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"Why Such Haste?"- "Strong advocate of the Union"
- "Tell your people all is well"
Recognize the Confederacy- Preserving slavery and the Union
- "I hope she will be slower still"
"The Union Party is stronger now"- "A pro-slavery man"
The editor is entitled to thanks
Opponents of Secession
A large majority of convention delegates, like the voters who had elected them, opposed secession and believed that if Virginia remained in the Union—if everybody waited a bit—they could engage the other upper South slave states in crafting a compromise to save the Union. Many of them were former Whigs and experienced politicians. They argued that Virginia's economic ties to the Free States promoted the prosperity of Virginia and that the state had no comparable economic interests in joining a separate Southern nation. They also insisted that Virginians could rely on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the power of the federal government to help recover enslaved African Americans who had fled bondage, but if Virginia were in a different nation, the United States government would have no requirement to assist Virginia slave owners, and enslaved Virginians could more easily escape to freedom. If Virginia seceded, Virginia's slave owners would not be able to migrate to the western territories and take their slaves with them.
Opponents of secession also emphasized Virginia's role in the American Revolution and in founding the United States, leaving white Virginians a legacy of liberty within the nation that they should not abandon. Some opponents of secession predicted that if Virginia seceded the state would become the battleground of a civil war and that in those circumstances the enslaved population would rebel or run away, and slavery would be doomed in Virginia. No opponent of secession ever criticized slavery, and most of them argued that slavery in Virginia was safer in the Union than out of the Union. They devoted most of their speeches to plans to engineer a compromise that would bring the Union back together and preserve slavery in the Union.
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