of the same, calculated to
destroy the integrity of this Union." 2. That regarding the Compromise
measures, "taken together, as an adjustment of the exciting questions to
which they relate, and cherishing the hope that if fairly executed, they
will restore to the country that harmony and confidence, which of late
have been so unhappily disturbed, the State of Virginia deems it unwise,
in the present condition of the country, to send delegates to the
proposed Southern Congress." 3. Virginia appeals to South Carolina "to
desist from any meditated secession upon her part, which can not but
tend to the destruction of the Union, and the loss to all the States of
the blessings that spring from it." 4. Believing that the Constitution
provides adequate protection to the rights of all the States, Virginia
"invokes all who live under it to adhere more strictly to it, and to
preserve inviolate the safeguards which it affords to the rights of
individual States, and the interests of sectional minorities." 5.
Reprobates all legislation or combinations designed to affect the
institutions peculiar to the South, as derogatory and offensive to the
Southern States, and calculated to "defeat the restoration of peaceful
and harmonious sentiments in these States." These dignified and
temperate resolutions passed with singular unanimity: the 3d with but
three, the 1st with only one, and the 4th and 5th without a single
dissenting voice, out of 118 members present and voting. They were
directed to be transmitted to the Executive of each of the States, with
the exception of Vermont. In the Senate an amendment was passed,
omitting this exception of Vermont; but the House refusing, by a very
close vote, to concur, the Senate receded.

There is little doubt that these resolutions embody the prevalent
sentiment of the South. The _Richmond Enquirer_, one of the ablest and
most influential Southern papers, affirms them to be "such an expression
of sentiment as will harmonize with the universal sentiment of the
South, with rare exceptions. South Carolina," it goes on to say, "still
wears the front of resistance and war; and in a portion of Mississippi
we expect to hear of secret pledges of dark import, of maps, drawings,
and lines of demarkation for a Southern Confederacy, of a President in
embryo, foreign ministers in expectancy, and, in short, all the
paraphernalia of a Southern Court. We have watched the Southern horizon
with a steady and keen eye,