us with the metaphysical doubts and twaddle, comes forth the plowman from his field, the grimy artisan from his shop, the meek, unlettered citizen, without Latin enough to translate "E pluribus unum," and barely English enough to decipher the vernacular "United we stand, divided we fall." This comprises all his knowledge of statesmanship. He never has read any Constitutions, or Bills of Rights, or Resolutions of '98, or Congressional Debates. It is well for the country, perhaps, that he has not, or they might have addled his brains as they have those of many others; yet, though his political creed is so simple, he understands it, not so clearly with his head as with his heart. He learned it from his father, who fought under Jackson in 1812; who learned it from his father, who marched with Washington in 1776. He has taught it to his bare-legged boy, who tends the plow or blows the bellows at the forge. He has faith in it, and will stand by it when the day of trial comes. We, the people of these United States, will not be divided. I have never seen our people so serious on the occasion of an election. They seem to have had an instinctive warning of coming evil, and, distrusting their old political leaders, have spurned the party trammels and personal prejudices which have heretofore influenced them. They seem every where in the State to have chosen the best men that were offered. Virginia is safe. I thank God for this signal rebuke to those degenerate Virginians who would have sold this glorious old Commonwealth as a convenient tool to the weak and selfish schemers of the Gulf States-a tool to be worked with, ruined, and scorned. ...... We have vexatious news from Richmond. The tone of the Convention seems to be giving way. The pressure brought to bear against the Unionists is said to be very heavy. The oily blandishments of a wealthy and polished society are spread to catch the lighter flies; the weak and conceited are taken with wordy subtleties; the venal are bought by promises; the timid assailed with insult and menace. Hired bullies and howling mobs besiege the Convention in its sittings, and follow the Union members to their lodgings, threatening assassination and lynch law. Some have yielded with a facility which indicates that their treachery was premeditated. Simultaneously with these proceedings at Richmond I perceive the State is flooded with letters, printed documents, and oratorical emissaries, circulating the most brazen impostures, backed by the most insolent threats, intended to bring the people over to the support of the proposed action of the Convention in favor of Secession. It is declared that if the State can not be carried out by an ordinance of the Convention it shall be by armed revolution, and woe to those who oppose it! It is frankly asserted, moreover, that of the voting population of Virginia not more than thirty thousand are uncompromising Secessionists, against about an equal number of decided and unconditional Unionists; the souls, bodies, and estates of the remaining one hundred thousand conservative, vacillating, and undetermined citizens would belong to the victors in the contest, serving to swell their triumph and assure their power. They boastfully claim that the Secessionists have in their ranks all the All the active fighting element, all the available polit- | hospitality of rural life in Jefferson. ical ability, arms, organization, and a determ- surroundings betokened easy and plenteous ined purpose, besides complete control of all branches of the State and municipal government. The domineering insolence of their tone seems to give assurance of triumph before it is actually achieved. The Unionists, they say, on the other hand, are conservative, timid, unprepared, deprecatory, without organization or positive purpose. They must therefore succumb or leave the State. This is Richmond opinion; but Virginia is a State of imperial boundaries, and these James River people will find out ere long that "There are hills beyond Pentland ......I have just returned from a visit to Charlestown. The politicians and tavern loungers are very full of Secession talk, but, as far as I could learn, the more solid men and rural gentry are decidedly adverse to it. living. In the kitchen I found the cook-a picture of abundance, shining with greasy contentment, all unconscious of the coming wars, and unambitious of the glorious future destined for her race. With hospitable alacrity she brewed me the needful cup of coffee, and I pursued my solitary way. The road I took was through a wooded and secluded region traversing the Opequan pine hills, so my time was occupied with melancholy musings: "There will be war. Thirty years of political wrangling have made war inevitable. 'As the smoke and vapor of the furnace goeth before the fire, so reviling before blood."" There must be war. Four-score years of unchecked and unexampled prosperity has made the nation drunk-"Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked." There must be war. These convulsions are essential to the political as storms and tornadoes are to the physical world. We have gone a very long time without one. That of 1812 In returning I called at Park Forest, the birth-place of my father. The white family was from home, but the clouds of high-bred poultry which surrounded the establishment was superficial. The war with Mexico a mere gave an idea of the bountiful and succulent joke. The restless and growing energies of our people have for eighty years been turned toward the subjugation of nature. The continent has at length succumbed. Our pioneers return disappointed and checked from the shores of the Pacific. The continuity of the nation's dream has been interrupted. There are no more El Dorados to explore, to waste and cast aside like broken toys. These vast and ungovernable energies are now thrown back upon us like a distemper driven from the surface into the blood. They are about to break out in civil war. A great foreign war would answer the purpose much better. What a pity we can not get up a foreign war! Yet Uncle Sam for some years past seems to have been trying (like the hero of Donnybrook Fair) to induce somebody to tread on his coat-tail. But other people know him better than he knows himself. When this war comes we are to be the borderers; whether it takes the form of a regular and organized contest between governments and sections, or the more dreadful shape of social and anarchic butchery, this region will be the debatable ground. These fair and fertile fields will be laid waste. Bleak