"If you could force this blockade, and bring the Government to
direct force, the feeling in Virginia would be very great. I trust
in God it would bring her to your aid. But it would be wrong in me
to deceive you by speaking certainly. I cannot express the deep
mortification I have felt at her course this Winter. But I do not
believe that the course of the Legislature is a fair expression of
popular feeling. In the East, at least, the great majority
believes in the right of Secession, and feels the deepest sympathy
with Carolina in her opposition to measures which they regard as
she does. But the West--Western Virginia--there is the rub! Only
60,000 slaves to 494,000 whites! When I consider this fact, and
the kind of argument which has been heard in this body, I cannot
but regard with the greatest fear the question whether Virginia
would assist Carolina in such an issue.
"I must acknowledge, my dear sir, that I look to the future with
almost as much apprehension as hope. You well object to the term
Democrat. Democracy, in its original philosophical sense, is
indeed incompatible with Slavery and the whole system of Southern
society. Yet, if you look back, what change will you find made in
any of your State Constitutions, or in our legislation--that is, in
its general course--for the last fifty years, which was not in the
direction of this Democracy? Do not its principles and theories
become daily more fixed in our practice? (I had almost said in the
opinions of our people, did I not remember with pleasure the great
improvement of opinion in regard to the abstract question of
Slavery).
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