the mind of every one.
The tide seemed turned at last."[366]
James Ford Rhodes says:
"The election in Virginia for members of her State Convention had much
significance. The one hundred and fifty-two delegates chosen were,
with substantial correctness, classed as thirty so-called
Secessionists, twenty Douglas men and one hundred and two Whigs, which
proves, asserted the _Richmond Whig_, a journal which argued
strenuously for delay, that 'the Conservative victory in Virginia is
perfectly overwhelming,' the precipitators having sustained 'a
Waterloo defeat.'"[367]