chimneys rising from an ash heap will mark the site of these pleasant homes. Kindred will be divided by the sword. Ancient friendships changed to bloody feuds; peace, security, and plenty give place to war, watchfulness, and famine. And yet no upright and sound-thinking man can give a human reason why this war should be. There is not an interest involved which will not suffer shipwreck by a resort to arms. There is not a moral or political principle insisted on by either party which can not be more advantageously settled by reason and forbearance "We are puppets, Man in his pride and Beauty fair in her flower, Do we move ourselves, or are we moved by an unseen hand at a game?" was "effete." EFFETE. lute idleness. If the dapper ideologist who entertains such an idea should happen to come in contact with some hardy Southern mountaineer carrying a hundred and fifty pound buck on his shoulder-some stark and sinewy swamper with his swivel of a ducking-gun-some hardriding Tony Lumpkin of the rural gentry, the ...... The party press of the country is help- preux chevalier of tournaments, cock-fights, and ing on the quarrel famously, while our gray-quarter-races, he would presently find out who beards at Washington are tapping their venerable cocoa-nuts with the hope of extracting a few drops of the milk of human kindness wherewith to assuage the flames. The newspapers are standing at either end of the furnace heaving in tar, pitch, rosin, petroleum, and bacon-sides, with most indefatigable and intelligent industry. Chateaubriand, who had seen revolutions enough to give his opinions some weight, was asked the cause of the periodical revolutions in France. He replied, "Journalism." This is certainly an efficient and virulent agent in the revolution which is brewing here. ......The New York papers speak of the Southern people as "effete;" and there seems to be an impression prevailing generally in the North that the physique of the Southern people is deteriorated by a life of luxurious and disso There is probably not a population to be found who, by their habits of life, occupations, and amusements, are better fitted for soldiers than that of the Southern States. Horses and fire-arms are their playthings from childhood. Impatient of the restraints of school-houses and work-shops they seek life and pleasure in the soil, and thus early learn the topography of nature, the ways of the fields and forests, swamps, and mountains. Their social and political life, but little restrained by law or usage, develops a vigorous individuality. For the most part, ignorant of the luxuries and refinements of cities, they prefer bacon and whisky to venison and Champagne. Tall, athletic. rough, and full of fire and vitality, the half horse, half alligator type still predominates in the lower and middle classes of the South, while a more elegant but equally vigorous physique characterizes the polished, proud, subtle, ambitious, warlike, domineering class who will lead them. The Southern editors, on the other hand, jealous of assumed Northern pre-eminence in silly and brazen imposture, make haste to assure their readers that the people of the late United States are now a frantic mob of Yankees and abolitionists, manufacturers of wooden nutmegs and patent apple-peelers, seedy pedagogues and brain-şick ideologists, and won't fight. Now if these adverse utterances are any thing more than the ravings of partisan passion-if the people of the sections do entertain such opinions of each other, it is high time they had a war. It will then be shown satisfactorily to both parties whether or not the hardy pioneers who have subjugated a rugged continent to the sons of the Vikings, who have driven the whales from the high seas, will fight, and whether or not the domineering lords of Southern soil and serfs are effete. ...... Although this people has been chiefly occupied in talking politics for eighty years or more, I can not perceive that they have made any advance toward enlightenment on the subject. Not one man in ten of those I meet seems to have the slightest idea of where his duty or allegiance lies in the present crisis. This condition of things reminds me of Italy in former times, when popes, emperors, dukes, freebooters, municipalities, miracle-mongers, and dogmatists disputed for empire and the right of fleecing the distracted masses. Our people choose sides positively enough sometimes, but they seem to be decided more by passion, prejudice, or interest than by any clearly-defined principle. The masses are certainly adverse to the secession movement, yet they seem to be yielding to the revolutionyielding to arrogant assumption, terrorism, rather than a sense of right. ......I had hoped the decisive results of the recent election would have quieted the ferment about secession in Virginia, but it seems not. The people appear uneasy and distrustful of those they have chosen to represent them. The reports from Richmond are unfavorable, they say. The Union delegates are parleying with their adversaries, arguing questions of States rights, and considering compromises. This does not satisfy the people. They wish the Convention to vote down the question of secession conclusively-to emphasize the adherence of Virginia to the Union under all circumstances-then to adjourn and come home. They insist that unless this is done presently they will be betrayed and sold. ......It is reported that certain Secessionists in a neighboring county are arranging a plot to seize upon the Government arsenals at Harper's Ferry. Several members of the Union Association at Martinsburg have applied to me to take command of five hundred volunteers, who are ready to march to the defense of the place against any unlawful attempts whatsoI assured them that the United States, ......Fort Sumter surrendered; the President calls for seventy-five thousand men to suppress the insurrection. This is a great re-ever. lief, as it brings the question to a decision, and forewarned, would certainly take care of the puts an end to foolish speeches and arguments. place. It would also require a large sum to It is at least a consolation to know that the Gov-provision and maintain so many men for an ernment will not perish ignobly of inanition. There is a great amount of sentiment about brothers imbruing their hands in each other's blood, as if it was not the most invariable of natural laws that both love and hate attain their fullest measure by reason of propinquity. One who loves his neighbor's daughter and hates his rival over the way attains to a sublimity of passion which could never be awakened by remoter objects. ......A border war at home-we have romance and ruin staring us in the face. Ten years ago I should not have thought it so great a misfortune. For me it comes too late; I have nothing left but to let the world wag "I shall bury myself in my books, uncertain time; and it would be more judicious to hold themselves in readiness and not attempt to act until called on by the Government. In that case I promised to command them. April 18, 1861.