The driving of the enemy from Charleston harbor, decided the fate of Virginia, which had been trembling in the balance for some days. The grand old State could no longer resist her generous impulses. Under a proclamation of President Lincoln the martial hosts of an enraged and vindictive North were assembling, to make war upon her sisters, and this was enough--her ordinance of secession was passed, by a very gratifying majority. Patrick Henry had become a prophet, and the beautiful, and touching apostrophe of James Madison to the "kindred blood," and the "mingled blood" of the American people, which was given to the reader a few pages back, had proved to be the mere chimera of an excited imagination.
The effect of the surrender of Sumter in the North was beyond conception. A prominent leader of the public press of that section had said of the American flag:--
"Tear down that flaunting lie, Half-mast the starry flag, Insult no sunny sky With hate's polluted rag."
Instantly, and as if by the touch of a magician's wand, the polluted rag became the rallying cry of the whole Northern people, and of none more so, than of the very men who had thus denounced it. But there was method in this madness; the rag had only been polluted whilst it was the emblem of good faith between the North, and the South; whilst, in other words, it prevented the mad fanatics of the North from violating that slave property, which _their_ ancestors had promised _our_ ancestors, in the solemn league and covenant of the Constitution, should forever remain inviolate.
But now that the rag, instead of being an obstacle, might be made the means of accomplishing their designs, it was no longer necessary to pull it down. The moment it was fired upon, it became, in their eyes, a new flag, and the symbol of a new faith. It was no longer to represent the federative principle, or to protect the rights of States; it was henceforth to wave over yelling, and maddened majorities, whose will was to be both Constitution, and law. Strange that the thinking portion of the Northern people did not see this; strange that the hitherto conservative Democratic party did not see it. Or was it that the whole North had been wearing a mask, and that the mask was now no longer available, or desirable, to hide their treachery?