The Virginia people demand Union with the Confederate States.
Secession is declared, but is not yet secured. The formal decree is pronounced, but the great work still lies before us. Virginia did not secede to assume an attitude of distrustful isolation; but she seceded as a Southern State, for causes common to herself and the whole South, to secure interests vital to fourteen States. Her people do not desire isolation from the South. Everywhere do they hoist the Southern flag; everywhere do they move, feel and act as Southern men. They will not tolerate any policy indicating distrust of the South. They will not consent to stand aloof from the gallant States of the Gulf. They are Southern people, and not border people. They are entirely Southern, intus et in cute, and not half-and-half Yankee and Southern. They are not hybrids; they are not mulatto Œs; they are not a compound of Black and white Republican, of Puritan and Cavalier. The men that would make them so, that would stamp them as borderers, that would stigmatize them as middle men, that would put ice and distrust between them and their compatriots in South Carolina, Alabama and Texas, will be indignantly repudiated. Virginia has suffered enough disgrace and damage from the men who revile South Carolina, and abused the Southern Confederacy while they were plotting with Lincoln. These men little know the temper of the people whose patience they have exhausted. The people demand an alliance with the Southern Confederacy, cordial, complete and immediate; and they mean to have that alliance. They love their brethren of the Confederate States; they admire the bravery and gallantry that have characterized their whole conduct; they are eager to embrace them as brethren of one flesh and blood, as patriots of a common country, as soldiers of a common cause and a common flag.Why does President Davis tarry at Montgomery? Why has he delayed to make the movement for which his heart pants? Why are his soldiers lingering in the South, and are they not this day threatening Scott and Lincoln at Washington? It is because he knows not the position Virginia wishes to occupy towards the Confederate States. It is because Virginia, so far, denies that she is a Southern State, and lingers on the border. His presence would bring military organization complete, generalship consummate, and arms in vincible to the aid of Virginia. It would remove the seat of war to the Pennsylvania border, and Richmond would not again be threatened with destruction by a contemptible steamer in the James. Why is not Virginia at once united with the Confederacy, and her splendid soldiery organized, disciplined and placed in movement, in concert and combination with the splendid army of the South?
Never was the necessity of a military organization more painfully felt by a people than it is felt by Virginia at this time. With the finest material for an army to be found under the sun; with hosts of young men burning with enthusiasm and panting for the battle; with arms and ammunition in supply; with discipline, numbers, courage, all, and with an enemy near at hand, commanded by a great Captain, liable to be precipitated upon us at any moment — we are without a military organization; which wanting, the finest army in the world would be no better than a mob, and the best material which the richest country could afford, but cumbering impedimenta.
The Union of Virginia with the Confederated States at once secures this organization, and places the magnificent forces of Virginia under the best discipline and ablest general ship of the continent. In union there is strength, and this union of the Virginia and Confederate armies would give more than strength, would give invincibility. Why should Virginia drivel with Major Generals of yesterday's commissioning, and Inspector Generals who are studying to-day for the first time the military horn-books? Why should the success of a great cause, with thousands of lives and millions of dollars, be thus risked upon imbecility and inexperience?
The Southern troops must be united under one organization, one head and one flag, or disaster must everywhere attend their steps. We must have no more Pawnee alarms or Navy-Yard burnings. Virginia must cease at once to be a border State, and become a State of the Confederacy. She is Southern in every instinct of her nature and every drop of her blood. She has no antipathies for her sisters of the gulf. She abhors and despises the thought of a border isolation. She will receive President Davis with salutes, illuminations and bonfires, and march with him to Washington, to New York, or the North Pole, if need be — as a Southern State.
