We invite you to learn more about Indians in Virginia in our Encyclopedia Virginia. Skip to content. Author: Virginia Convention of An Ordinance To repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and powers granted under said Constitution. This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of this State, cast at a poll to be taken thereon, on the fourth Thursday in May next, in pursuance of a Schedule hereafter to be enacted Done in Convention in the City of Richmond, on the seventeenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and in the eighty-fifth year of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
First Last. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Henry A. Wise, who had been governor during the assault on Harpers Ferry by the abolitionist John Brown , was the most influential delegate. Distrusted on all sides at first, he gradually won the confidence of the radical secessionists and became their champion.
He was a vain, mercurial, vituperative partisan whose long hair and angular, gaunt features gave him the look of a dangerous man. He was on his feet speaking more frequently and at greater length than any other delegate. People speculated that to reduce tension with the Confederacy, Lincoln might give up Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the last bastions in the Deep South still in federal hands. There was some basis to the rumors. The U. Seward, working behind the scenes with Virginia Unionists, hinted that Lincoln would indeed give up the fort.
After more than a month of long-winded speeches, parliamentary delay, and posturing by delegates on all sides, the convention put secession to a vote on April 4. Secessionists rightly concluded that sentiment had moved more in their direction since February, but by believing their own overheated rhetoric and reading too much into the strength of secessionist demonstrations outside the convention, they overestimated their power within it.
They were stunned by overwhelming defeat; the vote was 90 to 45 against secession. Ominously for the Unionists, the vote came a week after Lincoln ended his vacillation over what to do and resolved to send a naval expedition to resupply Fort Sumter with food and water.
Lincoln sent a pro forma warning to the Confederates about the relief expedition. On April 12, before it arrived, forces under the command of Pierre G. Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter. Virginian Edmund Ruffin is often given credit, inaccurately, for firing the first shot of the war at Sumter. News of this dramatic clash of arms electrified the North and the Confederate States.
In Virginia, however, the Unionist majority in the convention still seemed to hold together. On April 8, the delegates had relocated from the cramped quarters of the Mechanics Institute to the State Capitol after the legislature adjourned.
The more extreme elements there threatened to take matters into their own hands, even to overthrow the elected convention and align Virginia with the Confederacy. At first there was confusion over which side had started the fight. Lincoln or the Southern disunionists, at their pleasure. On April 15, the convention heard from a three-man delegation it had sent to negotiate with Lincoln directly.
Their futile meeting at the White House occurred on the day Lincoln announced his response to the surrender of Fort Sumter—a proclamation calling for all loyal states to send their militias to put down the Confederate rebellion. The news sent shock waves throughout the country that engendered a mass outpouring of patriotic demonstrations in the North and defiance in the Confederate States. Alexander H. But he echoed the fervent hopes of Unionists in the Upper South that they still could prevent civil war and, if not, could somehow shield their region from the fighting.
On April 16 the delegates voted to go into secret session in order to air their differences more candidly than they could in the presence of reporters and the public. After William Ballard Preston, Unionist-turned-secessionist from Montgomery County, offered the Ordinance of Secession for a vote, every member who wished to speak had his chance.
Here was the last desperate hope of Virginia Unionists, a chance to form a third way between the extremes of the Confederacy and the United States. To the anger of secessionists, for five days after the news of Fort Sumter galvanized opinion across America, the convention continued to debate. Everyone in the hall now knew that the Ordinance of Secession would pass. When Wise rose to speak, it was a performance no one would forget.
The convention invited the Confederate government to make Richmond its capital according to the proceedings. You can search the LVA catalog using the following examples of Library of Congress subject headings:. Barney, William L. Foreword by James P. New York, Praeger, Crofts, Daniel W. Dew, Charles B. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, Gaines, William H.
Richmond: Virginia State Library, Journals and Papers of the Virginia State Convention of Lewis, Virgil Anson, ed. With appendixes and an introduction, annotations, and addenda, by Virgil A. Link, William A. Reese, George H. Shanks, Henry T. The Secession Movement in Virginia, — Richmond, Va. Simpson, Craig M. Wise of Virginia. Samuel Wylie Crawford. Papers, — Accession Papers, —, of Samuel Wylie Crawford — , brevet major-general, United States Army, Huntsville, Alabama, consisting of clippings and correspondence.
0コメント