Abolition of Slavery in Virginia

By an overwhelming vote of nearly TEN TO ONE the people of Western Virginia have voted to rid their State of slavery. This is a stubborn fact which will prove exceedingly distasteful and damaging to the partisans who are trying, as self-appointed executors, to administer upon the effects of the late Democratic party. – Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Greeley and the people of New England, are not the only Abolitionists. [Fanaticism] has broken out in a fearful shape even in the old Dominion. What a dreadful thing? The Mother of States and of Presidents, whose first families have subsisted – grown rich and respectable in the Christian business of breeding slaves – this proud and aristocratic Commonwealth at once tumbles down from its high pedestal to the level of a free State. There can be no more respectability in Western Virginia at any rate – no more cultivation and refinement – no more chivalry – no orthodox religion – no statesmanship. For these are inseparable from slavery. The degradation of free labor is upon that proud Commonwealth. Why not do our [blatant] Vallandigham pro-slavery secession demagogues cry “ABOLITIONIST?” Why don’t they howl over this violation of the Constitution? Of course the Union, as it was, can never be restored, unless slavery is restored to the National Capitol and Western Virginia – of course not – and it will not be worth a rush (to these demagogues) unless it is restored just as it was.

We rejoice greatly over this vote against Slavery in Virginia. It is given by a people who never heard an Abolition lecture. It is a verdict, on its merits, against slavery – overwhelming and decisive. Revolutions never go backwards.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 3, 1862, p. 1