In spite of every precaution, it is currently whispered in
the streets to-day that Virginia has seceded from the Union; and that the act
is to be submitted to the people for ratification a month hence. This is
perhaps a blunder. If the Southern States are to adhere to the old distinct
sovereignty doctrine, God help them one and all to achieve their independence of
the United States. Many are inclined to think the safest plan would be to
obliterate State lines, and merge them all into an indivisible nation or
empire, else there may be incessant conflicts between the different
sovereignties themselves, and between them and the General Government. I doubt
our ability to maintain the old cumbrous, complicated, and expensive form of government.
A national executive and Congress will be sufficiently burdensome to the people
without the additional expense of governors, lieutenant-governors, a dozen
secretaries of State, as many legislatures, etc. etc. It is true, State rights
gave the States the right to secede. But what is in a name? Secession by any
other name would smell as sweet. For my part, I like the name of Revolution, or
even Rebellion, better, for they are sanctified by the example of Washington
and his compeers. And separations of communities are like the separations of bees
when they cannot live in peace in the same hive. The time had come apparently
for us to set up for ourselves, and we should have done it if there had been no
such thing as State sovereignty. It is true, the Constitution adopted at
Montgomery virtually acknowledges the right of any State to secede from the
Confederacy; but that was necessary in vindication of the action of its
fathers. That Constitution, and the permanent one to succeed it, will,
perhaps, never do. They too much resemble the governmental organization of the
Yankees, to whom we have bid adieu forever in disgust.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 24
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