questioned, and the right of coercion was proclaimed,
all differences of opinion were swept away, and the people,
thenceforward, were of one heart and mind. The action of Virginia is
a striking illustration.

The great border State, the most important of those south of Mason
and Dixon's line, was not a member of the Confederacy when the
Provisional Government was established at Montgomery. Nor did the
secession movement secure any strong measure of approval. In fact,
the people of Virginia, owing to their closer proximity to, and to
their more intimate knowledge of, the North, were by no means
inclined to make of the Black Republican President the bugbear he
appeared to the States which bordered on the Gulf of Mexico. Whilst
acknowledging that the South had grievances, they saw no reason to
believe that redress might not be obtained by constitutional means.
At the same time, although they questioned the expediency, they held
no half-hearted opinion as to the right, of secession, and in their
particular case the right seems undeniable. When the Constitution of
the United States was ratified, Virginia, by the mouth of its
Legislature, had solemnly declared "that the powers granted [to the
Federal Government] under the Constitution, being truly derived from
the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whenever the
same shall be perverted to their injury and oppression." And this
declaration had been more than once reaffirmed. As already stated,
this view of the political status of the Virginia citizen was not
endorsed by the North. Nevertheless, it was not definitely rejected.
The majority of the Northern people held the Federal Government
paramount, but, at the same time, they held that it had no power
either to punish or coerce the individual States. This had been the
attitude of the founders of the Republic, and it is perfectly clear
that their interpretation of the Constitution was this: although the
several States were morally bound to maintain the compact into which
they had voluntarily entered, the obligation, if any one State chose
to repudiate it, could not be legally enforced. Their ideal was a
Union based upon fraternal affection; and in the halcyon days of
Washington's first presidency, when the long and victorious struggle
against a common enemy was still fresh in men's minds, and the sun of
liberty shone in an unclouded sky, a vision so Utopian perhaps seemed
capable of realisation. At all events