Such were some of the deliverances of prominent Americans in the days
immediately preceding the Civil War. They expressed the sentiments of
leading Virginians of the time and explained and vindicated their
position in resisting the policy of coercion adopted by the Federal
Government. Why was it that in the supreme hour Greeley and Seward and
Lincoln, and all their notable compatriots, parted company with
Virginia?
Charles Francis Adams says:
"Virginia, as I have said, made state sovereignty an article—a
cardinal article—of its political creed. So logically and
consistently it took the position that though it might be unwise for a
state to secede, a state which did secede could not and should not be
coerced.
"To us now this position seems worse than illogical. It is impossible.
So events proved it then. Yet, after all, it is based on the
fundamental principle of the consent of the governed; and in the days
immediately preceding the Civil War something very like it was
accepted as an article of correct political faith by men afterwards as
strenuous in support of a Union re-established by force as Charles
Sumner, Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and
Horace Greeley. The difference was that confronted by the overwhelming
tide of events, Virginia adhered to it; they, in presence of that
tide, tacitly abandoned it."[416]
-----
Footnote 399:
_History of the United States_, Rhodes, Vol. III, p. 214.
Footnote 400:
_Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government_, Vol. I, p. 617.
Footnote 401:
_Memoirs of Robert E. Lee_, Long, p. 88.
Footnote 402:
_Proceedings of Peace Convention_, Crittenden, p. 136.
Footnote 403:
See _Richmond Enquirer_, March 2d, 1908.
Footnote 404:
_Democracy in America_, de Tocqueville, Vol. II, p. 257.
Footnote 405:
_Political Philosophy_, Brougham, 1849, part 3, p. 336.
Footnote 406:
_Buchanan's Administration_, Buchanan, p. 98.
Footnote 407:
_Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers_, N. & H., Vol.
I, p. 105.
Footnote 408:
_History of the United States_, Rhodes, Vol. IV, p. 80.
Footnote 409:
_History of the United States_, Rhodes, Vol. III, p. 140.
Footnote 410:
_Life of James Buchanan_, Curtis, Vol. II, p. 430.
Footnote 411:
_Idem._
Footnote 412:
_Origin of the Late War_, Lunt, 1816, p. 431.
Footnote 413:
_History of Massachusetts in Civil War_, Schouler, Vol. I, p. 45.
Footnote 414:
_Abraham Lincoln, A History_, N. & H., Vol. III, p. 247.
Footnote 415:
_Diplomatic Correspondence_, 1861, p. 58.
Footnote 416:
_Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers_, C. F. Adams, 1902, p. 403-4.