Northern Virginia Delegates Divided on Secession

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Virginia Convention's adoption of the Ordinance of Secession.  As recently as the start of April, the Convention had rejected a similar motion.  Now, after the opening of hostilities and Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers, Unionists delegates began to defect to the secessionist camp.  On April 16, Robert Scott of Fauquier County offered a resolution in a last ditch effort to prevent immediate secession.  He proposed to put the question of secession directly to the voters, before the Convention voted on the issue.  The resolution asked voters to choose between secession or holding consultations with the slave states that still remained in the Union.  The Convention, largely whipped into a frenzy over recent events, rejected this resolution by a vote of 77 to 64.

The question of secession was finally put to the delegates on April 17, and the Ordinance of Secession passed by a vote of 88 to 55.  The Northern Virginia camp was markedly divided, compared to the vote just a couple weeks before.  The breakdown was as follows:

Yeas
Robert Scott, Fauquier
Eppa Hunton, Prince William
*John Quincy Marr, Fauquier--Marr was absent for the vote, but announced to the Convention on April 30 that he was in favor of the Ordinance.  The Convention granted him the privilege of recording his vote.

Nays
George Brent, Alexandria
William Dulany of Fairfax
John Carter, Loudoun
John Janney, Loudoun

First signed version of the Ordinance of Secession, April-May 1861 (courtesy of the Library of Virginia)

The Convention prepared a parchment copy of the Ordinance for signature.  All Northern Virginia delegates, with the exception of John Carter, signed the document.  In all, 92 delegates put their signatures on the Ordinance between April 24 and May 1.  The Ordinance was next referred to the voters for ratification on May 23.  However, even before the final verdict was in, Virginia began to mobilize its resources for war. And among those delegates who joined the ranks of Virginia forces were Brent and Dulany, two who had voted against the ordinance on April 17, but whose loyalty to Virginia remained paramount.

The April 4, 1861 Vote on Secession: Prince William County Stands Alone

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Virginia Convention's first vote on secession.  During the proceedings on April 4, 1861, Lewis Harvie, the delegate from Amelia County, proposed the adoption of an ordinance of secession.  The Convention was not yet ready to pull the trigger on leaving the Union and defeated the motion by a vote of 90 to 45.  The Northern Virginia delegates voted as follows:

Yeas
Eppa Hunton, Prince William

Nays
George Brent, Alexandria
John Quincy Marr, Fauquier
Robert Scott, Fauquier
John Carter, Loudoun
John Janney, Loudoun
*William Dulany of Fairfax was absent, but Brent indicated that Dulany would have noted "no."

The Virginia State Capitol (courtesy of Civil War Daily Gazette).  The Virginia Convention reconvened here on April 8, 1861 once the legislative session concluded.

Prince William County's delegate was alone among delegates from Northern Virginia in supporting secession.  This result should not be entirely surprising, since Eppa Hunton favored secession from the outset.  The moderate Unionists from other counties were still not convinced that preserving Virginia's honor demanded secession. 

The Library of Virginia has posted this great map superimposing the April 4 vote on top of an 1860 census map of Virginia indicating the state's slave population by county.  The Library points out that in general, delegates in favor of secession lived in those areas where slaves comprised a larger proportion of the general population.  Of course, as I indicated in a previous post on Brent, defending slavery did not necessarily equate with supporting secession.

February 4, 1861: Northern Virginians Head to the Polls

As South Carolina and states of the Deep South left the Union in the winter of 1860-61, the Virginia General Assembly called a Convention to consider the question of secession.  This Friday marks the 150th anniversary of Virginia's state-wide election of delegates to the Convention.  (I blogged briefly about the election in Fairfax a few months ago.)  Voters were also asked to decide whether the Convention's ultimate decision on secession should be submitted to them for ratification. 

Map of Virginia Showing the Distribution of its Slave Population from the Census of 1860 (courtesy of Richmond Times-Dispatch).  Despite the prevalence of slaveholding in Virginia, the majority of delegates elected to the state Convention were initially opposed to joining the slave states of the Deep South in leaving the Union.

On February 4, 1861, Virginians (or at least, white male Virginians) headed to the polls and elected all 152 delegates to the Convention.  Unionists candidates dominated by a margin of around two-to-one. Virginians also approved the ratification measure.  Results in Northern Virginia reflected the state-wide outcome.  Alexandria, Fairfax, Fauquier, and Loudoun Counties all elected delegates who were generally opposed to secession.*  Prince William County was alone in choosing a secessionist candidate.  Northern Virginians also voted two-to-one in favor of the voter reference clause.  Prince William County again stood alone.

A closer examination of the candidates' positions in the run-up to the election indicates that some pro-Union winners hedged their bets, like all good politicians.  Loudoun candidate John Janney, a Leesburg lawyer, was opposed to secession, but did not rule it out in the event that all other options were exhausted.  Robert Scott, a Fauquier planter and lawyer who was elected delegate, wrote to a friend that:

I am strongly attached to the Union. . . . But I think the slaveholding states ought not, cannot, and will not submit to any party, policy or power that denies to the interests that spring from slave labor the same consideration and respect that is extended by the government to the interests that spring from free labor.  In this there must be strict equity.

John Quincy Marr, a militia officer elected from Fauquier, favored the Union, but informed voters in a letter published January 26, 1861 that he would vote for secession if Virginia's honor and safety demanded as much.  (Marr later became the first Confederate officer killed in battle.)  The Fairfax News even considered that William Dulany, the pro-Union Commonwealth's Attorney elected from Fairfax, would not purchase peace and unity "at the price of the honor and interests of Virginia."  The paper concluded, "hence we infer that Mr. D. is not opposed to secession as a dernier resort."

John Quincy Marr, delegate from Fauquier County and later captain of the Warrenton Rifles, which officially became Co. K, 17th Virginia after Marr's death (courtesy of the Fairfax Rifles)

Some winning candidates were unquestionable in their stance for or against secession.  John A. Carter of Loudoun and George William Brent of Alexandria were strong Unionists who viewed secession as an abomination.  Carter considered the act to be unconstitutional.  Brent, at a public meeting on February 2, 1861, exclaimed that "while he was a submissionist to the constitution of his country, he was no submissionist to the precipitators of revolution" (as quoted in Feb. 4, 1861 edition of the Alexandria Gazette).  Delegate Eppa Hunton, a Commonwealth's Attorney from Prince William, was an unabashed secessionist who thought that the United States should allow the Southern states to leave the Union in peace.

The Convention convened in Richmond on February 13.  A vote on secession was still a few months away, and the delegates would have plenty of time to refine their positions further as events unfolded.

Footnote

*In 1861, the City of Alexandria was part of Alexandria County.  In 1870, the city became independent of the county, and it was not until 1920 that Alexandria County became Arlington County.

Note on sources:
"Secessionist Sentiment in Northern Virginia: December 1860 to May, 1861" by James Neale Stirewalt, published in Vol. 10 (1969) of the Yearbook of the Historical Society of Fairfax County, contains a thorough account on the February 1861 elections and includes quotations from many primary sources.  For a more recent overall account, see Brent Tarter, "Virginians Initially Opposed Secession from Union," Richmond Times-Dispatch, Nov. 28, 2010.