reason
claimed for secession - i.e., the election of a sectional candidate
to the Presidency - was unconstitutional, weak, and untenable. One final
example of this type of argument occurred in a letter written to Governor
Letcher of Virginia, stating, "States cannot reverse the right to secede.
They are the common property of the Government." The author, adamant
about his position, continued: "I will…if necessary, give my life for
the maintainance [sic] of the Constitution and the Union." Many Virginians
thought that the written Constitution and the argument in favor of secession
were fundamentally incompatible and therefore chose to support the Union,
sometimes even at the price of death.
A second similar type of argument against secession relied on an appeal
to tradition or precedent, either by referencing Virginia's past actions
or referring to the example of the founders of the nation. In the Convention,
for instance, Mr. Baldwin argued:
that so far as the administrative action of the government
of the United States has been concerned, it has never, from
its foundation down to the election of Abraham Lincoln, done anything
in regard to the subject of slavery or taken any measure in regard
to the institutions of the South, that was not either approved at the
time, or concurred in by Virginia, or at some time subsequently received,
approved and distinctly acquiesced in by this Commonwealth.
Likewise, in an editorial one Virginian recalled the model of
the founding fathers, arguing that those who consider themselves linked
to them would not support secession. Furthermore, for many Virginians,
tradition meant upholding the Constitution. One such unionist wrote,
"In thus taking a firm stand for the equality of the States and the
rights of the States - for the Constitution and the Union - Virginia
is being true to their noble antecedents…." Obviously, many Virginians
felt that to leave the Union was a betrayal of their state's long-standing
loyalty to the