-This morning I took the cars at Sir John's for the purpose of visiting Charlestown on personal business. A stranger from the West who sat beside me opened conversation on the all-absorbing subject: Would Virginia secede? I replied, somewhat dogmatically perhaps, "That she would not, and could not." I then went on to explain to him the grounds for my assertion, the immense popular majority in the State opposed to it, the decided majority in the Convention against secession under any circumstances. The high unreserved manner in which they detailed their plans seemed purposely designed to implicate me, at least by approval, and I was glad when a direct question afforded me the opportunity of undeceiving them. personal and political character of that body. The impossibility of their betraying their constituents. Their pledges, their interests, their common sense forbid the supposition. They would never dare to face the people of Virginia with the stain of so dark a treachery on their souls. By the time the train reached Harper's Ferry I had quieted the apprehensions of my fellow-passenger, and had argued myself into a very contented frame of mind. As we passed the Armory shops I observed they were closed. And the United States soldiers there on duty (fifty or sixty men) stood in groups about the grounds apparently awaiting orders. As the train stopped opposite the hotel I missed the mob of idlers that usually crowded the platform, but remarked a collection of half a dozen gentlemen standing near the steps which led to the telegraph office. While engaged in getting my baggage I heard my name called by one of the group, and on approaching recognized several acquaintances, whose presence there at that time struck me as ominous. Among them were Captain H. Turner Ashby and a stranger whom I afterward ascertained was Mr. J. A. Seddon of Richmond. I felt assured, from the anxiety expressed in their faces and the restlessness of their manner, that some extraordinary occasion had assembled them here; but I was not allowed much time for speculation, for as Ashby advanced to shake hands with me he said, "We are here in the name of the State of Virginia to take possession of Harper's Ferry. Three thousand Virginians are marching to support us, and I am expecting their arrival every moment. They should have been here ere this. An Ordinance of Secession has been passed by the Convention, and the Navy-yard at Norfolk is already in our hands." I was so stunned by these revelations that I had scarcely breath to utter the usual and appropriate ejaculation of astonishment-"The Devil!" R— asked, “How many men can we bring from Martinsburg to sustain them ?" I answered, "None at all; we are all Union men at Martinsburg." This reply appeared to startle them, and was followed by an interchange of significant glances among the party. Ashby then said that he had always been a sincere Union man heretofore, but as the action of the General Government had already destroyed the Union he now felt bound to stand by his State. R- I said that he too always had been a Union man, and was one now, but felt himself driven into the present movement as the only means of preserving the Union. Although I could not perceive the adaptation of the means to the end, I wished him success. The whistle of the Charlestown cars terminated a conversation which had become embarrassing, and I took leave of my acquaintances with decidedly less of cordiality than had been exhibited at our meeting. In passing around to the platform of the Winchester and Potomac Railroad I became aware for the first time that the street in front of the Armory-yard was crowded with people, a number of whom were engaged in a roughand-tumble fight, accompanied with the usual noise and hubbub appertaining to this Democratic amusement. A by-stander informed me that the crowd was composed chiefly of Government employés, citizens of the town at large and from the surrounding country. Lieutenant Jones, in command of the United States troops, had been endeavoring to enlist the Armory men in the defense of the place, while Barbour, late superintendent and member of the Convention, was there with other secession demagogues, endeavoring to induce them to join the State Ashby further stated that he had taken pos- troops, or at least to remain neutral during the session of the telegraph office, and then walk- expected attack. The artisans in the employ ing to and fro and looking at his watch at of the Government had for several years past every turn, gave vent to reiterated expressions been organized and equipped for military servof impatience at the non-appearance of the ex-ice, and could have reinforced the guard to the pected forces. extent of three hundred men well drilled and skilled in the use of arms. As I rallied from the surprise into which I had been thrown by these sudden developments As the great majority of these men were not I began to wonder what the authorities at native Virginians, but citizens of the country Washington were dreaming of, and why the at large, depending upon the General GovernGovernment troops were lying idle in their ment for their means of support, and the perbarracks. I saw but half a dozen men who petuity of the Armory for the continued value seemed to be arranging their plans and await- of any local property they might have acquired, ing reinforcements at their leisure. Why were it is natural to suppose they would have eagerthey not immediately arrested or shot down? ly volunteered to resist a movement which I also began to feel annoyed at finding my-menaced them with total and immediate ruin. self the recipient of these quasi-confidential But Harper's Ferry had been for a long time communications from persons with whom I had formerly had agreeable social relations and some affinity in political sentiment, but whose present position was abhorrent to me. The frank and little other than a political stew, more occupied with the intrigues of district politicians than devoted to the objects for which it had been founded and maintained. The United States |